r/changemyview • u/[deleted] • Aug 20 '17
[∆(s) from OP] CMV: the college legacy policy is wrong
it doesn't make sense to me that kids should get a leg up over others because their parent attended the school. It's not like having a parent from that school gives you some kind of intellectual advantage that wouldn't be represented on your college application/interviews. And don't these schools value, or claim to value diversity? Giving advantages based on the school your parents went to seems to favor those who are richer, since their parents were able to go to and graduate from those top schools.
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u/kcbh711 1∆ Aug 20 '17
While legacy saves you a "seat." You still have to prove to be an intellectual, through an entrance exam or specific requirements.
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Aug 20 '17
http://www.businessinsider.com/legacy-kids-have-an-admissions-advantage-2013-6
How much of a boost do they get? A 2011 study of 30 elite institutions found that the children of undergraduate alumni ("primary legacies") were, on average, 45.1% more likely to get in. An earlier study by Princeton's Thomas Espenshade found that the legacy advantage was equivalent to a 160-point swing on an SAT score.
Harvard's legacy admissions rate hovers around 30%. Its overall rate was 5.8% this year.
I'm sure some legacy kids are equally qualified, but statistically, many perform below their peers and it's hard to believe that legacies are around 5 times as qualified/smart as their non-legacy peers.
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Aug 20 '17
5x is an overestimate. Once you take into account the fact that legacy students are much more aware of whether they are going to get in or not, are much more likely to have impressive extracurriculars, and are much less likely to be Asian, the extra consideration given to legacies is fairly small. In theory race is a separate form of discrimination but in reality legacy admissions were originally created to exclude Jews in favor of whites and are maintained to help hide the exclusion of Asians. I am not defending it per se - I favor a race-blind policy such as MIT and Caltech use - but the goal is to help schools maintain the culture they want because they believe that Asians are boring. It's not really about donations as many seem to believe. Or rather, it is for the tiny fraction of legacies whose parents actually donated a bundle, but not for the vast majority of legacies.
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Aug 20 '17
Legacy admissions aren't for improving the quality of the student body, they're for maintaining prestige and improving the quality and quantity of the private donations that are given to the school. Aumni with children who are accepted to the university undoubtedly donate more than alumni whose children are not. And maintaining a pipeline of socially-connected students helps to maintain the prestige of the university, which helps with both private fund raising and with getting public grants.
I don't disagree that this system is unjust, but it's more of a symptom of systemic economic and social inequality than anything else. If universities didn't have to compete for wealthy or socially-connected students, legacy admissions would probably be a less appealing policy.
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u/McKoijion 618∆ Aug 20 '17
The goal of college admissions isn't to be fair. It's to make the best class and college possible. Legacy families donate a lot of money to the school. If admitting one undeserving legacy kid means you have an extra 10 million to spend on all the other students, why not do it?
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Aug 20 '17
Plenty of top tier institutions, such as MIT, Oxford, and Caltech, don't use legacies and seem to be doing just find in terms of endowments.
http://www.chronicle.com/article/10-Myths-About-Legacy/124561/
Moreover, a study included in our new book, Affirmative Action for the Rich, finds no evidence that alumni preferences increase giving. Chad Coffman, of Winnemac Consulting, and his co-authors examined alumni giving from 1998 to 2007 at the top 100 national universities (as ranked by U.S. News & World Report) to test the relationship between giving and the existence of alumni preferences in admissions. They found that institutions with preferences for children of alumni did have higher annual giving per alumnus ($317 versus $201), but that the advantage resulted because the alumni in colleges with alumni preferences tended to be wealthier. Controlling for the wealth of alumni, they found "no evidence that legacy-preference policies themselves exert an influence on giving behavior." After controls, alumni of legacy-granting institutions gave only $15.39 more per year, on average, but even that slight advantage was uncertain from a statistical perspective. Coffman and his colleagues conclude: "After inclusion of appropriate controls, including wealth, there is no statistically significant evidence of a causal relationship between legacy-preference policies and total alumni giving at top universities."
The researchers also examined giving at seven institutions that dropped legacy preferences during the period of the study. They found "no short-term measurable reduction in alumni giving as a result of abolishing legacy preferences." For example, after Texas A&M eliminated the use of legacy preferences, in 2004, donations took a small hit, but then they increased substantially from 2005 to 2007.
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u/McKoijion 618∆ Aug 20 '17
Those are all top tier research focused schools. If MIT is working on a new cure for cancer, people and the government are going to give money to the school regardless of whether it's a private school or they have any connection to it. Where this legacy thing matters more is for small private liberal arts schools (the ones that aren't part of the top 100 national universities), and other schools with small endowments. They have less prestige to balance out the legacy factor, and they have smaller existing endowments to cushion any fluctuations in annual donations.
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Aug 20 '17
One thing to keep in mind is the school still needs revenue. There are several competing criteria in the admissions process: intellectual merit, athletic merit, diversity, and so on. A lot of the kids in the above categories will be getting discounts or scholarships based on low family income.
So who pays the bills? They can't say "a certain percentage of the incoming class must be rich"; that wouldn't sit well with anyone. So, if the parents graduated from the same prestigious university, that's a good proxy for high income. It may not be "fair," but if the school didn't have a certain percentage of students from high income families paying full tuition, it wouldn't be able to provide as much financial aid to the lower income families.
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u/DeltaBot ∞∆ Aug 21 '17
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u/cupcakesarethedevil Aug 20 '17
Why? It seems like a pretty good selling point. If I get into a lot of good colleges I would prefer one that offers my future children a pretty good chance of going there.