
We Don’t Do Legacy (2012) - bootload
http://mitadmissions.org/blogs/entry/just-to-be-clear-we-dont-do-legacy
======
pesenti
Compare that to most of the Ivy League: " In 2009, Princeton admitted 41.7% of
legacy applicants—more than 4.5 times the 9.2% rate of non-legacies.
Similarly, in 2006, Brown University admitted 33.5% of alumni children,
significantly higher than the 13.8% overall admissions rate. In 2003, Harvard
admitted 40% of legacy applicants, compared to the overall 11% acceptance
rate. In short, Ivy League and other top schools typically admit legacies at
two to five times their overall admission rates."
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legacy_preferences](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legacy_preferences)

~~~
joelg
To be fair, it's probably true that the admit rate for MIT legacy applicants
is also higher than the overall admit rate. It's just that the MIT admissions
committee doesn't consider legacy status in admissions. It's hard to separate
correlation from causation in the admit rates.

~~~
tabeth
Really? Seems pretty easy to analyze. Just take legacy applicants and their
non-legacy equivalents and see the admittance rates.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
Difficult to do if you aren't even tracking what applications are legacy in
the first place, they'd at least have to ask a sample of admitted and rejected
students post facto.

~~~
tabeth
Ah. I assumed in this scenario we had some mechanism to determine who is a
legacy applicant (or not). You make a good point.

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cma
Schools were racially segregated just a couple generations ago. Think about
what that means for schools that do legacy preference. They really shouldn't
get access to any forms of federal funding.

~~~
csa
That strikes me as being remarkably heavy handed given that these same schools
seem to give even more advantage to non-Asian minorities
([https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legacy_preferences](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legacy_preferences)).

Many folks, especially HNers, seem to think that entrance to elite schools
should be purely (or mostly) based on academic merit. Any school that would
choose to do that would be shooting themselves in the foot in a number of
ways. For example:

1\. Athletics would suffer. Even in the athletically weak Ivy League, winning
sports teams increase donations directly and indirectly as well as alumni
involvement.

2\. Pure merit admissions would negatively discriminate against many minority
applicants for various reasons that are fairly well documented in research.

3\. The social capital of the institution's graduates would suffer greatly.
Elite schools tend to have a healthy mix of people who are great producers and
people who are great facilitators based on their personal networks (e.g., rain
making, getting funding, doing sales, etc.). These two groups do a good job of
scratching each others' backs. If the ratio skews too far in one direction,
the balance will be broken and both groups will be less effective.

For the most part, legacies either would get in anyway (i.e., without legacy
preference), or they are filling in the mediocre parts of the each class while
providing some sort of benefit to the school (e.g., strengthening alumni
network, strengthening school community, school donations, propensity to
encourage their potentially talented progeny to apply to the school, etc.).

I assure you that no highly talented applicant with an application that
accurately represents them is losing a slot to an elite school based on a
legacy (or an athlete, or a z-lister, or whatever) -- either they probably
just aren't as talented or interesting as they (or their parents) think they
are, or something went sideways with their application (e.g., recommendation
writers not being skilled at writing high quality recommendations).

As I have said before in other replies on this topic, only 10-30% of an elite
school's entering class is "interesting" based on my own personal definition
of interesting (having one or more of: creativity, high capacity to learn and
synthesize new ideas quickly, true leadership/charisma, etc.). These are all
easy admits to any school they apply to -- no perceived strike like non-legacy
will hold them back. The rest of each entering class looks remarkably similar
and mediocre in comparison, and the admission committee has several vectors
they need to consider when filling those slots. Legacy admissions is just one
of those vectors, and I think it's a totally reasonable one given the other
vectors that are also considered (e.g., affirmative action).

Some people seem to think that admissions to an elite school is a golden
ticket, and that's a half truth. Elite schools definitely open doors that non-
elite schools don't, but the benefit often ends there. The skilled/interesting
folks take the opportunity and run with it, and the vast majority of others
just fade into mediocrity.

This is a favorite topic of mine that I think is often misunderstood. I am
happy to share what I know to folks who are interested, so please feel free to
ask questions -- I will answer to the best of my ability.

Apologies for a reply that is a bit beyond the scope of your comment, but this
is as good a spot as any in this thread to make this comment.

Source: Me. Attended and worked on admissions committees at two elite schools.

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kwhitefoot
Viewing this from the other side of the pond. Legacy admissions sounds like a
strange idea and one that would surely raise eyebrows if it could be shown
that a child of an alumnus (or alumna of course) was favoured over another
applicant who was obviously better qualified.

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itchyjunk
I was randomly checking out MIT's admission page a few days ago and drooling
about what it means to go to a school like that. I saw the no legacy
preference and merit based admissions and was pretty impressed. What I didn't
know was this was a non-common thing. Now I am curious about what all colleges
does it legacy based.

Edit: No luck finding just a list of colleges that does legacy admissions but
found a list for scholarships.[0]

[https://www.scholarships.com/financial-aid/college-
scholarsh...](https://www.scholarships.com/financial-aid/college-
scholarships/scholarships-by-type/legacy-scholarships/)

~~~
madhadron
> and drooling about what it means to go to a school like that.

As someone who bummed around the high levels of the academy for years as
research staff, let me tell you what it means. It means lots of stress (and
has been described as drinking from a firehose), and lots of ego, and a more
prestigious brand associated with your diploma, exactly comparable to having a
Gucci purse instead of one from Banana Republic. It does _not_ mean more
capable students, more capable faculty, or better resources for an individual
undergraduate.

Studentry plateaus in intelligence and ability at the level of a decent state
university. Faculty plateaus at a lower level of prestige than that. The
prestige is useful for only two things: marrying into privilege and getting
jobs with certain prestigious firms in management consulting and finance. If
neither is important to you, then there is no reason to spend $180k on MIT
instead of $60k to $80k on your state school. Or $5k on four years of tuition
at the EPFL in Switzerland, which is as prestigious as MIT or Caltech.
(Numbers are tuition and fees, but not cost of living, for four years. State
universities are in-state tuition. EPFL is international student tuition.)

And if you're interested in engineering and lucky enough to live in
California, Georgia, Colorado, or Alabama, you have a state university that,
in engineering, is more prestigious than MIT.

~~~
itchyjunk
I am trying to get into math. For now, I am considering my cheapest options.
(In a community college with Pell Grant keeping me afloat for now). But you
are right, my brief exposure to a good university was full of ego and lot of
extra stress. Neither of which I preferred.

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PaulHoule
Legacy admissions have become a problem for the Ivies lately because they
undermine their brand.

Back in the 1980s you could count on a graduate of Harvard, Cornell, or some
other Ivy to be pretty bright, but as legacy admissions accelerated in the
1990s, you started seeing graduates who were average at best. By the 2000s it
was clear to the schools themselves that this was a problem because as much as
the schools want the money, their brand is their most valuable asset.

~~~
csa
I have been at Ivies in some capacity in each of those decades. There have
been "average at best" folks in each of those decades.

While the "average at best" folks may have increased in proportion to above
average folks (something I am not sure I agree with), I think it may have more
to do with the admissions process being more transparent with the rise in
popularity of the Internet than it was pre-internet.

My personal and anecdotal take is that I have seen an increase in the
proportion of tryhard bookworms who lack creativity, leadership skills, and/or
raw intellectual power. I am not sure that this is necessarily a bad thing
(these folks make great worker bees), but their proportion in the student body
needs to be balanced with folks with other strengths like those mentioned
above.

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jordigh
I am so used to "legacy" being a disparaging term that I forgot that there
were contexts in which it was something someone could find desirable.

~~~
userbinator
I think that's only in the tech world, because I once came upon a "legacy
senior home" and none of my (non-tech) friends found it as amusing. Apparently
there are plenty of senior homes with legacy in their names.

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tabeth
This is the reality:

1\. High schools that tend to send high numbers of people to schools with
acceptance rates less than 20% tend to be dis-proportionally represented. [1]

2\. High schools that send kids to good college are more expensive (either
inherently, or because they're in an expensive area).

Combine these two and you see the perpetual unfairness of education. Not to
mention that MIT and other 'elite schools' barely teach well anyways. Picking
kids who were already predisposed for success is not education. Unfortunately,
many disagree.

A real school would have 100% of their kids admitted at random and then,
through some criteria, show how _they_ created an environment that allowed
those kids to succeed. This contrasts with the current system, which is
basically survivorship bias anyway.

EDIT: I just want to add any many of these elite schools (high school and
college) only _recently_ began to admit women and minorities in particular.

[1] Some schools with high amounts of kids going to "elite schools"

\- Stuyvesant

\- Boston Latin

\- Brooklyn Science

\- Brearly School

\- Spence School

\- Harvard-Westlake

\- Lowell High School

\- Saint Ann's

\- Andover

~~~
assface
> Not to mention that MIT and other 'elite schools' barely teach well anyways.

Ignore this person, they don't know what they are talking about.

For better or worse, the 'elite' schools have money. That means they can hire
teaching-track professors. These are professors whose sole job is to teach and
advise (i.e., they don't spend all their time doing research). And they do a
_really_ good job at it. Much better than overworked professor that is more
focused about research and grants.

Edit: People are conflating "teaching" versus "research" professors, so I want
to provide an example:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CS50](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CS50)

This course is taught by David Malan. He has dedicated a lot of his life to
this course to make it be awesome. The reason why he can do this is because he
is a teaching professor. If you look at his CV, you will see that he does not
have any PhD students. His main job is to teach undergrads at Harvard and he
can put more of his time to it than a professor that has to also worry about
research. He doesn't bring the university as much money because he's not
writing research grants, but they can still afford to keep him around. This is
the point that I was trying to make.

~~~
BinaryIdiot
>> Not to mention that MIT and other 'elite schools' barely teach well
anyways.

> Ignore this person, they don't know what they are talking about.

I'm not sure that that's fair. Granted I didn't go to a great school; I went
to community college because it was what I could afford. But I know many who
have attended other, "elite" schools and most of them, barring a few
exceptions, told me they basically learned out of the book and the only "hard
part" about the school was a high frequency of difficult testing.

A few have told me about great professors but even they said most of their
other classes was almost just reading out of a text box and doing typical work
around it.

So, no first person information here but what I've been told by several
friends and former colleagues is they're like most schools they just push
students a little harder with more testing. Hell one of my friends dropped out
of Stanford and went right into quite an important job at Microsoft stating he
wasn't learning anything by just reading books.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
That's a lot of conclusion from one data point. I went to Stanford, the
teaching was top-notch and the students motivated and upbeat. Had guest
lectures from Silicon Valley stars, had Stanford facilities to visit (they
have their own particle accelerator!) and clubs everywhere.

However my youngest tried to attend Cleveland Institute of Music (a well-
respected conservatory). Depressed and burnt out in 1 year. They forgot
somewhere that young people are _actually living there_. The only thing on the
online student calendar was Weight Watcher's meetings. No karaoke nights, no
community visits (students were instructed to never leave campus), dark
dormitory like a submarine. He lost weight and ultimately gave up on the
career that led him there.

So I guess that's just 2 data points. Anybody else got a story?

~~~
Animats
That's Cleveland. I went to Case/CWRU once. Freshman orientation started by
covering where the high crime areas were.

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fiatjaf
I had never thought about it, but "legacy" seems like a very defensible
strategy. If students know their children will probably be studying in the
same college they have an incentive do things to make that college better in
all respects.

~~~
clintonb
> If students know their children will probably be studying in the same
> college they have an incentive do things to make that college better in all
> respects.

The downside to this is that legacy students have less incentive to work hard
in high school if they know they are guaranteed admission into an elite
school.

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watwut
Is there a stigma associated with being legacy? As in, do people tend to
assume you would not make it in otherwise? Or is it unknown who is legacy to
teachers and other students?

~~~
nsp
Speaking based on my experience at Columbia, it's not broadcasted and I don't
think the instructors tend to know, but snarky comments will definitely be
made if you're doing badly and a legacy

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mirceam
School admissions should be reviewed like (some) conference papers, i.e.
single-blind review. The name of the student is never known when considering
him/her.

~~~
aplummer
It's a weird system, in Australia we all get a standard score on leaving high
school and if your score is higher than the next person choosing your degree
preference you win the spot. Different for medicine only AFAIK.

~~~
amyjess
I'm fond of the system in Texas. If you graduate in the top 10% of your class,
you get automatically accepted to any public university in the state (well,
any one you apply to).

I had zero interest in extracurriculars or anything of the like, so I was
never going to get into a competitive university. But I'm smart, and I have a
near-photographic memory, so I aced most of my classes without having to study
too much, so I was able to graduate in the top 10% and then went to UT Dallas,
which is possibly the best tech school in the southwest. I'm really, really
glad I went to UTD; I made lifelong friends there, the people I hung out with
really helped shape my interests, I'm still running into UTD alumni everywhere
I go, etc.

