Reply to Elite Colleges’ Quiet Fight to Favor Alumni Children

Forum Index » College and University Discussion

Reply to "Elite Colleges’ Quiet Fight to Favor Alumni Children"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous]It's interesting how legacy admissions remain in the United States while more class-conscious countries like the UK have abolished them...
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/13/us/legacy-admissions-colleges-universities.html
[quote]Elite Colleges’ Quiet Fight to Favor Alumni Children
Colleges like Yale and Harvard give a boost to legacy applicants. But with affirmative action under attack, that tradition may become harder to defend.

Describing its incoming class of 2025, Yale boasted that its students hailed from 48 states, 68 countries and 1,221 high schools. What’s more, the university announced last year, 51 percent of the class identified as students of color.

Yet even as Yale promotes the diversity of its first-year students, the college has clung to an admissions tradition — legacy preferences — that mostly benefits students who are white, wealthy and well-connected. Of the incoming students, 14 percent were the offspring of a Yale graduate, receiving the kind of admissions boost also used at other elite institutions.

Not much has made a dent in the century-old tradition, despite efforts to end the preference that have been waged by progressive students, lawmakers and education reformers. Many colleges say legacy students cement family ties and multigenerational loyalty. And only a few elite colleges have abolished the preference.[quote]
The practice of legacy admissions, however, may soon face its greatest test yet — and in a twist, its future could be tied to the future of affirmative action.

The Supreme Court is expected to hear arguments this fall about race-conscious admissions policies at Harvard and the University of North Carolina. If the court ends or rolls back the widely used practice of considering race in selecting students, as many experts expect, the ruling could prompt a reconsideration of legacy applicants. Explicitly favoring the children of alumni — some of whom would be competitive applicants regardless because of socioeconomic advantages — would become harder to defend if racial preferences are no longer allowed.
[/quote]

[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics