Looking to the Past to Ban Legacy Admissions
insidehighered.com
Looking to the Past to Ban Legacy Admissions
1–10 of 18 posts
Re: Looking to the Past to Ban Legacy Admissions
#2No leg to stand on for private institutions. They are free to set whatever preferences they like. (And they all have them, especially for athletes at schools with sports dynasties, etc.)
Re: Looking to the Past to Ban Legacy Admissions
#3No leg to stand on for private institutions. They are free to set whatever preferences they like. (And they all have them, especially for athletes at schools with sports dynasties, etc.)
I recall Affirmative Action being challenged (Univ of Michigan?) successfully.
Not sure how, qualitatively, race-based admissions is different from letting rich people jump ahead of the line.
Re: Looking to the Past to Ban Legacy Admissions
#4No leg to stand on for private institutions. They are free to set whatever preferences they like. (And they all have them, especially for athletes at schools with sports dynasties, etc.)
Not true. Even private institutions receive millions in government funding. Are they willing to give that up for a few hundred students each year?
Re: Looking to the Past to Ban Legacy Admissions
#5No leg to stand on for private institutions. They are free to set whatever preferences they like. (And they all have them, especially for athletes at schools with sports dynasties, etc.)
All sorts of politically-popular restrictions have been applied to any institution that takes a single dollar of federal funding -- as project grants, student scholarships, or even student loans that have to be repaid. So there's hardly any fully 'private' institutions left which have the freedom you describe.
Re: Looking to the Past to Ban Legacy Admissions
#6No leg to stand on for private institutions. They are free to set whatever preferences they like. (And they all have them, especially for athletes at schools with sports dynasties, etc.)
Not true. Even private institutions receive millions in government funding. Are they willing to give that up for a few hundred students each year?
It depends on how much they receive from those legacy families.
Just being a "legacy" doesn't entail that one receives a massive boost in admissions. There are a lot of "legacies" out there and they can't all be admitted. The Ivy League legacy whose father sends a $100 check each year only gets a small bump: maybe 50%, or the difference between a 10% vs. 15% chance of admission. It's much more advantageous to come from a brand-name East Coast prep school, which brings the chance of admission, even to Harvard, well north of 50%.
Children of five- and six-figure legacy families are auto-admits, but they have so many advantages that this shouldn't surprise anyone. Most people who complain about academically mediocre "legacy admits" at elite schools are describing students who come from such privileged backgrounds that they would be attending elite schools even if legacy admissions were abolished, because of all the other socioeconomic factors in the admissions process.
Re: Looking to the Past to Ban Legacy Admissions
#7On October 25, 1854 sub ordinates of Russian General Pavel Liprandi looked on in horror as a mass of allied cavalry charged positions they had lately taken up in and around an area in the Crimea known as Balaklava. Initially, believing the cavalry men to be intoxicated, the Russian response to this threat was delayed several moments. Regaining their countenance, Russian commanders ordered the enemy cavalry charging towards them destroyed. Russian artillery subsequently opened fire, raining destruction on the enemy cavalry. Les Chasseurs d'Afrique, as shocked and surprised at the developing scene as the Russians, hurriedly organized themselves and rode to the assistance of their bumbling Anglo counterparts, providing cover for the retreating cavalry men.
At the end of it all, the attacking cavalry was devastated. Less than half of the allied cavalry men committed to the initial attack made it back to their lines. Of this number was their commander, a man by the name of James Thomas Brudenell. He returned, and considered himself to have given it 'the old college try', went to his yacht, waiting in Balaklava harbor, and ate a champagne dinner.
This cavalry unit is known to history as the 'Light Brigade'. It was commanded by wealthy men who had purchased commissions that more capable, but less wealthy men could not afford.
We bear witness to the results of our modern day 'Charge of the Light Brigade' daily in our newspapers, on our favorite internet news sites, on our favorite blogs, and via Fox and CNN.
My point is that the current crises will necessitate some rather unpalatable structural changes for the United States. The abandonment of legacy admissions may be one of them.
Re: Looking to the Past to Ban Legacy Admissions
#8Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not true. Even private institutions receive millions in government funding. Are they willing to give that up for a few hundred students each year?
It depends on how much they receive from those legacy families. Just being a "legacy" doesn't entail that one receives a massive boost in admissions. There are a lot of "legacies" out there and they can't all be admitted. The Ivy League legacy whose father sends a $100 check each year only gets a small bump: maybe 50%, or the difference between a 10% vs. 15% chance of admission. It's much more advantageous to come fr…
What is the evidence that prep school graduates have a base acceptance rate at Harvard above 50 percent? That's not what the matriculation statistics at Exeter
http://www.exeter.edu/documents/Profile_2009_10_7(2).pdf
tend to suggest.
Re: Looking to the Past to Ban Legacy Admissions
#9No leg to stand on for private institutions. They are free to set whatever preferences they like. (And they all have them, especially for athletes at schools with sports dynasties, etc.)
I recall Affirmative Action being challenged (Univ of Michigan?) successfully. Not sure how, qualitatively, race-based admissions is different from letting rich people jump ahead of the line.
One way that race-based admission is different, especially at state universities, is a specific constitutional prohibition (the fourteenth amendment of the federal Constitution) against state action that doesn't provide equal protection of the laws on the basis of race.
Re: Looking to the Past to Ban Legacy Admissions
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not true. Even private institutions receive millions in government funding. Are they willing to give that up for a few hundred students each year?
It depends on how much they receive from those legacy families. Just being a "legacy" doesn't entail that one receives a massive boost in admissions. There are a lot of "legacies" out there and they can't all be admitted. The Ivy League legacy whose father sends a $100 check each year only gets a small bump: maybe 50%, or the difference between a 10% vs. 15% chance of admission. It's much more advantageous to come fr…
The legacy families aren't one group, pooling their resources, to agitate to keep this perk. Each family acts according to their own interests and at a time of their choosing. Moreover, a family may have made previous donations on the assumption that subsequent generations would get favorable treatment. Those donations can't be pulled back.
By contrast, if such admissions were found to be violating federal law, the government funds could be withheld en masse - current and future pledges all at once - if and until the policy is changed. That's a huge cudgel based on sound principles of punishment - immediate and severe.
Agreed, on your point about other advantages. To my mind that's exactly why schools should be less willing to throw favors to the already advantaged.