Professor, I disagree, legacy admissions should be at the top of any list of incoming students. Legacy’s provide a connection to the past and a pipeline of generational donations to the permanent university fund (endowment). Legacy’s have a vested interest and attachment to the school. This is especially true for families connected to the professional departments/schools (business/medical). Legacies should be encouraged not put upon by people that have no historical come connection or offer long term benefits to the university. Again we are only talking about the elite private and elite public schools. This is not an issue at the huge commuter public universities like CS Northridge or any Cal State branch, in the UC System it is only applicable to UCLA and Berkeley same with all the UTexas branches except for UT Austin as it is a public elite school. Legacies should be emphasized and promoted as a way to keep the heritage of the school intact.
I'm a new fan of the Professor but was disappointed that he conveniently overlooked the elephant in the room: do legacy admits have entering qualifications significantly lower than other admits.
Indeed, this one sentence about his high school anecdote is doing a lot of heavy lifting without a back brace: "It was more about nepotism than merit."
Completely agree - it's in the long-term best interests of universities, especially state universities, to prioritize legacy students to continue heritage and brand.
Most people don't realize that legacy admissions at elite universities like Yale has been basically obsolete for a long time. I am a private college counselor and I frequently have parents ask me if their kid's legacy status will give them an edge in the admissions process at [insert Ivy here]. My response is always the same: did you or someone else in your family donate the library or a similar structure with your family name on it? If not, the answer is no.
This is what I've strongly suspected-- I've served for a few days on admissions committees at Yale, but I only got to see a sliver of the process--but don't have solid evidence for. My suspicion is that a lot of the apparent effect of legacy status is really just about development/donations, and that legacy status in the absence of gifts or the prospect of future gifts doesn't count for much.
College admissions have been egregiously based on a weird, unmeritorious factor - skin tone - for 30 years. Unsurprisingly, the results are very poor. I have friends who were on Ivy admissions staffs in the 90's and it used to be different. In an "all things being equal" decision, the green light might go to the race-based applicant. Now (per the Harvard case revelations)? Brutal, anti-white , anti-Asian quotas. Why?
That's what the whole "Varsity Blues" scandal was about: families that weren't nearly wealthy enough to access ability-blind admissions ("back door") with kids who weren't academically strong enough to gain regular admission ("front door") were looking for a way to spend relatively modest amounts to get in the "side door."
Bingo! I almost forgot about that scandal but it arose shortly before I launched my private college counseling practice -- and that year, my professional org's conference devoted a lot of time to discussing how that counselor wasn't representative of our entire field =P
I saw that with my son who was rejected by my alma mater Columbia. They told me up front it would make little difference. And he was much more qualified for admission than I was as an aside
Funny thing is, without legacies Harvard wouldn't be Harvard. Go ahead and kill legacy admissions. Very egalitarian of you. But then, without the massive investment in excess that alumni have committed to Harvard, it's UMass Cambridge. And admission to UMass Cambridge is bound to be far easier to balance out, because who then effing cares?
What about legacy admissions for the lecturers' kids, those teachers that get paid peanuts, and get no consideration for their own children at the schools where they teach?
I consider the potential legacy admission to my Ivy to be an asset that I may, or may not, pass along to my young children by way of my parents' investment. Why should I give that up? My parents scrimped and saved; I borrowed money in my last year to finish - that debt was mine and was paid off years ago through my own scrimping. "Merit" was earned by my many "top 1%" performances on standardized tests over many years preceding my matriculation. I was a nationally recognized musician and writer at 18. I was no legacy; I "earned it," as you suggest.
Part of what I earned, though, was the knowledge that I was elevating my entire family's place in the world. (My father's humble bragging to his business associates was "cringe," as the kids say now, but he earned that right. He was proud of me and he was rightly proud of himself, a formerly poor kid from Tennessee who put himself through college and then business school.) Sure, I knew many legacies. It was fairly obvious that some of them wouldn't have gained admission without their dad's alumni status (given that my university didn't admit women til after our births). But those were usually athletes; don't athletes always get breaks in college admissions? Football and fundraising go together, right?
I understand all of your points and they certainly have merit. But a strong collegiate culture includes a sense of history. Tradition. "Experiments that worked," as I've heard tradition recently defined. Your other posts suggest that you believe that collegiate culture is sick now, very sick. I agree. A central reason for that weakness is a conscious degradation of the long, slender line of people, living or dead, who built these great institutions over hundreds of years. They were all white, male, and the worst people imaginable, apparently. Forget that they built this modern, Western world that we all enjoy so much. Forget that they destroyed fascism, communism, and poverty . Take their contributions away like a leftist governor would tax away the plot of land they left to their grandkids. Grievance never built anything of significance, but it can sure destroy.
Were those schools completely "merit based" all those years? No. But there's more to assessing merit than scores, however excellent I and my classmates were at nailing those scores when we were ambitious teenagers. I earned the chance to pass along my school's tradition to my kids, should they work hard, learn discipline, and make something of their teen selves.
My argument would be that your ancestors did all that, not you. The same way you're not responsible for the wrongs of your ancestors, you shouldn't get a leg up on admissions for what they did. You can be proud of that and strive to live up to that, but you aren't entitled to any preference over people displaying similar or greater merit.
I'm speaking to your point, not your specific situation. You say you saved, scrimped, and earned to get it, you should extend that opportunity to the next generation as well. People with your background would have an even higher chance without any weighing against legacy admissions
You'll have an edge by the benefits of your education that would (I assume) be extended to your kids. Most people who go to Ivy Leagues, naturally, do quite well for themselves. Assuming this, you can afford to live in a good school district, you can send your kids to private school, you can enroll them in SAT/ACT prep.....you already have advantages that most of the population don't have. You don't need to stack the deck further in your favor.
You use "assuming" and "assume" in the same post. It's telling how blithely you think you should remove something of great value to my children to benefit some random, other kids (to be a "good person," I ASSUME).
No, part of what I achieved - and paid for - was what was advertised: Legacies, going forward, get a little edge. I earned that edge for my descendants.
For undergraduate admissions, there is a wide variety of what should be considered "desirable" characteristics--academic qualifications like grades and scores, and athletics, yes; but admissions staff can also guess at whose future success they'd like to have tied to their institution: who would be a future political leader? Who would become a notable writer? Who would likely be in a position to make generous donations? (Harvard historically and notoriously makes a clear distinction between academic and leadership potential.) In this context I can see a case for allowing a few ability-blind admissions decisions that facilitate a legacy of generous giving.
But isn't the question here about medical schools? I don't think medical schools, or other professional or graduate schools (perhaps with the exception of business schools) have ever used legacy considerations, because they are far more concerned with whether students are likely to thrive in their particular and focused programs of study.
Professor, I disagree, legacy admissions should be at the top of any list of incoming students. Legacy’s provide a connection to the past and a pipeline of generational donations to the permanent university fund (endowment). Legacy’s have a vested interest and attachment to the school. This is especially true for families connected to the professional departments/schools (business/medical). Legacies should be encouraged not put upon by people that have no historical come connection or offer long term benefits to the university. Again we are only talking about the elite private and elite public schools. This is not an issue at the huge commuter public universities like CS Northridge or any Cal State branch, in the UC System it is only applicable to UCLA and Berkeley same with all the UTexas branches except for UT Austin as it is a public elite school. Legacies should be emphasized and promoted as a way to keep the heritage of the school intact.
I'm a new fan of the Professor but was disappointed that he conveniently overlooked the elephant in the room: do legacy admits have entering qualifications significantly lower than other admits.
Indeed, this one sentence about his high school anecdote is doing a lot of heavy lifting without a back brace: "It was more about nepotism than merit."
I agree. I have also read that legacies are at least as qualified on average as the parent.
Completely agree - it's in the long-term best interests of universities, especially state universities, to prioritize legacy students to continue heritage and brand.
Most people don't realize that legacy admissions at elite universities like Yale has been basically obsolete for a long time. I am a private college counselor and I frequently have parents ask me if their kid's legacy status will give them an edge in the admissions process at [insert Ivy here]. My response is always the same: did you or someone else in your family donate the library or a similar structure with your family name on it? If not, the answer is no.
This is what I've strongly suspected-- I've served for a few days on admissions committees at Yale, but I only got to see a sliver of the process--but don't have solid evidence for. My suspicion is that a lot of the apparent effect of legacy status is really just about development/donations, and that legacy status in the absence of gifts or the prospect of future gifts doesn't count for much.
College admissions have been egregiously based on a weird, unmeritorious factor - skin tone - for 30 years. Unsurprisingly, the results are very poor. I have friends who were on Ivy admissions staffs in the 90's and it used to be different. In an "all things being equal" decision, the green light might go to the race-based applicant. Now (per the Harvard case revelations)? Brutal, anti-white , anti-Asian quotas. Why?
That's what the whole "Varsity Blues" scandal was about: families that weren't nearly wealthy enough to access ability-blind admissions ("back door") with kids who weren't academically strong enough to gain regular admission ("front door") were looking for a way to spend relatively modest amounts to get in the "side door."
Bingo! I almost forgot about that scandal but it arose shortly before I launched my private college counseling practice -- and that year, my professional org's conference devoted a lot of time to discussing how that counselor wasn't representative of our entire field =P
I saw that with my son who was rejected by my alma mater Columbia. They told me up front it would make little difference. And he was much more qualified for admission than I was as an aside
I am sure he was -- it's much harder nowadays than it was during our parents'/grandparents' application days.
Even if your parents didn’t go, if they donated a library, you get a leg up. It’s much more egalitarian that way
Funny thing is, without legacies Harvard wouldn't be Harvard. Go ahead and kill legacy admissions. Very egalitarian of you. But then, without the massive investment in excess that alumni have committed to Harvard, it's UMass Cambridge. And admission to UMass Cambridge is bound to be far easier to balance out, because who then effing cares?
What about legacy admissions for the lecturers' kids, those teachers that get paid peanuts, and get no consideration for their own children at the schools where they teach?
I consider the potential legacy admission to my Ivy to be an asset that I may, or may not, pass along to my young children by way of my parents' investment. Why should I give that up? My parents scrimped and saved; I borrowed money in my last year to finish - that debt was mine and was paid off years ago through my own scrimping. "Merit" was earned by my many "top 1%" performances on standardized tests over many years preceding my matriculation. I was a nationally recognized musician and writer at 18. I was no legacy; I "earned it," as you suggest.
Part of what I earned, though, was the knowledge that I was elevating my entire family's place in the world. (My father's humble bragging to his business associates was "cringe," as the kids say now, but he earned that right. He was proud of me and he was rightly proud of himself, a formerly poor kid from Tennessee who put himself through college and then business school.) Sure, I knew many legacies. It was fairly obvious that some of them wouldn't have gained admission without their dad's alumni status (given that my university didn't admit women til after our births). But those were usually athletes; don't athletes always get breaks in college admissions? Football and fundraising go together, right?
I understand all of your points and they certainly have merit. But a strong collegiate culture includes a sense of history. Tradition. "Experiments that worked," as I've heard tradition recently defined. Your other posts suggest that you believe that collegiate culture is sick now, very sick. I agree. A central reason for that weakness is a conscious degradation of the long, slender line of people, living or dead, who built these great institutions over hundreds of years. They were all white, male, and the worst people imaginable, apparently. Forget that they built this modern, Western world that we all enjoy so much. Forget that they destroyed fascism, communism, and poverty . Take their contributions away like a leftist governor would tax away the plot of land they left to their grandkids. Grievance never built anything of significance, but it can sure destroy.
Were those schools completely "merit based" all those years? No. But there's more to assessing merit than scores, however excellent I and my classmates were at nailing those scores when we were ambitious teenagers. I earned the chance to pass along my school's tradition to my kids, should they work hard, learn discipline, and make something of their teen selves.
My argument would be that your ancestors did all that, not you. The same way you're not responsible for the wrongs of your ancestors, you shouldn't get a leg up on admissions for what they did. You can be proud of that and strive to live up to that, but you aren't entitled to any preference over people displaying similar or greater merit.
I didn't earn admission without them? I wasn't a legacy. Didn't I make that clear?
I'm speaking to your point, not your specific situation. You say you saved, scrimped, and earned to get it, you should extend that opportunity to the next generation as well. People with your background would have an even higher chance without any weighing against legacy admissions
Hand-waiving away the legitimacy of the 20 acres my parents and I paid for “because another person we like needs that land now” is absurd.
You'll have an edge by the benefits of your education that would (I assume) be extended to your kids. Most people who go to Ivy Leagues, naturally, do quite well for themselves. Assuming this, you can afford to live in a good school district, you can send your kids to private school, you can enroll them in SAT/ACT prep.....you already have advantages that most of the population don't have. You don't need to stack the deck further in your favor.
You use "assuming" and "assume" in the same post. It's telling how blithely you think you should remove something of great value to my children to benefit some random, other kids (to be a "good person," I ASSUME).
You are willfully ignoring my point. And treating me like an old-monied legacy.
No, part of what I achieved - and paid for - was what was advertised: Legacies, going forward, get a little edge. I earned that edge for my descendants.
For undergraduate admissions, there is a wide variety of what should be considered "desirable" characteristics--academic qualifications like grades and scores, and athletics, yes; but admissions staff can also guess at whose future success they'd like to have tied to their institution: who would be a future political leader? Who would become a notable writer? Who would likely be in a position to make generous donations? (Harvard historically and notoriously makes a clear distinction between academic and leadership potential.) In this context I can see a case for allowing a few ability-blind admissions decisions that facilitate a legacy of generous giving.
But isn't the question here about medical schools? I don't think medical schools, or other professional or graduate schools (perhaps with the exception of business schools) have ever used legacy considerations, because they are far more concerned with whether students are likely to thrive in their particular and focused programs of study.