Reply to Question for those opposed to legacy status

Forum Index » College and University Discussion

Reply to "Question for those opposed to legacy status"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I have zero issue with kids applying to schools their parents went to, and totally get why some kids might be interested in doing this for a variety of reasons.

I think universities giving heavy preference to legacy applicants over non-legacy applicants has a negative social impact when it comes to admissions to elite schools. The reason why is that an education at an elite institution can be transformative for people, and has the most potential to transform the lives of people who do not currently have connections to elite academia. The more legacy admits to these schools, the more it consolidates the benefits of these schools in families that already have these benefits. I'm not saying they aren't doing something good with them, but for every legacy admit, that's one non-legacy applicant who is rejected. I think we lose something in not seeing those non-legacy admits attend these schools.

If the legacy admit is more qualified, then that will show up in the process without a legacy preference and they will earn their spot.

If the legacy admit and the non-legacy admit are equally qualified, I think there are greater social benefits to admitting the non-legacy students, even if there are certain benefits to the legacy student and the institution in admitting the legacy student.

If you give advantage to the legacy student, we ignore the societal benefits of seeing more families gain access to elite education, especially since we're already talking about highly qualified applicants here.

I would like to see more smart, hardworking students with middle class and/or rural backgrounds, and just more applicants with very limited professional and academic connections, gain access to these institutions. I think it would benefit all of us in the form of a more diverse professional class. Not just racially diverse, but diverse in backgrounds. I view legacy preference as an obstacle to that.[/quote]

But if all things are equal, why would a private university not be able to choose the legacy over the same equally qualified candidate?   If the parents/grandparents already give $$$, it's more likely they will continue to give and even more likely they will give more if the kid attends.    It's just another part of the admissions process.

Given that most schools still don't admit all qualified legacy candidates (I doubt legacies are more than 20% at most schools--Harvard is only 14%), and the ones they do admit are largely "qualified", why not?   Sure is it fair? well nothing in life is "Fair".  
The really rich and famous kids would still get in due to name recognition, even if we eliminated "legacy" unless the admission process goes "name blind".

Fact still remains that at Elite universities, 95% of applicants are "qualified", yet the admission rates are only 5-10%, 9-9.5 out of 10 students wont gain admission.  [/quote]

We get it, you don't want to lose your "special in-club" card.[/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