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An end to legacy admissions at Stanford? Has it existed recently anyway? - Printable Version

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RE: OT: An end to legacy admissions at Stanford? Has it existed recently anyway? - jacket3ree - 03-01-2024

(03-01-2024, 01:21 PM)dabigv13 Wrote:  But I disagree with jacketree that the numbers we know indicate a big legacy effect. It's probable that legacies as a group versus non-legacies would have better academic credentials. Legacies also probably have a much higher yield rate than non-legacies. Those factors combined would be expected to result in a higher percentage of the class being legacies as compared to random selection even if there was no advantage given for legacy status or even a slight penalty.

We probably will not ever see the numbers needed to actually calculate what advantage legacy gives in Stanford's "holistic" approach. You'd want to see the average test scores and grades of legacy admits versus non-legacy admits. I bet they're not too dissimilar. Seeing Stanford admit rates for kids of Ivy+ parent alums versus Stanford legacies would be interesting as well.

I agree with all of this, particularly your disagreement with me. I didn't frame well what I called the legacy "advantage". I think there is a legacy advantage - you cite better academic credentials and higher yields, which are both advantages. This isn't the nefarious greased skid admissions process people point to as an "unfair advantage" and what that legislation purportedly is targeting. I knew those two specific cases; those happen, I'm sure, but those aren't the norm and they are not killing opportunities for other students. I bet each class expands as needed to accommodate donors that simply cannot be pissed off. 

I find nothing surprising about legacies being admitted and accepting offers of enrollment at higher rates than the population at large. Shouldn't it be that way?  Otherwise schools have no multi-generational presence or allure. I think the legislation is misguided. It is trying to stop underrepresented people from having a chance at admission, but that's not really a thing. The hyper competitive schools "discriminate" against everyone. And it is not like being denied admission to Stanford, Santa Clara, or USC dooms one to a life of....um.... doom.  Go to Berkeley or UCLA or Irvine or........(I think those are the target schools, but throw Caltech, Clairemont, et al into the mix.)

We debate legacies on the GT sites all the time, because GT officially went to a non-legacy first time admissions policy several years ago (they have a "pathway" for legacy transfers who are denied first) and that is just the tip of the iceberg as to why "The Hill" (GT's admin.) is killing sports and Tech never beats UGA. Everything in Jacketland is about why Tech never beats UGA.  Hint: it's because they run a professional program and we hire morons like Geoff Collins and pay those morons multiple millions every year not to coach for us.

I was a Tech legacy and frankly if my dad (CE '59) hadn't shown up after work one night with a two page application in his hand basically daring me to apply, I never would have thought to do it. Ultimately that decision made me my chemistry teacher's favorite student of all time. She was from Alabama and we confirmed that I was the first person from Wheat Ridge Senior High School to attend school in Atlanta. One of my friends in that high school class went to (then) Memphis State as a first and also a legacy. 

Ironically, my dad had attended 3 out of the 4 schools on my I'll take that dare list - Colorado, Colorado State, Colorado Mines, and Georgia Tech.  Weird combination even if two of those schools share the same fight song. His other two schools (guy got around and this was 75 years before the portal) were Montana State and MIT. So when I was down to MIT, Berkeley, and Stanford for grad school he graciously offered to fly me to San Francisco.  I don't think he and Cambridge got along well, but he knew Tom Leherer personally.  Something to do with his ex-wife, a.k.a. my mom.

RE: OT: An end to legacy admissions at Stanford? Has it existed recently anyway? - jacket3ree - 03-01-2024

(03-01-2024, 03:38 PM)jacket3ree Wrote:  
(03-01-2024, 01:21 PM)dabigv13 Wrote:  But I disagree with jacketree that the numbers we know indicate a big legacy effect. It's probable that legacies as a group versus non-legacies would have better academic credentials. Legacies also probably have a much higher yield rate than non-legacies. Those factors combined would be expected to result in a higher percentage of the class being legacies as compared to random selection even if there was no advantage given for legacy status or even a slight penalty.

We probably will not ever see the numbers needed to actually calculate what advantage legacy gives in Stanford's "holistic" approach. You'd want to see the average test scores and grades of legacy admits versus non-legacy admits. I bet they're not too dissimilar. Seeing Stanford admit rates for kids of Ivy+ parent alums versus Stanford legacies would be interesting as well.

I agree with all of this, particularly your disagreement with me. I didn't frame well what I called the legacy "advantage". I think there is a legacy advantage - you cite better academic credentials and higher yields, which are both advantages. This isn't the nefarious greased skid admissions process people point to as an "unfair advantage" and what that legislation purportedly is targeting. I knew those two specific cases; those happen, I'm sure, but those aren't the norm and they are not killing opportunities for other students. I bet each class expands as needed to accommodate donors that simply cannot be pissed off. 

I find nothing surprising about legacies being admitted and accepting offers of enrollment at higher rates than the population at large. Shouldn't it be that way?  Otherwise schools have no multi-generational presence or allure. I think the legislation is misguided. It is trying to stop underrepresented people from having a chance at admission, but that's not really a thing. The hyper competitive schools "discriminate" against everyone. And it is not like being denied admission to Stanford, Santa Clara, or USC dooms one to a life of....um.... doom.  Go to Berkeley or UCLA or Irvine or........(I think those are the target schools, but throw Caltech, Clairemont, et al into the mix.)

We debate legacies on the GT sites all the time, because GT officially went to a non-legacy first time admissions policy several years ago (they have a "pathway" for legacy transfers who are denied first) and that is just the tip of the iceberg as to why "The Hill" (GT's admin.) is killing sports and Tech never beats UGA. Everything in Jacketland is about why Tech never beats UGA.  Hint: it's because they run a professional program and we hire morons like Geoff Collins and pay those morons multiple millions every year not to coach for us.

I was a Tech legacy and frankly if my dad (CE '59) hadn't shown up after work one night with a two page application in his hand basically daring me to apply, I never would have thought to do it. Ultimately that decision made me my chemistry teacher's favorite student of all time. She was from Alabama and we confirmed that I was the first person from Wheat Ridge Senior High School to attend school in Atlanta. One of my friends in that high school class went to (then) Memphis State as a first and also a legacy. 

Ironically, my dad had attended 3 out of the 4 schools on my I'll take that dare list - Colorado, Colorado State, Colorado Mines, and Georgia Tech.  Weird combination even if two of those schools share the same fight song. His other two schools (guy got around and this was 75 years before the portal) were Montana State and MIT. So when I was down to MIT, Berkeley, and Stanford for grad school he graciously offered to fly me to San Francisco.  I don't think he and Cambridge got along well, but he knew Tom Leherer personally.  Something to do with his ex-wife, a.k.a. my mom.

Description of Tech's Legacy Policy

Sort of a prove that you can make it, or I bet you lose interest in making Mom happy your first year elsewhere policy.

This is three years old, but some highlights from a non-Ivy ACC partner.

Back in the day, acceptance rate was two out of every three. Completely formulaic. GPA over 3.7 and SAT over 1250 = in.

Recently applications are up, way up, with two-thirds of those applicants scoring over 1400 on the SAT, taking tough classes, at the top of the class. In 2021 (a pandemic year) there were 45,348 applications for 3,500 seats. That's 8%. The days of look to your right, look to your left, one of you will be gone next year are over. (Fine by me if the dudes on either side of me during orientation are gone. Oh wait, you mean only two thirds of us will be back next year?) The freshman retention rate is now 97 freaking percent. Soft!

But all the people on the boards remember when it wasn't soft, when it was a bunch of maybe not as smart, but hardworking kids took the slings and arrows of shaft profs and most importantly went to football games.  Now it's kids from everywhere including overseas and they are super smart but hate football. Rabble, rabble, rabble. It's all BS, but their kids are no longer shoe-ins and they are pissed.

RE: OT: An end to legacy admissions at Stanford? Has it existed recently anyway? - needle - 03-01-2024

I'm not super interested in this topic, but I'm wondering if there is a consensus on this board that legacies are more problematic at public universities vs. private colleges/universities?

I've always felt it completely wrong for public universities to give legacies an advantage, but I've never really cared all that much what private universities do (though I agree it would be great if everybody admitted to Stanford was actually "qualified," however that may be defined).

RE: OT: An end to legacy admissions at Stanford? Has it existed recently anyway? - OCcardinal - 03-01-2024

(03-01-2024, 01:21 PM)dabigv13 Wrote:  But I disagree with jacketree that the numbers we know indicate a big legacy effect. It's probable that legacies as a group versus non-legacies would have better academic credentials. Legacies also probably have a much higher yield rate than non-legacies. Those factors combined would be expected to result in a higher percentage of the class being legacies as compared to random selection even if there was no advantage given for legacy status or even a slight penalty.
Exactly.  One of the things that makes it difficult to judge impact is we don't know how many legacies actually applied.  If there were zero bump (either as a result of the academic/economic advantages the legacy likely grew up with or as a direct result of a legacy) then 287 legacy admits implies 7175 legacies applicants (at a 4% admit rate).  However, I've heard more than one talk where someone in Stanford admissions said the admit rate is about double for legacies.  If that's still the case that would imply about 3500 legacies apply each year. 

You may think, how can there be 3500 legacy applicants a year when Stanford undergrad class sizes are only about 1700?  But children of graduate students (which outnumber undergrads significantly) are also legacies. And since a lot of graduate programs are only 2-3 years long, you end up with a LOT more potential legacies coming out of Stanford graduate programs than undergrad.  Now consider that there will likely be more than 1.0 kid per distinct graduate and it doesn't seem that unreasonable to assume at least 3500 legacy applicants are in the pool of 55000 or so applicants each year.

Now consider the nature of those Stanford legacies. For example, 12% of Stanford undergrads are varsity athletes.  To be admitted as an athlete to Stanford you need good athletic genes, a strong focus on academics, and parents who know how to play the recruiting game.  Who fits that profile? Children of Stanford varsity athletes, for one. People like Christian McCaffrey, Elise Evans or Caitlin, Michaela and James Keefe.  Was their status as a legacy the deciding factor in being given a scholarship offer?  Doubtful.  Certainly not for Elise any way.  She was the #1 recruit in her class.

Then you go back to the simple advantage of having a parent who has had an elite education, likely has a good job, and knows what it takes to build a high school resume that is attractive to Stanford's admissions office.  Their kid is also probably more focused on the Stanford application than the average student in the general applicant pool.  They are probably more likely to have Stanford as their top choice and to apply early admission, putting a lot more time into it.  And their parents are probably reading their essays (meaning they are less likely to accidentally write "I've always been interested in Brown because...").  

If after all that, only 8% or so of legacy applicants are getting admitted, you can understand why the admissions office spends most of its time trying to console disappointed alumni parents.  (When my kids applied to Stanford I got a letter each time basically saying "We know you are an alum, but your kid's very likely not going to get in, so when that happens, please don't get mad at your alma mater.")

Stanford admissions says legacy status only matters in breaking ties.  Only the admissions office knows how many of the 287 or so legacy admits each year are of the "tie goes to the legacy" variety.  Based on the above, I can't imagine it is that many.  And as a practical matter ties shouldn't be that common.  Stanford doesn't rank students by GPA and test scores and admit from the top down.  It's building a community.  That will be a community of athletes, musicians, classics enthusiasts, or whatever.  I suppose it is possible to have two nationally prominent string bass players with the same GPA/test scores, academic rigor, and quality of essays/recommendations, with one being a legacy and the other not, but that type of situation simply can't be the case with every legacy admit.  

So I really don't think eliminating legacy preference would shrink the amount of legacy admits much.  Maybe from, say, 8% to 6 or 7 percent (which would be 35-70 admits a year).  The cost of "opening up" those 35-70 admit spots means you are taking away a tool that Stanford considers valuable in building its community.  That could be money, but that also could be things that directly benefit current students, like interest in volunteering for the Stanford Parents Club. This proposed law ultimately would substitute the state's judgment as to what is most beneficial for the students at private colleges like Stanford for the university's judgment.  

If you view legacy admissions strictly from the perspective of the applicant pool (and not the university or campus community's perspective) I can understand why it would be considered objectionable.  If any applicant is given an advantage that is not 100% based on merit then that means someone else deserving of admission won't get in. For those, say, 35-70 students who may have missed out on attending Stanford in a given year, it certainly would be a big deal. But if that truly is the number we are talking about, that doesn't really justify a big policy change.  

For the non-legacy applicant, it is easy to imagine lack of legacy status as being the reason for a rejection.  But it's almost certainly not the reason.  Eliminating legacy admissions isn't going to increase Stanford's admit pool by 10,000.  It's still going to be ridiculously hard to get in.  Thinking of legacy admissions as the barrier is like going to a shopping mall two days before Christmas and seeing an open handicap spot and thinking, "If only they hadn't made that a handicap spot, I could have had a great parking space!"  But no, that spot would have been long-filled before you got there.  

And so who would actually fill those 35-70 legacy spots?  The majority would logically end up being very much like the Stanford legacies who are filling those spots now - children of well-educated, financially-secure parents, who helped them build a good high school resume and prepare good applications.  A good percentage may even be from students attending boarding schools (that typically have admissions rates much higher than 4% at the top colleges). There might be a few first generation or students from poorer communities, but from what I understand those students already have a hook that is not unlike being a legacy so wouldn't be losing out in the tie-goes-to-the-legacy scenario.

A lot of the above is admittedly conjecture. I've seen a few studies that tried to suggest that legacy admissions edge out a material amount of students from disadvantaged backgrounds that are clearly more deserving. But I've never found the methodologies convincing and I haven't seen clear evidence that that is the case at Stanford specifically.  I also don't accept the premise that Stanford is so unique compared to other good colleges that some nebulously-defined concept of "merit" must be absolutely adhered to in admissions as a public policy matter.  If Stanford, in its judgment, has determined having those incremental legacy admits is a net benefit to the campus community then I do not feel I'm in a place to second-guess them.  I'm not running Stanford, and neither is the state of CA.

RE: OT: An end to legacy admissions at Stanford? Has it existed recently anyway? - Farm93 - 03-01-2024

(03-01-2024, 04:50 PM)needle Wrote:  I'm not super interested in this topic, but I'm wondering if there is a consensus on this board that legacies are more problematic at public universities vs. private colleges/universities?

I've always felt it completely wrong for public universities to give legacies an advantage, but I've never really cared all that much what private universities do (though I agree it would be great if everybody admitted to Stanford was actually "qualified," however that may be defined).
A number of BigTen public schools ask about legacy items on their apps too.   
And an even larger group of schools ask if the applicant has a sibling currently enrolled at the school.

Both seem fine to me, to a degree.

A few legacy kids can really help the other students appreciate traditions at the school.   They are likely to score higher on so many metrics.   For example the legacies are probably less likely to copy and paste their cookie cutter essays for their parent's school, and actually write something relevant about why they want to attend that school. 

Siblings are a good indicator that you and your family will seriously consider an offer, and I would guess will be far less likely to transfer away later if admitted.

If you think about it a bit, I would actually be alarmed if a university didn't have the teenagers of alums dreaming of attending that school.  I would love to see that full list.   Show me the schools down with a 1 or 2% legacy rate and I am pretty confident you will have a list of pretty undesirable schools.

RE: An end to legacy admissions at Stanford? Has it existed recently anyway? - 82lsju - 03-01-2024

the last four years of AB 697 reports on legacy/donor admissions are here

https://irds.stanford.edu/data-findings/undergraduate-admission

they don't give any info on the size of the applicant pool for these categories

and here's info from 1950-2023 on applicants, admits, matriculants, and yield rate

https://irds.stanford.edu/sites/g/files/sbiybj23826/files/media/file/undergraduate-admissions-1950-2023.pdf

RE: An end to legacy admissions at Stanford? Has it existed recently anyway? - jacket3ree - 03-01-2024

Public universities are probably all over the place in regards to the percentage of their operations funded by the state, but they are "public", so perception probably matters more than at a private school.

This year's CSU budget of $8.1 billion is comprised of $5.0 billion (62%) from California and $3.1 billion (38%) in tuition and fees. By contrast, UC's state funding was 11% in 2012 according to very quick research.  The University of Michigan receives $322 million annually from Michigan. Its annual operating budget is $2.79 billion. It's state funding is 12 percent. Georgia Tech receives $375M annually from Georgia, which is 16 percent of its $2.3B annual operating budget excluding major capital projects. (Similar to U Michigan in both totals and percentages.) In turn, Tech contributes $4.5B to the state economy annually, a 12-fold return, which allows the state to pay for UGA's hookers, blow, and bail, so everyone can bark in public with free abandon and the 40-year cloud has been lifted.

That mix of funding sources probably has a lot to do with what an individual college or university does vis a vis legacies, or really large legacy donor relationship.  I can totally understand being a donor and a school telling you your child is not worthy of admission. Well, you aren't worthy of my money then.   I've never had that problem though.  My charitable donations currently go to four schools/foundations. If the kid goes to Duke or UNC, my money ain't going to Durham or Chapel Hill, no matter how hard they try.

RE: An end to legacy admissions at Stanford? Has it existed recently anyway? - needle - 03-01-2024

Interesting responses, all very well reasoned. FWIW, here's some info on the University of Illinois "clout scandal" that may have shaped my thinking on the topic. Not sure if it made national headlines at the time, or even if it ever truly was big news:

Quote: The University of Illinois clout scandal resulted from a series of articles in the Chicago Tribune that reported that some applicants to the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign (UIUC) "received special consideration" for acceptance between 2005 and 2009, despite having sub-par qualifications. The series began on May 29, 2009. An investigatory committee appointed by Illinois governor Pat Quinn was formed a few weeks later. The controversy led to the resignation of B. Joseph White, president of the University of Illinois, who oversaw the three campuses in the university system, and Richard Herman, chancellor of UIUC. The scandal eventually spread to include evidence of graft by members of the Board of Trustees, resulting in the resignation of seven of the nine members.  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Illinois_clout_scandal

RE: An end to legacy admissions at Stanford? Has it existed recently anyway? - martyup - 03-01-2024

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RE: An end to legacy admissions at Stanford? Has it existed recently anyway? - lex24 - 03-03-2024

Simple solution- no reference in application process to where parents or other members of family went to College.  No reference to donations etc.  whether there is a familial relationship is irrelevant.

RE: An end to legacy admissions at Stanford? Has it existed recently anyway? - 82lsju - 03-03-2024

(03-03-2024, 09:24 AM)lex24 Wrote:  Simple solution- no reference in application process to where parents or other members of family went to College.  No reference to donations etc.  whether there is a familial relationship is irrelevant.

of course if the University really wants to know this info they can just look up the applicants address in their alumni database which 

- may not be current for all alums but likely would have a pretty high hit rate
- may not work for applicants who don't live with their alumni parent

RE: An end to legacy admissions at Stanford? Has it existed recently anyway? - TrumpCard - 03-03-2024

There are ways around everything if a university like Stanford wants to evade restrictions.  Facebook was not original when it developed a social network for Harvard students and alumni. Alumni associations have been developing social networks for far longer than Facebook has existed. In-person events, continuing education, alumni directories, career counseling, travel opportunities, etc. If the university wants information on which alumni offspring are applying each year, the SAA is in a prime spot to provide that information. In fact, the university may already reach out to the SAA to check on donations, volunteering, and other ties to the university. Establishing flimsy restrictions on the application itself might just encourage alumni to update the contact info they provide to SAA to ensure that the university notices when their children/grandchildren applying to Stanford.