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Stanford maintains freedom to consider legacy status, withdraws from Cal Grant aid - Printable Version

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Stanford maintains freedom to consider legacy status, withdraws from Cal Grant aid - dabigv13 - 08-09-2025

Will also go back to requiring standardized testing.

https://stanforddaily.com/2025/08/06/stanford-to-continue-legacy-admissions-reinstate-standardized-test-requirements/

Quote:Stanford will continue considering legacy status while no longer being test-optional for the fall 2026 admissions cycle, according to the University’s newly released admissions criteria. 

The move comes after Assembly Bill 1780, which will prohibit universities benefiting from state-funded financial assistance from “providing a legacy preference or donor preference in admissions… to an applicant.”

To comply with the new bill, Stanford will withdraw from the Cal Grant, a state-sponsored fund that supports Californian students in financial need. The University will be “replacing state-funded student financial aid with university funding, keeping our students’ financial support whole,” wrote Brad Howard, associate vice president of University communications, in an email to the Daily.

I am guessing that with the new federal funding impoundments and endowment tax hikes in OBBB, alumni donations will be an even more critical funding source.

RE: Stanford maintains freedom to consider legacy status, withdraws from Cal Grant aid - cardcrimson - 08-09-2025

All in all, seems like a smart move in this new era. . . .

RE: Stanford maintains freedom to consider legacy status, withdraws from Cal Grant aid - BostonCard - 08-09-2025

Boo.  I understand the rationale, but still, I think children of alumni should be accepted or rejected entirely on their own merits, and not on the basis of where their parents went to school.

I think the data on making standardized testing optional is that it wound up hurting people it purported to help.  It may be imperfect and biased, but it is probably a lot less biased than many of the alternatives.

BC

RE: Stanford maintains freedom to consider legacy status, withdraws from Cal Grant aid - cardcrimson - 08-09-2025

(08-09-2025, 11:51 AM)BostonCard Wrote:  Boo.  I understand the rationale, but still, I think children of alumni should be accepted or rejected entirely on their own merits, and not on the basis of where their parents went to school.

I think the data on making standardized testing optional is that it wound up hurting people it purported to help.  It may be imperfect and biased, but it is probably a lot less biased than many of the alternatives.

BC

Bowing out of the program doesn't mean they will or won't consider the merits of each applicant. Gives them the flexibility as needed and therefore they aren't beholden to the state.

Years ago the owner of the company where I first worked after Stanford endowed two scholarships to Stanford, one football, one engineering. He donated on top of that. He had two daughters there. His only son, a smart kid with great grades and better test scores than I had, didn't get in. . . .

RE: Stanford maintains freedom to consider legacy status, withdraws from Cal Grant aid - dabigv13 - 08-09-2025

It was a bad bill, and this is an unfortunate result but I think Stanford is doing the right thing after the bill was passed. Neither federal nor state governments should be dictating Stanford admissions policies IMHO.

Legacy students I think generally have better stats than non legacies. Now, if the bill was more narrowly tailored just for admits whose parents donated megabucks to get their spot, it would be more defensible but even still I think would be an unnecessary government intrusion.

Part of the benefit of going to Stanford for "normal" smart kids is making connections with the rich/connected kids.

RE: Stanford maintains freedom to consider legacy status, withdraws from Cal Grant aid - TrumpCard - 08-09-2025

Restaurants shouldn't be allowed to reserve tables for their regulars either.

RE: Stanford maintains freedom to consider legacy status, withdraws from Cal Grant aid - Jamesy - 08-09-2025

How can they prove that a legacy got in because of that as opposed to on merits? Would expect legacy applicants to come from more advantaged backgrounds than non-legacy controls so would have a higher admission rate than average anyways.

RE: Stanford maintains freedom to consider legacy status, withdraws from Cal Grant aid - M T - 08-09-2025

I thought the law doesn’t care about why, just if. Does the acceptance rate of legacy & donor admissions exceed the acceptance rate of others?

I think this is the text of the law
https://legiscan.com/CA/text/AB1780/2023

RE: Stanford maintains freedom to consider legacy status, withdraws from Cal Grant aid - TrumpCard - 08-11-2025

The law says no discrimination.  The part about admissions rate relates to the requirement to self-report violations.

If the application asks for legacy status, that's an easy way to know if a university is discriminating.  

Let's assume for the sake of argument that Stanford would be willing to give up preferences for legacies and small donors as long as it could give preferences to major donors.  Let's also assume for the sake of argument that Stanford knows its major donors and can figure out which applicants are related to those major donors without sending questionnaires.  (We have to assume nothing in writing is needed because any writing probably would be made public.  There's a good chance that at least one major donor would disapprove of the preference and disclose the existence of the questionnaire). 

Even if those assumptions hold true, Stanford still would be vulnerable to detection because, if the AG were to investigate, the AG could subpoena records and testimony.

Also, the downside to being caught is substantial.  It's not just whatever punishment might be allowed under the law.  It's also the harm to Stanford's reputation from flagrantly violating California law.  That's the kind of thing U$C does.  

So, Stanford correctly concluded that the best policy is to simply decline the grants from the State of California.  Unfortunate result for Stanford, but Stanford made the right choice given the alternatives.

RE: Stanford maintains freedom to consider legacy status, withdraws from Cal Grant aid - chrisk - 08-11-2025

Stanford may not have a way out of the new Federal reporting of granular admissions data.

RE: Stanford maintains freedom to consider legacy status, withdraws from Cal Grant aid - dabigv13 - 08-11-2025

(08-11-2025, 02:32 PM)chrisk Wrote:  Stanford may not have a way out of the new Federal reporting of granular admissions data.

What new federal reporting of admissions data?

RE: Stanford maintains freedom to consider legacy status, withdraws from Cal Grant aid - TreesAndBirds - 08-11-2025

From Perplexity:

Compared to institutional aid, Cal Grant funding is a relatively small portion of overall need-based grant support at Stanford; for example, in 2022–23, Stanford awarded about $263 million in its own institutional aid compared to $3.2 million from Cal Grants.
• Stanford will be withdrawing from the Cal Grant program for future years, but plans to replace this state funding for affected students with its own institutional grant aid.

RE: Stanford maintains freedom to consider legacy status, withdraws from Cal Grant aid - BostonCard - 08-11-2025

(08-11-2025, 02:44 PM)dabigv13 Wrote:  
(08-11-2025, 02:32 PM)chrisk Wrote:  Stanford may not have a way out of the new Federal reporting of granular admissions data.

What new federal reporting of admissions data?

I assume it is a reference to this executive order: https://kdvr.com/news/politics/washington-dc-bureau/trump-signs-executive-order-to-require-more-college-admissions-data/

I wonder if Universities will simply stop asking about race/ethnicity.  Right now the Common App includes an optional question about race/ethnicity, but colleges are able to suppress receiving that data, so maybe now they all will.  Even if they get granular data about enrollees, they would be able to say that they do not collect granular data about applicants.

BC