Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How long before they get rid of sports like every other country in the world and focus on academics at academic institutions?

Not before your kids get out of UMD.

Can't the bitter sports poster just accept and let this go?

Anonymous wrote:SATs are biased, grades are inflated, seems like legacy status is one of the few things left.

because legacy is not biased /s

Anonymous wrote:How long before they get rid of sports like every other country in the world and focus on academics at academic institutions?

Not before your kids get out of UMD.

Anonymous wrote:How long before they get rid of sports like every other country in the world and focus on academics at academic institutions?

Never.

Anonymous wrote:How much does legacy help for a small time alum who donates $50/year?

Ha, ha, ha!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why it is in the interest of the university for legacy admissions to continue - outside of donations?

Once elite colleges stop filling 1/3+ of the class with legacies (they tend to be the children of the uber-wealthy, CEOs, SCOTUS, Senators, celebrities, etc.), the school stops feeling quite so “elite.”

The sweet spot for Ivy League admissions staff is when the legacy is the URM offspring of an affluent alum.

Anonymous wrote:Hopkins Prez bashes legacy status left and right. It's seen to be a detriment. He's actively trying to drill it down and eliminate it. It's sad for those of us that didn't come from $ that it looks bad for our kid to be a legacy.

Boo hoo.

Anonymous wrote:If the SC eliminates affirmative action then legacy needs to go as well. There are millions of people that were systematically denied the ability to be a legacy. Many colleges well into the 1970s only admitted a token number of URMs.

If AA is outlawed but not legacies then we are outright giving an advantage to the majority. Don’t see how this would make any sense.

You sweet summer child. AA will unquestionably be overturned at the Supreme Court this summer, and legacies will live on. It's not about "fairness" at all. Hopefully universities will switch to focusing on class/poverty when AA is struck down, but that won't change things very much.

Anonymous wrote:Why it is in the interest of the university for legacy admissions to continue - outside of donations?

I thought the point of legacy admissions was that those kids are more likely to accept the offer and to graduate, so it helps the college's stats.

A friend whose kid worked in admissions said the "boost" given by being a legacy was that three AOs looked at those applications. You hear about how little time the average application gets, and I don't know why people are so shocked -- a lot of applicants just aren't right for the college. But at this place, if your parents went there and you weren't going to get in, there would at least be three people looking over your materials: No. Nope. Newp.

Anonymous wrote:Hopkins Prez bashes legacy status left and right. It's seen to be a detriment. He's actively trying to drill it down and eliminate it. It's sad for those of us that didn't come from $ that it looks bad for our kid to be a legacy.

It has already been eliminated at Hopkins -- Bloomberg made it a condition of his large gift.

Alumni donations will stop for us when legacy goes away. Big middle finger to yah!

Hopkins Prez bashes legacy status left and right. It's seen to be a detriment. He's actively trying to drill it down and eliminate it. It's sad for those of us that didn't come from $ that it looks bad for our kid to be a legacy.

Anonymous wrote:How much does legacy help for a small time alum who donates $50/year?

Probably not much. Have a friend whose DH was in the public sector for many years and contributed along these lines, but received a major alum award. She said that probably carried much more weight than two decades of annual $50 donations. Their DC was a stellar applicant, but it's still a lottery and legacy may have made a difference.

How much does legacy help for a small time alum who donates $50/year?

Anonymous wrote:A few universities do it already (MIT?). It’s not a good look in this era, so only a matter of time.

I hope legacy admissions remain. They are not given that much weight. True Great Weight is given for true VIPs, (e.g., President, VP, Senator, Governor, etc.) NOT legacy. Stop with the legacy obsession.