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The Decline of Legacy Admissions at Yale

April 29, 2011, 5:31 pm

Yesterday morning, I participated in a panel discussion at New York University on admission preferences for legacy candidates with Jeffrey Brenzel, dean of admissions at Yale, and Dan Golden of Bloomberg News. Ann Marcus from the Steinhardt Institute for Higher Education Policy at NYU moderated. (Jenny Anderson has a write up in The New York Times‘ “Choice” blog here).

Brenzel, to his credit, gave only a qualified defense of legacy preferences and provided some interesting data about the substantial decline in legacy admissions at Yale over time. In 1939, he said, legacies (defined as children of Yale college graduates) made up 31.4 percent the enrolled class at Yale. Today, they make up 8.7 percent. (Including the children of Yale alumni of professional and graduate schools adds a few percentage points to these totals.)

These data raise two interesting points. First, it is possible today for a university to significantly diminish an emphasis on legacy admissions without causing a riot. In the 1960s, Yale famously faced a backlash from alumni such as William F. Buckley Jr. when it sought to simultaneously diversify by race and gender and reduce alumni preferences. As Peter Schmidt notes in a chapter of a volume that I edited, Affirmative Action for the Rich, Yale alumni revolted in the late 1960s when legacy admissions dropped substantially, and the revolt led to a reinstatement of legacy preference. By 2010, however, according to Brenzel, legacy admissions dropped below the level that triggered the earlier uproar, yet this time around, alumni have adjusted to the new reality.

Second, when asked, Brenzel conceded that the substantial decline in emphasis on legacy admissions at Yale has not been associated with a drop in fund-raising; indeed, donations have continued to rise. This data point is consistent with research I presented at the forum from Chad Coffman’s chapter in Affirmative Action for the Rich, finding “there is no statistically significant evidence of a causal relationship between legacy-preference policies and total alumni giving at top universities.” Coffman also found that at seven institutions that dropped legacy preferences altogether between 1998 and 2008, there was “no short-term measurable reduction in alumni giving as a result of abolishing legacy preferences.”

At the forum, Brenzel noted that the percentage of low-income students receiving Pell Grants at Yale has increased to 14 percent, higher than the 10 percent overall figure for legacies. This is certainly a step in the right direction, and Brenzel, who himself is a first-generation college graduate, deserves credit for boosting Yale’s Pell numbers. Having said that, Yale still has a long way to go, and the head to head comparison of Pell and legacy figures is less egalitarian that it might appear at first blush because the two population pools are strikingly different in size. Roughly 40 percent of families with children nationally make below the Pell grant income threshold, while only a fraction of one percent of students are the children of Yale alumni.

Likewise, Brenzel’s observation that legacy candidates receive “about the same” preference weight as low-income students in Yale’s admissions process is reassuring only at first glance. From a meritocratic perspective, providing a leg up to strivers—economically disadvantaged students who have managed to do well despite having to overcome obstacles—makes eminent sense, while providing a leg up to children of Yale graduates simply compounds the unearned advantages of an already fortunate group of students. These differing circumstances surely help explain why average Americans oppose legacy preference by 75-23 percent, yet favor giving a preference to low-income students by 59-31 percent.

It is likely that the legacy preference issue will face legal challenge in the not-too-distant future. The experience at Yale—which has seen a dramatic decline in legacy preference, yet has generally seen donations rise during the same period—suggests, as Brenzel himself noted, that the financial fears of colleges about losing legacy preference are overblown. This reality bolsters, in turn, the argument for ending discrimination based on ancestry altogether.

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darccity

A couple points deserve mention. First, even a small share of legacy admits may destroy major meritocracy and diversity efforts. Think “The Social Network” two-class social structure on campus orchestrated by Winkelvoss twins legacy types. Even when Greeks were banned at Ivies, Amherst, Williams, etc., the exclusivity factor persists (e.g., eating clubs at Princeton). The result is that diversity degenerates into a self-segregating culture just like in our disfunctional high schools: Asians and Jewish students (up to 50% of enrollment at our top universities), blacks, techies, old money, new money, artsies, econ/inance, law-school bound, etc. That’s not real diversity. It’s a sham! Read the better college guidebooks, search out the words “self segregating” or “cliquish”; then tell your relatives’ kids to avoid those places like the plague.

Secondly, now that media attention has shamed highly-selective colleges into dramatically reducing legacies, the spotlight need to focus on athletic preference! The major impediment to meritocracy is athletic coaches’ power to gain admission for desired sports talent. The damage to the nation is enormous because over 40% of students play at least one inter-collegiate sport (vs. 3% in sports factories like U. of Michigan) at most highly-selective school such as Amherst and Harvard (a rare exception is U. of Chicago). These athletes enter with SATs as much as 200 points below the freshman average, substantially diluting class discussion and course rigor (profs teach down to their students’ ability). Student enthusiasm and curiosity defers to struggling jocks, exhausted from living in the weight rooms and traveling to out-of-town events, trying to keep up: “Is that gonna be on the test?”

Athletics is the dirtiest secret at these places. Alums and the media figure that because they lack athletics scholarships and often compete in Division II or III, they aren’t jock schools like Ohio State. Actually, it’s just the reverse! At big-time sports Division IA schools, students are spectators (for the small minority who ever attend a single event). If top colleges dropped their teams and replaced them with intramural teams, club sports, and fitness centers — the U.S. is the only country in the world with NCAA-type college sports — America might have a better chance to catch up with the world in technology and human capital. The only harm will be to those students who were hoping for a professional career in crew.
merita

Darccity, I don’t see how ‘a small share of legacy admits’ is necessarily at odds with meritocracy efforts. Certainly, at least *some* fraction of alumni kids will qualify for admission to their parents’ alma maters on the basis of merit alone. It would be strange thing indeed if 0% of a school’s incoming class had any relation to former graduates. And given that Yale only accepts 10% of applicants and alumni kids you’d image would be more likely than average to choose to attend if accepted, you’ve got to think that a 9% legacy rate pretty accurately reflects a strong culture of ‘meritocracy’. The low rate of low-income attendees, on the other hand, continues to be shameful, and is a failure shared by nearly all top schools.
sand6432

I was not a legacy admit at Princeton (my father went to Columbia, to which I did not apply), nor was I a recruited athlete (though i won a varsity letter anyway), but I have no objection to those attributes being given some weight in the process of admissions, so long as all applicants meet a threshold level of academic achievement and there are not systematic patterns of athletes, e.g., having SAT scores well below the average for the class. Universities have good reasons to want to encourage family loyalty to their institutions, entirely apart from whether annual giving is increased or not, just as they have good reasons for wanting to field teams that can do well in intercollegiate athletics. And what about the low-income students who become alumni themselves and then would like their children to attend their alma mater? Why should they be denied the chance to have their loyalty to an institution they admire given some preference in admission of their children?—Sandy Thatcher
darccity

Not what they are saying. Legacy admits bypass the regular admission process. The 10% are legacy admissions. Before all these changes, one-third to half of highly-selective colleges were preferential admissions. Thus, when a college says it has a 12% acceptance rate, they are excluding the athletic, legacy, celebrity, kids of big donors, transfers, and politically connected. They are in a completely different pool. Granted, legacies may have only a 33% chance of acceptance, but that still is a lot better than their odds would be in the regular pool.

In addition, legacies have a huge mostly adverse impact on campus culture far in excess of their actual numbers. They tend to have instant access to the organizations, institutions and traditions of the college. Places like Cornell, Duke, Dartmouth, and Princeton are dominated by legacies: the social life and the networking.
darccity

On the surface that sounds like a reasonable proposition. And they certainly are at big state universities where networks of grads use a degree from state U. as a brand name for hiring. But if top-rated college alums want to maximize the lifetime value of their sheepskin, they should insist their alma maters stop diluting admission classes with jocks and mediocre legacies, as ivies still do. Enormous preferences for legacies and coach-selected star athletes is what we are discussing here, NOT athletes or legacies with high SATs and high school averages. Ironically, alumni with less motivated, lower achieving kids may discover that combined family income and wealth do better under no-exceptions admission standards, even if those result in their own teens being rejected!
iangoski

When the time comes that legacy applicants can view their legacy status as a motivation to excel beyond the normal limits of what might be expected, then the privilege of legacy status will have finally met the challenge that it legitimately should have recognized several generations ago.
nsinha1

Francisco,

I’m Vice Chancellor of the Shiv Nadar University, a new university that we are starting from scratch in India. We spent a lot of time thinking about the mission of the university and its desgin and academic structure. Please visit snu.edu.in when you get the chance. SNU will be the first US style research one university in India and represents a sgnificant departure from the traditional Indian university system. If you’re interested I’d be pleased to share more details of the thinking behind the university.

-Nikhil Sinha
jlowers

The article doesn’t say who is paying for it. Nothing lasts unless it can pay for itself. Tragedy in the US scenario is the number of theives it takes to keep the places running is starting to outnumber the philanthropic practices which have helped float them…teaching the wrong lesson from the inside out.
sanmarcos08

How is this Malaysian campus financed? That is not mentioned. It seems to be an interesting educational experiment, but is it sustainable?
xinghua_li

I visited AiU this March with a class of students coming from the US to learn about social responsibility in Malaysia. We were deeply impressed by AiU’s innovative pedagogical model. The students were a highly diverse (only 20% from Malaysia) and talented group. They warmly welcomed us with a vibrant musical concert and showed us around the beautiful campus. We visited the classrooms where the students taught local orphans English and were moved by how well service learning are blended here. Vice chancellor Razak was a visionary thinker who preaches what he practices. His vision of a “humaniversity”–to give the access of higher education to the lower-income groups–strike me as a long overdue message for American university administrators to hear.

It is very true that the financial challenge that AiU faces is a common challenge that many higher ed institutions in developing countries encounter. As an academic once educated in China, I saw so many university administrators scramble to adapt to newly introduced Western commercial model of higher education but fail to account for the needs of the unprivileged groups. Also, it’s interesting to see that two of the three previous comments mentioned the money issue first and foremost ( as if was the rule number one to build “sustainability”). In the capitalism world, education institutions are too often treated like corporations. However, as the author mentions, it is exactly the corporatized ship–the sinking Titanic–that didn’t see saving passengers as its number one task. Maybe we need more universities like AiU who are willing to begin as a simple life raft: regardless of how far it might go, it first of all strives to keep its most passengers above water.
conahec4u

Certainly, I’ll be interested in learning more about Shiv Nadar University. Please send me the information to fmarmole@email.arizona.edu
conahec4u

In response to jlowers and sanmarcos08, in the article I mentioned that the full funding is provided by the Albukhary Foundation. This foundation was established by Mr. Syed Mkhtar Albukhary. Coming from a poor and disadvantaged family, Mr. Albukhary made the promise some 20 years ago “to establish a university to provide opportunities to bright students from underprivileged and disadvantaged backgrounds to receive tertiary education and become useful, productive and caring members of society”
conahec4u

Thanks for sharing your reflections on your visit to AIU.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=526597398 Wan Ahmad Saifuddin

I have known Tan Sri Dzulkifli for a while now and I daresay he is the leading thinker on Education in Malaysia, and certainly could stand his ground internationally. He has spoken about creating alliances of philantrophical universities, of which he had found a few around the globe. Being in Private Equity in the Education Sector, I would be one of those who would naturally think of financial sustainability as a precedent to a university’s continuance. However, the Islamic concept of ‘wakaf’ (bequeathment) and zakat (tithe) was the basis of AIU, and these two mechanisms have a lot of history of sustainability. I greatly believe in their mission, and look forward to continued discussions with Tan Sri Dzul on their model. I have also visited AIU but unfortunately was not able to interact with the students there due to the short duration of my visit.
sanmarcos08

Thank you for the information. As I said before, it does seem to be an interesting experiment, and very well intentioned. I wish the campus the best.
lronglim

Good afternoon from Japan, Francisco…
Hope things are going well with you…
Thank you for writing about AIU…
If I may make a little-little comment, the alphabet ‘r’ is missing from the name of the city (which happens to be my hometown), as in Alor Setar… it used to be called Alor Star (which is my preference) but someone ‘up there’ apparently prefer to have that ‘e’ in there…
tmjkalvi

interesting and informative. Higher education must be truly international
http://twitter.com/vipinkh Vipin Khandelwal

Seems interesting! You mention bright students are taken in? What is the meaning of a bright student? It is too vast depending upon the innate skills and talents that an individual possesses. If it is only academic test and results then why should such a ‘humaniversity’ cater to only those who are the best at academics. Why not let the light shine as per the source?
conahec4u

Likewise, I had the opportunity to meet Vice Chancellor Dzulkifi several years ago due to his role as member of the Board of the International Association of Universities, and I admire his passion for education and for a sustainable and peaceful future.
conahec4u

I apologize for the mispelling. The mistake has been corrected. By the way, your hometown, Alon Setar, is a beautiful city. Francisco Marmolejo
conahec4u

I used the term “bright” when quoting to Mr. Syed Mkhtar Albukhary, founder of the Albukhary Foundation which is supporting AiU. Interestingly, the way AiU interprets such vision of being a university providing “opportunities to bright students from underprivileged and disadvantaged backgrounds”, is broader. If you visit the Web site of AiU at http://www.aiu.edu.my/application-criteria/ you can find that eligible students must pass in SPM/GSCE O Level or equivalent with 5 credits/above average pass inclusive of English and Mathematics. In terms of English competency, elegible students must have obtained Academic IELTS Band 4.5 or TOEFL 470.