Future of Legacy Admissions
Level 5 - Ivy League
Welcome back! In a previous post, we discussed what Legacy Admissions were and how they generally work in the admissions process.
If you missed that one, you can read it here:
In this article, we’re going to focus on something a little different - The Future of Legacy Admissions.
Why Are Legacy Admissions Threatened?
At the moment, there are currently two major changes that are challenging the use of alumnus status as a factor in college admissions:
Diversity/Affirmative Action Challenges
Financial Considerations
If you want to just know our predictions of what comes next, you can skip this section.
Diversity/Affirmative Action Challenges
This is probably the biggest threat to legacy admissions.
Statistically, legacy students are accepted at much higher rates than non-legacy students, and this is even worse for diverse students.
For an illustrative view, consider that Harvard’s legacy acceptance rate (~33%) is higher than the percentage of the student body that identifies as black (~12%).
For years, many have argued that legacy admissions harm students of color by rewarding traditionally white, wealthier students with an unfair advantage in getting accepted over minorities and first-generation applicants.
While that argument has not swayed many, the current litigation around affirmative action policies has caused some renewed interest.
Let’s break this down:
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