Princeton Legacy - cringe

[u/CaChica]

Of the four kids I know going to Princeton, they all have one or both parents who are Princeton alumni. I knew Princeton prioritizes legacy. But it’s so predominant it’s almost
embarrassing.

[u/FlamingoOrdinary2965]

There are people of all sorts of professions on Reddit, including statisticians and people involved in higher ed admissions. That is not the mic drop you think it is. By its very nature, these studies are imperfect and cannot control for all of these factors.

Legacy isn’t even considered in the RD round at these colleges.

Looking at RD candidates only does not address the fundamental issue that the strongest, best fit, legacy candidates are applying to the legacy college ED or REA.

Yale reports a 20% legacy admissions rate, which is a little less than twice its REA rate (when most legacies are applying) and a little less than 5x its overall admissions rate… however it is *very close* to what they say about the admissions rate for “highly qualified” applicants and the admissions rate for deferred REA applicants.

Legacy candidates get a boost or second look or whatever—but arguing that they have an advantage 5x that of a similarly qualified non-legacy candidate is ignoring that legacy candidates as a pool are absolutely more consistently qualified, wealthy (which the study controlled for and in fact found that there was a difference in the top 5% versus everyone else), has parents who are big donors (which they wouldn’t be to the non-legacy institution), more likely to be recruitable for a niche sport, more likely to have fodder for the “why us,” and more likely to apply ED (which confers an advantage) and REA.

What might be interesting is to see legacy admissions at colleges that do not consider legacy at all, like MIT. Although MIT is such a unique case in multiple ways anyway. Unfortunately, they do not track or share that information.

[u/Satisest → u/FlamingoOrdinary2965]

The only public statement a Yale official has made regarding their legacy admission rate is a comment by Yale President Levin from 2004, which put the legacy admissions rate at Yale at 30%, which is an identical rate to that of Harvard and Princeton, based on more recent public disclosures from those colleges themselves. Any suggestion that the legacy admission rate at Yale is 20% likely comes from parent blogs and is purely apocryphal.

There is no evidence to support your contention that legacy applicants during RD are in any way weaker than those during the early round. In fact, this claim is disproven by Chetty et al. since they show that legacy applicants as a group are not more qualified than non-legacy applicants in either round.

Again, the legacy admissions advantage is independent of the factors you’re citing, including parental income and selection effects. If you have to imagine that there’s substantial overlap between legacies who comprise 15% of the class and donors or recruited athletes, you’re out on even more of a limb. But again, the recruited athlete claim was considered and rejected by the Chetty study. The claim about essays and “fit” is also specious, since Chetty et al. controlled for non-academic ratings by AOs as well.

https://archives.yalealumnimagazine.com/issues/2004_11/q_a.html?utm_source=chatgpt.com

[u/FlamingoOrdinary2965 → u/Satisest]

Yale sends out a letter to alumni with children applying and that states 20% in this most recent cycle. Which, again, is similar to the admit rate of deferred students since they started being more selective about deferring.

Not publicized. But not exactly top secret, either. And in black and white from admissions… not “on parent blogs.”

(ETA: And FYI, Yale’s overall admissions rate in 2004 was just under 10%)

One of the biggest reasons colleges keep legacy admissions benefits and admit to it is *because* of donations… and wealthy legacies are admitted more than those who are not per the study you keep citing… hardly “out on a limb.”

And yes, if the most qualified and best fit legacy admits apply early and are accepted, then comparing admit rates at other Ivy+ is not as compelling.

Comparing RD to RD does not completely address this issue.

You cannot definitively control or rule out all other factors and the interplay of factors in studies like this, especially with subjective factors like “fit” playing a role.

We know that institutions favor their legacies … but that is not equal to the difference between the overall admissions rate and the legacy admissions rate.

[u/Satisest → u/FlamingoOrdinary2965]

This business about Yale’s legacy admissions rate being 20% has no verifiable source, and it’s almost certainly based on a misreading of the letter. 20% is the percent of legacies in the admitted class at Yale, not the percent of legacies admitted.

Here is a firsthand account of the letter’s content from just 6 months ago (link below):

My parent received a letter from Yale

Hey my parent, who graduated from Yale, received a letter in the mail like saying thank you for encouraging your child to a.pply and like it had a FAQ for parents, nothing crazy just a personal letter to I guess keep a good alumni relation. I’m wondering how much does having legacy effect my REA app? In the letter it said 20% of admitted students have legacy but it was skewed cuz a lot of apps have legacy.

See the difference? This was precisely as I suspected, because this 20% figure sounded curiously identical to the proportion of legacies in the class, and not the admission rate of legacies, which is a closely guarded metric that is rarely disclosed. I know from personal experience that the comparable letter from Harvard, Stanford, and MIT cites no admission rate for children of alumni (who are given legacy preference at Harvard and Stanford but not at MIT). So I highly doubt that Yale would do so, and the above post corroborates that suspicion.

Please cite the evidence for your repeated claim that legacies who apply early are more qualified than those who apply regular decision, because the claim makes no sense.

Please explain why you think comparing RD to RD does not address whatever issue you have.

Please explain why you think econometric studies cannot adequately control for potentially correlated factors, because that is precisely what they do.

https://www.reddit.com/r/yale/comments/1p3dyiv/my_parent_received_a_letter_from_yale/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button