When will highly selective universities stop using legacy status in admissions?
Last week Amherst College announced that they will forever stop considering legacy status for its admitted cohorts. Coincidentally this comes on the 200th anniversary of the college. They have joined a small but growing group of colleges that have stopped their legacy policy including MIT, Caltech, JHU, Cooper Union, Oxford and Cambridge, University of Washington, UC Schools in California, and all State Colleges in Colorado. I'm curious about when you think legacy admissions will be abolished in America so please fill out the poll?
Legacy really should not be considered, especially because legacy families can be rich and put low-income students as a disadvantage. However, colleges need money, and they know legacy families will donate millions.
I agree with some of your sentiments. Colleges do like money however it's mostly the small private colleges that are struggling not the Ivys, Elites, or selective prestigious liberal arts colleges. Let's say, Harvard, eliminated legacies which might be 300 admits out of 1650. It's would only cost them $24 million to replace those with full-ride scholarships. Their endowment grew 11 billion last year. They don't have to charge anyone tuition, room, and board if they don't want to and still would have more than 53 billion. That's kind of obscene.
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