Reply to Amherst getting rid of legacy preference

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Not surprising.  Legacy preference is one of the biggest forms of "affirmative action" in college admissions, and often serves to perpetuate inequality.  If an alum's kid is qualified, great--they'll get in or not just like anyone else.  Perhaps their personal connection will give them a leg up on demonstrating enthusiasm for the school or whatever.  But why should an alum's kid get a bump?  [/quote]

Your qualification point only makes sense if all qualified kids get in.  If they have 100 equally qualified kids for every spot (making it essentially a lottery), it makes some sense to give a legacy preference for equally situated kids (eg UMC white kids from DMV coming from public schools with equivalent applications—if you have 100 of those that are equally qualified, any reason not to take the alum’s kid?  Because it encourages the alum’s $$$ to keep rolling in to support all those scholarships.  I know lots of parents who have switched loyalty to their KI|D’S school once they have a kid at a different college and they start going to those parent days and graduations (which, let’s admit, are basically just sales pitches for donations).[/quote]

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