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Let me try to make a defense of Legacy Admissions (highly unpopular I know). I come from a country with a purely meritocratic examination based college admissions system. I even cracked the hard examination and attended a top college. But the fact is the exam world is the exam world and the real world is the real world. The real world doesn’t run on examinations and IQ tests. Real impact means connections, wealth, and then maybe intelligence if considering technology. If you remove the people born into privilege, from attending your college, all you succeed is in making your college irrelevant, not those people irrelevant. It’s better if rather than being a fully closed circle, they also interact with the smartest, most charismatic, most talented people in a country etc. Of course it would be ideal if those born into privilege also could clear the SAT etc, but then it would also be great if we were ruled by a benevolent philosopher king, that’s not the real world, in the real world concessions have to be made.
> If you remove the people born into privilege, from attending your college, all you succeed is in making your college irrelevant,
I don't think that the Cal Grants program was ever designed to remove those people from the program. It was designed to make sure they didn't get an advantage. In other words, it was prevent universities from letting people who otherwise would not have made the grade in just because their parents made the grade.
Giving alumni's children an advantage isn't giving an advantage to "the smartest, most charismatic, most talented people" -- it's giving an advantage to the luckiest (the ones who happened to be born into it).
And the phrase "it would be ideal if those born into privilege could also clear the SAT" is such a strange one. OF COURSE rich people can "clear the SAT;" in fact, they get the advantage of MUCH better preparation, etc. So this is absolutely about giving an advantage to kids who could not qualify on their own.
To be clear: I don't think Stanford is doing this to keep poor people out (their scholarships have always been very generous). But I do think the administration probably done some basic calculation: they get more in donations from alumni who want legacy admissions for their progeny than they get from Cal Grants.
And Stanford has decided that accepting some kids who just don't make the grade is worth that economic advantage.
Let me refute that defense. I went to the kinds of schools we're talking about and I had a lab at them for over a decade.
If you went to an elite school and your kid can't get in by competing fairly with other kids, they're subpar and shouldn't get in. Kids of legacies have a massive advantage even if their legacy status is totally ignored.
For example, I'm certain that I can get my kids into MIT (they're a bit young right now). I know exactly what they need to do, how they need to present themselves, what classes to take, courses, extracurriculars, how to stand out, who to ask for letters, who to ask for opportunities like time in a research lab, etc. I've even helped other kids make plans and then get in. Same for my wife for the Ivy League school she attended. Those connections, peers, knowledge, resources, etc. are hard to match. If the kids decide they want to do that.
There's no reason to give these kids (my own included!) any other advantage. They're born with such a massive head start that it's hard to lose, if they put in the work. If they don't, then they shouldn't go to these places.
The only thing legacy admissions do is take away opportunities from students that deserve to be there. Stanford/Harvard/etc. shouldn't get a dime of state or federal funding as long as they continue to do this.
> If you remove the people born into privilege, from attending your college, all you succeed is in making your college irrelevant, not those people irrelevant.
Calling 99% of the world's universities irrelevant is certainly a take. And not a very intelligent one.
To whatever extent this is true (I'm not convinced it is, schools that aren't prestige aren't "irrelevant"), it is an indictment on the schools. This argument is a capitulation to the signaling hypothesis of higher ed. I believe at the least a weak version of the hypothesis, but I absolutely do not believe we should just roll over and say "well, that's the way it is". It may be the way things work, but this is a very important is/ought distinction. I think we should be fighting _very_ hard for the "ought" version.
This is a good defence of a programme I've generally found abhorrent.
What about this: public funding (and tax exemption) is reduced in proportion with the number of legacy students a university accepts? The idea being the university should be able to monetise these slots to more than compensate for the decline in public funding. And said slots do not serve a public purpose, but one more particular to the graduates of the university.
> If you remove the people born into privilege, from attending your college, all you succeed is in making your college irrelevant, not those people irrelevant.
You're not removing the people, you're removing the privilege. Those same people can still apply on the same terms as everyone else.
> Of course it would be ideal if those born into privilege also could clear the SAT.
They often do. Or at least are very close.
I got into an elite engineering school (off the waitlist at the last minute, no donation/legacy), and the admission folks basically told me "we accept the top X, but if we just ignored the top X and took the next (X+1)-2X (or three), the result would be the same."
Basically, these schools are so competitive that if you wiggle things a tiny bit, on the margin, you're not really sacrificing much. However, if they wiggle too much, that would obviously degrade pretty quickly. But from my experience, that hasn't been the case.
So a school like Stanford is probably thinking, within the margin of noise, if we let in folks because their parents did well here as students/faculty/etc, that's probably net positive.
The donor one is a bit different, but again, on the margin, and with some math around donations vs Cal Grant, they probably see it nets out better for them.
Wow. Your underlying thesis is that the schools value and relevancy is only tied to the connections you can make. Which maybe in effect, in a broken system, is true. Just a class divider to try and get to the elite connections and climb status (from what I read about Ivy leagues) but education should not be that. It should about education and forming professionals not perpetuating inequality through unfair pay to win strategies.
You pretend we need the established world order because this is how the world works but the actual world works in certain ways due to policy. The same policies that allow the rich to pay no taxes while the mid and poor do.
I understand your attempt at a pessimistic yet pragmatic view but I think There is an alternative that still works and doesn't actually make universities "irrelevant".
The wealthy unqualified can always be VCs/funders.
Stanford effin’ University is not going to become irrelevant just because they stop admitting children of alums who otherwise wouldn’t qualify.
In this vein, think of the Stanford brand. You can not only ensure your own success, but you are buying a leg up for future generations of your family… even at full price, it’s a bargain.
Not /s but not /100% serious either.
Countries that have military conscription do something similar: you mingle with everyone from the poorest to the very rich. Almost nothing comes out of it. Intentional networking can happen anywhere in life.
Yep. The big companies set the real qualifications when they hire. Schools are just preparing them for that, pretending otherwise with made up standards/exams is a misstep—the big companies prize connections.
Reasonable argument, but preference for students whose parents went to the exact same school seems like a very inefficient way to insert more wealth and power into the student body.
If you reduce the choice to public funding vs wealthy alumni stewardship, and there seems to be no meaningful pathway to circumventing the current assault on public funding, then why should you alienate your wealthy alumni?
Obviously the situation is much more complex and nuanced, but this framing (amongst others I’m sure) seems appropriate if you are thinking on a 25,50,100 year time scale in terms of impact of your decision. The country is littered with public and private universities who made poor moral choices across the 19th and 20th centuries but I’m not aware of any institutions suffering long-term reputational harm (or threat of insolvency) as a result of those choices. (Then again, maybe it’s because the harm was swift and final at the time)
> Stanford has considered alumni and donor status for academically qualified students in the past
I have an argument to make in favor of allowing legacy status for admissions. I am basing this on personal experience and some analysis of data done at similar schools when they were forced to release it due to lawsuits.
The way admissions works in the US now it has basically become a lottery for qualified students. We have more qualified students than we have seats at the top schools. The idea that there are some unqualified students who make it in only because their parents are alumni, at least at Stanford I have never seen. The top schools are all so competitive that they are all pretty similar and they would not do things to jeopardize their reputation or standing. So I think it's just not the case that there are unqualified legacy admits. At Harvard for example the legacy admits had higher SAT scores than the average admitted student which makes sense when you think about it. Children of alumni are probably better prepared for admissions.
So when choosing, Stanford might have to make a choice between two students with the same GPA, the same SAT score, the same interests, etc. and legacy status could decide it and I am ok with that. Building a campus network of people is a huge competitive advantage a school can have. You would be surprised how many people who are non legacy admits have pretty well known parents anyway or have parents who went to an extremely similar school. Singling out legacy admissions is not extremely meaningful and I don't think it's used to let in unqualified students at all.
This seems reasonable. California doesn't want to subsidize the education of the privileged few who qualify as "legacy admission". And Stanford doesn't want to give up the financial support from alumnus.
I'm okay with academia being an institution of the elite, as long as we stop pretending that their BS (or BA) will make everyone successful. We can't all be elite; that's not how that works.
Rich people are going to waste their time and money no matter what, but I didn't want them also wasting yours and mine. The man-hours and percent of the GDP (often paid for with taxes) we put into conflating cause and effect is absurd.
We dodn't need merit-base academia, we need merit-based employment that disregards elite and academic status.
I always found it wildly fascinating how US schools have things like legacy admissions, athletic scholarships, standardized admission test, admission letter, letters of recommendation, extracurricular activities, and what have you.
Such a contrast to other systems where for example your HS grades will count 100% - and similar "ungameable" systems.
I think a century from now, we'll look back on privatized higher education the way we look back on privatized health care: Something that evolved by a series of compromises, that society depends on, but that is perpetuating inequality while also gouging us and not making us healthier.
Ironically, the appeal of an "elite" university depends on the public image of the student body. The university has to manage that image through its admissions process. Any open criteria for "merit" will quickly turn the student body into a monocultural freak show. This would in turn diminish the public image of the university -- the exact thing that the students were hoping to benefit from.
For those who want to compare the HN comments here against the SCOTUS ruling that ended Affirmative Action, read and be amazed (or not) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36520658
Legacy admissions and holistic (discriminatory) admissions should be disallowed as long as these universities receive public fundings directly or indirectly.
Props to California for doing this. Stanford showing its true colors here.
Here's another perspective.
Let's say Harvard's admission were to become largely based on social status rather than merit. You could say "so be it", but let it be known that that is what Harvard is. Being one thing while advertising another is lying and the greatest offense.
A positive side effect is that perhaps we won't fetishize Harvard as much and keep insisting that one must get into Harvard. You don't. Harvard's brand depends on you thinking you do, of course.
The current model of academia in the US and elsewhere is wretched. Obscene tuition is one thing. The failure to educate is another. Universities got out of the education business a while ago. Universities are focused on jobs, that's the advertising pitch, which is not the historical and proper mission of the university. So you end up with institutions that are bad at both.
So if these "elite" schools lead to a disenchantment with merit, I see a silver lining. It could provide the needed impetus and motivation to distribute education more widely in smaller colleges with a greater clarity and focus on their proper mission (e.g., Thomas Aquinas College [0]) while creating a robust culture of trade schools. The majority of people do not need a college education! And frankly, it's not what they're looking for.
Germany does something like this. Fewer people go to university there, and they have a well-developed system of trade schools.
Furthermore, you could offer programs that allow students at colleges to take classes in these trade schools.
Let's stop trying to sustain a broken model. The time is ripe for educational reform.
The best way to do this has always been to accept a ton of students and weed out a big percent of them in intro courses.
Have the basic grades and test scores? Ok welcome to CS1 where 2/3 of you will not make it thanks for playing
Moving to a pure merit-based system would be a great idea IF universities were primarily designed to educate people. They are not—anyone with half a brain can get a world-class education from ChatGPT, Wikipedia, Khan Academy, and library books. Paying a university "for the education" is like paying $100,000 for tap water because it’s served in a fancy glass with a Latin motto printed on it.
Universities are cartels of prestige and access.
Connections matter most in the oncoming era of dwindling opportunities (because each one is more valuable and leverages more resources). Legacy enables alumni to meet each other.
The question is whether universities can still play a role in establishing groundwork values for how people are treated. If they're not participating in public education initiatives, they have no incentive, and efficiency+competition will squish that out.
Speaking as a curious European, just how much in 'donations' is required to get your kid into a place like Stanford?
I think legacy admissions are bad and wrong. But I also don't think that removing legacy admissions will make a dent, not on the state of college admissions, and especially not on any broader socioeconomic context. Prestige schools doing bad things only highlights that it's a mistake to let prestige schools exist in the first place.
I think there’s a couple justifiable reasons to have legacy admissions. One, help the poor, smart kids meet the rich kids. Together, they can get more done than separately.
Second, I think the legacy folks see their relationship with the university as multigenerational and therefore they donate more. These donations benefit more than just themselves.
It’s interesting to see that merit best admissions is pushed from both sides of political spectrum - legacy admissions and DEI.
Pick up a copy of Palo Alto and read thru that. Lots of interesting Stanford history there.
DEI for rich mid-wits is fine for anyone else it’s Communism.
Phrased differently, "California stops offering cal grants to qualified low-income students accepted into Stanford"
Who exactly is being punished here? Stanford has no shortage of applicants.
Stanford became Harvard.
No surprise. C'mon, they host the Hoover Institution and celebrities and rich people pay coaches to get their kids in. It's a power funnel racket.
PS: I'm an ex-Stanford FTE.
Seems fair. Stanford isn't in the business of conferring education. It's in the business of conferring status.
Public funds shouldn't pay any tuition costs for anybody that attends Stanford as an undergraduate. I'll admit for PhD programs the benefit is typically via publicly funded research so I think that can stay. But it's absurd that a California taxpayer would fund elites that consider everyone else beneath them.
It's a dangerous precedent. Ending legacy and donor admissions and other forms of preference to elites' kids will inevitably lead to loss of value of higher education on one side, and elites being uneducated and Trump-style dumb, on the other. Because elites will still remain the elites no matter what, unless society plunges into bloodbath, physically killing or exiling all of them, French revolution-style - but at least now they can be educated.
The GI Bill fundamentally changed college.
The Vietnam draft with College deferments broke colleges and universities.
Now every white collar job requires a degree - because every boomer overseeing those roles thinks it’s necessary.
A compromise would be to double the undergrad class size while limiting legacy to something less than or equal to what it is today in absolute terms. Many more deserving students would get and Stanford would get to keep its cash cow. But of course that would entail Palo Alto to let it expand, which it very much wants to do. And good luck with that.
some people in my circle are reacting to this kind of thing exactly how i expected.
the people who go on and on about meritocracy and despise diversity, etc… love this. they have loudly cried for years about meritocracy but despise any program that takes away clear and obvious advantages to certain people.
it’s similar to the carrot and stick argument. they claim certain classes of people need more money to work while claiming that other class needs less money so they feel the fear. in certain people’s minds, executives will only work for the 100s of millions in carrots while conveniently that other class will only work appropriately if they get the stick.
I mean this means that the alumni are worth more money than the state awards, right?
> admit the relatives of their alumni or big donors
Conflates two utterly different cases.
Big donor admissions amount to a subsidy of the education costs of all the other, non-donor admissions. Legacy admissions OTOH are just an old boy's club.
the rich people win again!
Despicable.
i wouldn't be opposed to legacy admits if they were required to pay full tuition and judged to a higher standard: the legacy admit must have both a higher gpa, and sat score than the inbound class average.
Legacy is better than people think. The undergrad academics at T10 universities really aren't anything special. People want to go because of the connections with wealthy & well-connected students, but then complain when wealthy well-connected students get a easier ride. You fill Harvard of Stanford with only people with 1600 SATs will turn them into places you dont really want to go to.