To many students and families, the idea of receiving an admissions boost from simply being related to an alum seems outdated and unfair. If you share this opinion, you are siding with the majority of Americans—according to a 2022 Pew Research survey, 75% of Americans believe that legacy status should not be considered in the admissions process, a number that has steadily increased in recent years. The end of affirmative action has put legacy admissions under more intense scrutiny, as universities grapple with ways to build diverse classes without race-conscious policies. Last year, the Department of Education launched an investigation into Harvard’s use of legacy and donor preferences, and a bipartisan bill in Congress called for the end of the practice.
Considering the intensity of the criticism, many are left wondering: does legacy status matter in admissions anymore?
In response to this question, there’s good news and bad news—the good news is that more and more schools are discontinuing legacy admissions. In the last nine years, more than a hundred institutions have eliminated the practice, including Amherst, Johns Hopkins, and Wesleyan (as a rare exception, MIT has never considered legacy status). According to the National Center for Education Statistics, 579 colleges in the U.S. reported that they considered legacy status in admissions in the winter of 2022–23. While this number may sound staggering, it is important to contextualize it within the overall pool of degree-granting postsecondary institutions, particularly given that there were approximately 4,000 in the U.S. in the 2019–20 school year. Though the aforementioned NCES study only surveyed 1,923 ‘selective,’ or non-open admission U.S. institutions, 69.9% reported that they did not factor legacy into their admissions processes. Additionally, many states are instituting legacy bans for either public or private institutions, or both. Colorado was the first to do so in 2021, followed by Virginia, Maryland, and Illinois. Just this fall, California became the fifth state to pass a legacy admissions ban. So, on the whole, legacy status matters less in the sense that a small number of colleges consider it in their admissions decisions, and that the number is depreciating.
However, the bad news is that Ivy League and other top colleges do still consider legacy status—and the most competitive schools tend to be the ones where legacy offers the biggest admissions boost. For these institutions, legacy admissions have historically served as a way to maintain ties with alumni, secure donations, and increase their yield rate, which can be beneficial for rankings and institutional reputation. A family’s commitment to a school across generations can be seen as a reflection of the institution’s selectivity and prestige. As a result, legacy applicants not only have a higher chance of admission but often enter the college application process with support from alumni connections, which can further boost their profiles.
A 2023 civil rights complaint against Harvard reported that between 2014 and 2019, donor-related applicants were a whopping seven times more likely to be admitted to Harvard than other applicants, while legacy applicants were almost six times more likely to be admitted. Though “recruited athletes, legacies, relatives of donors and children of faculty and staff” make up less than 5% of the applicant pool, they constitute approximately 30% of those accepted each year. At Princeton, legacy applicants are four times more likely to earn admission. In a 2022 interview, Notre Dame’s former head of enrollment Don Bishop estimated that 19–25% of the school’s incoming class is made up of legacy students each year. The school has one of the highest rates of legacy admission nationally. In other words, at top schools, legacy status still matters—and it matters a lot.
Despite mounting criticism, schools such as Harvard, UPenn, Brown, Duke, and Vanderbilt have reiterated their intention to continue considering legacy status in 2023 for subsequent application cycles. Some have appointed committees to assess the impact of the practice on student body diversity.
Students who dream of attending an Ivy League or other top schools should be aware of the ways in which legacy status shapes the incoming class—those who have a legacy connection to a top school should certainly apply, leveraging their institutional connections alongside a strong academic and extracurricular profile. At the same time, the mounting calls for change in legacy considerations and growing push toward legislative bans could force elite institutions to change their policies—whether willingly or not. Regardless of legacy status, top schools are looking for students who will be innovative thinkers and leaders on campus and in their profession. Thus, regardless of the changing landscape of legacy policies, students should focus on building cohesive and compelling applicant profiles that demonstrate their engagement with their field of interest.
Originally published on Forbes.
