OdontoBear66 said:
calpoly said:
Oski87 said:
The big issue is about all school employees who have a much higher chance of getting their kids in. From professors to gardeners. There is a preference for those children who are the kids of employees of the university. For Yale, I think the admission rate is something like 50%. So that is a big deal. And I believe that there is some reciprocity - for example, if you work at Yale and you want your kids to go to Harvard, they grant preference as well, and vice-versa.
I would be surprised if a gardener at Yale has the same priority as a faculty member in terms of having their child being accepted as a freshman. At schools like Yale you still have to meet fairly high academic stands to get accepted even as a legacy or child of a faculty
But if the gardeners child and close academically, we have a different story. The pull usually comes with those who have it but don't quite make it for ED or EA.
As I read what people say on this issue, it is clear that people don't get the current situation in college admissions. What is "qualified"?
Almost half of all high school grades are A's. And you can bet the average is higher at affluent schools than in poor urban schools. Getting a non-weighted 4.0 does not make one an excellent student. Getting a non-weighted 3.8 is not getting you into an elite college without something else helping you.
Elite schools have enough applicants with 4.0 non weighted GPA's and 34-36 ACT scores to fill their classes several times over. So they have to look at other factors.
So is a 3.8 GPA, 31 ACT, nothing special outside of school, but legacy "unqualified". Probably not. S/he can probably do the coursework. Are they a hell of a lot less qualified than MANY who got rejected? Absolutely.
Anecdotally, I've mentioned a guy I know of who got into an Ivy League school. Had the worst grades in his friend group. Didn't have any honors when most of the group did. Didn't really want to apply or go, but it was Dad's school. Only one of his friends that got in. Frankly embarrassed about it. They all know he was by far the least qualified of them and they give him good natured ribbing about it.
The spots have become so sought after that very few look unqualified. But that doesn't mean there aren't a lot of legacies taking up spots of much more qualified applicants. So, honestly, it bothers me when people say "they don't take unqualified legacies" when the more relevant point is that legacies have an X times better chance at getting in. That is the private schools right to do that, but let's not minimize the impact of their admissions policies.
I would say, though, that I have another issue with private schools. In recent years they have been driving up recruitment among groups they know have no prayer of getting accepted to drive down their acceptance rate for marketing purposes. (You will see that to a large extent elite public universities don't do this because they don't care). These applications are hard and time consuming. Getting kids to apply to Ivy League schools they have no chance at takes away the time and effort they have to write their applications at realistic schools and make those better.
What I would like to see is a requirement that any school that takes government funding write and publish a detailed policy on admissions and follow it. If they want to give a heavy advantage to legacies, put it in writing. 1. It makes them own up to it rather than just saying how they take the best and brightest, and 2. Kids who see that the percentage that get in with their grades and test scores are legacies and will understand what their actual chances are. I would love to see elite private schools put in writing all the factors that are considered, including large scale donations, legacies, and anything else. Honestly, I think if they had to publish all the ways that their admissions policies do not result in the best student body, it would push them to reduce some of the practices they continue just because it is always been that way.
I also have to say that some of these things that people just accept could get you landed in jail if you did it in context of a government bid or job. Frankly, UCLA's AD's kid getting admitted to play a sport she doesn't play, given that it is a public entity, should've been the subject of a criminal investigation.