Richard Kahlenberg, a senior fellow at the Century Foundation, recently penned an op-ed for The New York Times suggesting that the supposed benefits of giving preferential treatment to legacy students in the undergraduate admissions process are not as prominent as some have speculated and may not actually affect the rate of alumni giving at universities. With these claims in mind, now is the time for the University to reconsider the wisdom of accepting potentially less-qualified students merely on the basis of their parents' alma mater - even if there may be a financial benefit to doing so in the future.
Out-of-state legacies essentially are given in-state preference, University spokesperson Carol Wood said, which re-categorizes these students into a group that is theoretically advantaged because Virginia taxpayers help finance the state's public colleges. Out-of-state students only represent less than a third of the University's undergraduate population, and out-of-state legacies represent an even smaller part of this segment. Even so, the systematic nature of this preferential treatment is not justifiable. For in-state students, on the other hand, legacy status may only come into play when deciding between two individuals with similar credentials. Using legacy status as a tie-breaker among qualified applicants still raises questions about basic fairness, but that approach seems much more defensible than the out-of-state method.
The primary motivation for giving legacies preferential treatment is the financial outcome. The logic goes that the children of alumni are more likely to have stronger ties to their alma maters and are more likely to become donors themselves in the future, Wood said. Nevertheless, there seems to be relatively little data to support these notions. "A study by Winnemac Consulting for the Century Foundation found that from 1998 to 2007, at the nation's top 100 national universities, if one controls for the wealth of alumni, 'there is no statistically significant evidence of a causal relationship between legacy preference policies and total alumni giving,'" Kahlenberg wrote in the op-ed.
Of course, there are other ways to promote University pride and forge longstanding connections with alumni. Class councils, for example, exist primarily for the purpose of strengthening student bonds with the University - with the hope that these students will one day give back to their alma mater in the form of both financial and non-financial support.
There also are other existing programs to benefit legacies without undermining the integrity of the admissions process. Alumni children, for instance, already have access to resources from the Alumni Association, which hosts seminars and workshops for legacy applicants to bolster their chances of acceptance to the University. These programs are a kind of service to alumni that help prepare their children for the University's admissions process without systematically disadvantaging other applicants.
Another consideration is that legacy applicants are more likely to accept admission to the University, inflating the matriculation numbers used in college rankings. Although this is a trend that ought to be considered when determining how to market the school, it seems like shaky grounds for justifying an intrusion upon the admissions process. University officials should do whatever possible to encourage admitted students to accept spots at the University, but it is questionable to base the selection process on an aggregate prediction of whom will accept offers.
It would be remiss to claim that there are no benefits to accepting legacies. Perhaps most important, forging strong family ties with the University can translate into a number of kinds of support for the institution. But if officials at the University and elsewhere wish to continue preferential treatment for legacy applicants, at the very least college administrators should be pressed to find evidence to ground their assertions. Alumni giving is critically important - it is a much needed source of funding for schools and provides all students with opportunities they may not otherwise have. But by avoiding sincere research efforts into the question of what leads to higher donation rates, college officials are let off the hook and able to hide behind rhetoric. There is no impetus for change.
The best compromise may be for the University to treat out-of-state legacy students as it does in-state ones. Although still an imperfect system, this approach would demonstrate the institution's commitment to its alumni base while still abandoning formal and significant favoritism during admissions.
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