The Impacts of Legacy Admissions

As Wesleyan joins the 100+ colleges & universities that have reportedly stopped providing legacy preferences since 2015, it is important that we complicate the narrative. To be clear, legacy-preferential admissions is absolutely a classist, racist practice that systematically advantages wealthy White families. Any university proclaiming to be committed to equity should end legacy admissions. However, eliminating this policy is not the "magic bullet" to class equity on college campuses.

Here are a few additional facts you may not know:?

1. A Harvard Education Press report estimated that up to 40% of low-income students are admitted to colleges but don’t end up enrolling.?There are a ton of reasons for this attrition, but financial barriers are a major contributor. Admission is not the same as access. Even with financial aid, low-income students are often met with financial gaps that limit whether they can enroll or persist through college.

2. Ending legacy admissions doesn’t eliminate the deep class disparities prevalent on most college campuses. Students from wealthy or middle-class families have access to all kinds of advantages such as: access to tutoring, standardized test preparation, college prep advisors, rigorous curriculum, adequate school supplies, & low teacher to student ratios. Many students who attend underresourced schools are actively discouraged from attending universities. Pre-college disparities influence admissions processes and students' experiences once on campus. Food insecurity, cost of tuition, housing & supplies, inability to travel home for holidays, social isolation, & inadequate access to weather-appropriate clothing are a few ways that class continues to create barriers, even once students are enrolled.

3. Amherst College, which admitted less than 10% of total applicants, eliminated legacy preferences in 2022. The following class included 6% legacy students (vs. 11% in prior years) & a record increase to 19% first-generation students. This improvement was likely related to the increase in allocated financial aid by over $70 million. Competitive packages are those that meet students' full financial needs.

4. Contrary to popular belief, private universities are not the only ones who consider legacy status as part of their admissions process. According to an Ed Reform Now report , 24% of public universities engaged in the practice.

5. Many elite institutions that use legacy admissions ultimately admit more legacies than Black students.?Johns Hopkins University was among the few listed institutions that admitted more Black students than children of alumni. Johns Hopkins reportedly ended legacy preferences in 2014. Conversely, a 2018 suit revealed that Harvard admitted 24% of TOP rated applicants with a household income of less than $60k and 55% of legacy applicants with the same admissions rating.

Legacy admissions pathways are intentionally designed to advantage the offspring of institutional alumni, most of whom are white & wealthy. Historians have highlighted the antisemitic roots of legacy admissions, documenting institutions' intentions to reduce the admission of Jewish students as well as applicants of color. In contrast, although the primary beneficiaries of affirmative action were consistently white women, the practice was publicly framed as "unfairly admitting unqualified students of color." This is ideological racism, positioning affirmative action as discriminatory, while legacy admissions continue without governmental intervention. There is absolutely a need to disrupt this inequitable practice. But, it is not enough to end legacy admissions if universities are not also committed to disrupting the class barriers that continue to be pervasive across college campuses.

A few notable practices to address class disparities include: providing students with access to food during breaks, using open access source materials so students don't have to purchase textbooks, including meal plans within tuition, embedding essential skills within the curriculum, reducing graduates' debt to income ratios, & redesigning resources to center equity. It is critical that we begin Elevating Access to the full benefits of a college degree, ensuring our campus resources are re-designed in a way that dismantles class disparities.