Reply to New study explains why many elite colleges won’t give up legacy admissions

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[quote=Anonymous]The issue I see unfolding is a question of who drives a college's strategy and who has the strongest voice: is it alumni relations, or is it admissions? At what threshold does that dynamic shift? How much is yield protection for brand-building worth in alumni dollars or volunteerism?

Take the example of a solid student who's the child of an alum (or two) who are involved, donated (modestly) etc. but the child doesn't really want to go. So admissions thinks: "this kid is good enough without the alum connection, but we're trying to look elite and the way we do that is by protecting yield (because we don't think junior wants to come and it's not like junior didn't know about us) so we want to reject junior". Then alumni relations would say "please don't reject junior but accept them, and then if junior says no like you think they will then I have a good chance of keeping the engagement and $$ from alum mom." And some of them might weigh the merits of both sides and decide to push it with the "show me more commitment" waitlisting. This is kind of a Hail Mary -- if parents and junior want it badly enough, they get a "good enough" kid, they get their yield numbers, and they get more money. But if the kid doesn't want to go and the parents aren't ok with pay-to-play, then the relationship is severed.

It's ugly either way.[/quote]

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