August 14, 2023
It’s Time to Abolish Legacy Admissions
By Peter Lucas
In our current system, children of college graduates already have a sizable advantage. But removing legacy and donor preferences is only the first step.
Legacy admissions are, once again, in the limelight. After the fall of affirmative action, colleges are facing renewed pressure to eliminate preferences for the children of alumni and donors. Last month, the Department of Education opened an investigation into legacy preferences at Harvard following a formal complaint from local civil rights groups. In the past few weeks, Wesleyan University and Occidental College have formally ended all preferences for legacy candidates.
As public support dwindles, the walls protecting legacy admissions are starting to cave inwards.
Legacy admissions began at Ivy League schools in the 1920s as a response to the growing number of immigrants—namely, Jews from Eastern Europe—entering elite Protestant institutions. Until the 1960s, legacy status essentially guaranteed admission into many of the top private schools in the country. In 1925, Yale admitted legacies “regardless of the number of applicants and the superiority of outside competitors.”
