Legacy Preferences

Legacy preference is the practice of giving certain college applicants an advantage in admissions because of their family relationship to alumni, with admitted students in this category known as legacy students. Some institutions extend the preference only to children of undergraduate alumni, while others extend it to grandchildren, siblings, and relatives of graduate degree holders as well. The practice took hold at American universities in the 1920s, when elite institutions adopted it partly to preserve places for white Anglo-Saxon Protestant students against rising numbers of Jewish, Catholic, and Asian applicants, and by the 1990s it was nearly universal among top universities, with a 1992 survey finding only two of the top 75 schools rejecting legacy preferences. Between 2014 and 2019, Harvard admitted legacy applicants at a 33 percent rate, more than five times its overall 6 percent acceptance rate, and a 2005 analysis found legacy status raised admission chances by nearly 20 percentage points among applicants with comparable test scores. Critics argue the practice disadvantages qualified applicants and perpetuates racial and economic inequality since most beneficiaries are white and affluent, while universities have defended it as a way to sustain donor relationships; several prestigious schools have eliminated legacy preferences since 2014, and four US states have banned the practice. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/