The practice of giving admissions preference to relatives of alumni is under increased scrutiny.
For decades, some colleges have given students who are related to alumni preferential treatment in admissions. This advantage, known as legacy admissions, has long been controversial, but it’s come under heightened scrutiny in the wake of the recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling against college admissions policies that consider an applicant’s race.
What Is Legacy Admissions?
Legacy admissions, also known as legacy preferences or alumni connections, refers to a boost in a prospective student’s odds of admission to a college just because the applicant is related to an alumnus, usually a parent or grandparent.
David Hawkins, chief education and policy officer at the National Association for College Admission Counseling, says that just holding legacy status doesn’t guarantee admission.
“It’s not something that’s applied across the board or consistently – that just having alumni relations is enough to get you in. It tends to operate more as an influence factor, once other factors are taken into account,” Hawkins says.
“Being a legacy is kind of like getting the Disney FastPass to go to the front of the line,” says Julie Park, an associate professor of education at the University of Maryland, College Park. “It’s not that you didn’t pay to get in like everyone else, and you probably have pretty decent credentials. But being a legacy is something that gives you an extra boost.”
Although being a legacy often helps students get admitted to a competitive college, many experts agree that the true value of legacy status is contextual – it depends on both the institution and the applicant.
Legacy students usually have to be at least “somewhat in the ballpark” in terms of grades, test scores and extracurriculars, says Joan Casey, a certified educational planner and founder and president of Educational Advocates College Consulting.
And if a legacy student’s parents are prominent figures, such as politicians or celebrities, or have contributed large amounts of money to their alma mater, their status may carry even more weight. Casey says some schools might even offer delayed admission to these legacy applicants if they agree to take a gap year, depending on the number of available seats in the incoming class.
Overall, observers say, legacy status offers a significant boost at many schools across the country.
Why Do Colleges Have Legacy Admissions?
The use of legacy admissions is a longstanding tradition at many higher education institutions across the country, particularly highly selective and prestigious schools like Harvard University in Massachusetts or Stanford University in California.
However, some top schools have never employed legacy preferences and others have discontinued the practice in recent years.
Some of the schools ranked highest among National Universities by U.S. News that do not practice legacy admissions include:
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- Johns Hopkins University in Maryland
- The California Institute of Technology
- Carnegie Mellon University in Pennsylvania
- The University of California, Santa Barbara
“Around half of institutions may consider it to some degree,” Hawkins says, referencing a 2019 report by NACAC based on survey responses from more than 2,300 colleges and universities. “And the vast majority of those institutions don’t give it a high degree of importance, but rate it as sort of a medium to low importance in their decision-making process.”
Experts agree that one of the main motivators for institutions to give legacy preference is that it helps their bottom line.
Emilio Castilla, a professor of management at the MIT Sloan School of Management, conducted a research study focused on data from a single unnamed institution over 16 years to determine why some schools still prefer legacy applicants.
“We found strong evidence that the college we studied benefits economically from admitting legacies,” Castilla says.
Castilla says legacy students are often more likely to be financially able to pay for tuition and require less aid, and are more likely to accept an offer from their legacy institution. Legacies may also be more likely to make larger and more frequent donations after graduation. Their legacy status can also incentivize continued donations from the related alumni.
Many proponents of legacy admissions also argue that familial ties to a school help build a sense of community among both students and alumni based on the identity of the institution.
Should Colleges Allow Legacy Admissions?
Many institutions that have legacy admissions have faced increasing pressure to halt the practice, mainly from detractors claiming the system favors more privileged applicants and decreases diversity on campus.
“It’s related to race very heavily, because the vast majority of legacies are white,” Park says. “So it’s being talked about as a sort of affirmative action for the rich, or affirmative action for the white wealthy students – because there are legacies who are also students of color, but the number is just much smaller.”
But experts agree that legacy demographics can vary between schools. Hawkins says alumni connections may not be as closely associated with wealth or race at certain institutions, making a stronger argument for community-building.
“Take smaller private institutions – an alumni connection might not be tied to wealth. It might not really be tied to privilege. Because if you think about it, there are a lot of people who have graduated from colleges in the last two decades,” Hawkins says.
Following the Supreme Court’s ruling against racial preferences in admissions at higher education institutions, many suggest that legacy admissions should follow.
“If institutions can’t give you a leg up because of your race or ethnicity in a way that was theoretically intended to promote equality, it is really hard to understand why they can give a leg up to students whose parents or grandparents are fortunate enough to have gone to these places in a way that is almost inevitably going to promote inequality,” says Frederick Hess, a senior fellow and director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute.
Wesleyan University in Connecticut announced its termination of legacy admissions in a statement issued a few weeks after the Supreme Court ruling.
“An applicant’s connection to a Wesleyan graduate indicates little about that applicant’s ability to succeed at the University, meaning that legacy status has played a negligible role in our admissions process for many years,” Wesleyan president Michael S. Roth said in a written statement. “Nevertheless, in the wake of the recent Supreme Court decision regarding affirmative action, we believe it important to formally end admission preference for ‘legacy applicants.'”
Roth said Wesleyan will “still value the ongoing relationships that come from multi-generational Wesleyan attendance, but there will be no ‘bump’ in the selection process.”
Some Results of Ending Legacy Admissions
Some schools that terminated legacy programs in recent years have reported noticeable changes in the demographic makeup of incoming classes.
“Amherst college got rid of legacy admissions a cycle or so ago – they reported that their prior legacy percentage was 11%, and then it went down to 6% after they removed that legacy boost” Park says. “It shows that yes, you do still have some students who are still very competitive and they’re going to get in, and you have other students who without that extra little bump were not admitted.”
Amherst anticipates that 19% of its 2023 incoming class is first-generation, “the highest proportion of first-generation college students in modern record,” according to a June 7 news release by Bridget Campolettano, the university’s director of communications.
Campolettano says the class benefits from the Amherst Within Reach initiative announced in October 2021, which discontinued legacy admissions and expanded access to financial aid. Amherst announced at that time that it would end legacy admissions.
Johns Hopkins ended its legacy admissions in 2020.
“At Hopkins, we found that ending legacy admissions gave us more space and opportunity to recruit a broader array of talented students,” JHU president Ron Daniels said in a LinkedIn post in mid-July. “Since 2013, the percentage of students in our incoming classes who have a family connection has decreased from 8.5% to 1.7%. During the same period, the percentage of first-generation or limited-income students rose from 16.7% to 30.8%.”
Opponents of legacy admissions also argue that the practice diminishes merit in college admissions.
“We’re finding evidence that some of these legacy students may not be the best,” Castilla says. “Therefore, you’re just not allowing an opportunity to people that otherwise would have gotten into these elite institutions.”
Experts advise that even for students who have alumni connections at selective institutions, a legacy school might not be the right fit.
“We are always talking about this small set of very selective schools who educate very, very few people,” Casey says. “Some of these legacy students that are getting in, whose profiles are a little below the average, they could be equally happy at a wide range of other places.”
