Тұқымдық жеңілдіктер: Ұрпақтар арқылы қабылдау

Preference given to applicants related to alumni

Legacy preference or legacy admission is a preference given by an institution or organization to certain applicants on the basis of their familial relationship to alumni of that institution. It is most controversial in college admissions, where students so admitted are referred to as legacies or legacy students. The practice is particularly widespread in the college admissions in the United States; almost three quarters of research universities and nearly all liberal arts colleges grant legacy preferences in admissions. Schools vary in how broadly they extend legacy preferences, with some schools granting this favor only to children of undergraduate alumni, while other schools extend the favor to extended family, including: children, grandchildren, siblings, nephews, and nieces of alumni of undergraduate and graduate programs. A 2005 analysis of 180,000 student records obtained from nineteen selective colleges and universities found that, within a set range of SAT scores, being a legacy raised an applicant's chances of admission by 19.7 percentage points. Legacy preferences are controversial, as the legacy students tend to be less qualified and less racially diverse than non legacy students. However, legacy students are economically beneficial to universities, as they are perceived to be more likely to donate to their university after graduation and have parents who are perceived to be more generous donors.

In the United States, legacy admissions in universities date back to the 1920s. Elite schools used legacy admissions to maintain spots for White Anglo Saxon Protestants amid fears that Jews, Catholics and Asians were increasingly taking spots at the schools. A 1992 survey found that of the top seventy five universities in the U. S. News & World Report rankings, only one (the California Institute of Technology) had no legacy preferences at all; the Massachusetts Institute of Technology also affirmed that it does not practice legacy admissions. Legacy preferences were almost ubiquitous among the one hundred top ranked liberal arts colleges as well. The only liberal arts college in the top one hundred that explicitly said it did not use legacy preferences was Berea. Beginning in the 2010s, several top schools ended legacy preferences, including Johns Hopkins University in 2014, Pomona College in 2017, Amherst College in 2021, and Wesleyan University in 2023. In 2023, the bipartisan Merit based Educational Reforms and Institutional Transparency Act was proposed in the U. S. Congress to ban legacy preferences.

Currently, the Ivy League institutions are estimated to admit 10% to 15% of each entering class using legacy admissions. For example, in the 2008 entering undergraduate class, the University of Pennsylvania admitted 41.7% of legacies who applied during the early decision admissions round and 33.9% of legacies who applied during the regular admissions cycle, versus 29.3% of all students who applied during the early decision admissions round and 16.4% of all who applied during the regular cycle. 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 short, Ivy League and other top schools typically admit legacies at two to five times their overall admission rates. Among top universities, the University of Notre Dame and Georgetown University are known to weigh legacy status heavily in their application processes. A 2019 National Bureau of Economic Research working paper by Peter Arcidiacono found that 43% of students admitted to Harvard College were either athletes, legacies, members of the "Dean's" or "Director's" lists of relations of donors or prominent figures, or children of university employees ("ALDCs"); fewer than 16% of ethnic minority Harvard undergraduate admits were ALDCs. Arcidiacono also found that almost 70% of Harvard legacy applicants were white. A similar study at an elite college found that legacies were almost twice as likely to be admitted as non legacies and that legacy preferences increased the admission rates for white and wealthy students to the greatest degree. The advantages that colleges offer legacy students extend well beyond admission preferences. Many colleges have various mechanisms for coaching legacies through the admissions process and for advising them about strategies for constructing successful applications, including notifying legacies of the advantage that they can gain by applying early. Some universities have alumni councils that provide legacies with special advising sessions, pair these prospective students with current legacy students, and generally provide advice and mentoring for legacy applicants. Some universities employ admissions counselors dedicated solely to legacy applicants, and it is common to provide scholarships or tuition discounts earmarked especially for legacies and for legacies to be charged in state tuition fees when they are out of state residents. Former Harvard University president Lawrence Summers has stated, "Legacy admissions are integral to the kind of community that any private educational institution is." In the 1998 book The Shape of the River: Long Term Consequences of Considering Race in College and University Admissions, authors William G. Bowen, former Princeton University president, and Derek Bok, former Harvard University president, found "the overall admission rate for legacies was almost twice that for all other candidates." While the preference is quite common in elite universities and liberal arts colleges, it is quite controversial, with 75% of Americans opposing the preference. Wesleyan University announced in 2023 that it would no longer lend preference to 'legacy' applicants.

Economists are divided over implications of the practice. A 2019 study of leading economists by the University of Chicago Booth School of Business (IGM Forum) found that 76% of economists responding surveyed either "strongly agreed" or "agreed" that legacy preferences crowds out applicants with greater academic potential. The economists were divided as to whether the existence of legacy admissions meant that universities had a less beneficial "net effect" on society than if there were no legacy admissions: 2% strongly agreed, 29% agreed, 40% were uncertain, 19% disagreed, and none strongly disagreed. (10% did not respond). though other analyses have disputed this conclusion.

While many schools say that a main reason for legacy preferences is to increase donations, at an aggregate (school wide) level the decision to prefer legacies has not been shown to increase donations. However, in some instances, while alumni donations may go up if a child is intending on applying, donations fall if that child is rejected. In 2008, alumni donations accounted for 27.5% of all donations to higher education in the U. S. such as Oxford, Cambridge, UCL and London School of Economics do not use legacy, racial, or athletic preferences in admissions decisions. There are also legal arguments against legacy preferences. In public schools, legacy preferences may violate the Nobility Clause and the Equal Protection Clause of the U. S. Constitution by creating a hereditary privilege and discriminating on the basis of ancestry. Legacy preferences in both public and private universities may be illegal under the Civil Rights Act of 1866 (now codified in Section 1981 of the U. S. Code). [[File:Capture d’écran 2023 02 11 213711. png|thumb|338x338px|Distribution of GPA in college major by legacy status

In admission data reviewed by The Daily Princetonian in 2023, the student newspaper found that legacy students had a higher GPA than non legacy students except at the highest income levels, and were more likely to go into non profit work after admission, and less likely to go on to graduate school.