Legacy kids care more about these schools

The argument

Colleges should not put an end to legacy admissions, this argument holds, because legacy admits tend to have a stronger affinity for the schools their parents went to. The affinity is treated as a real and predictable fact about applicants rather than as a courtesy owed to alumni: a student who grew up hearing about an institution arrives with an attachment to it that an admissions essay cannot manufacture, and there is often a stronger desire among children of alumni both to attend and to stay engaged with the institution afterwards. That attachment is said to matter to the college on its own terms. When colleges admit students who have a natural affinity for their institution, they strengthen the community of students who are fully committed to dedicating their time and energy to the college for the long haul. A campus is made by the people who invest in it — who join things, who stay involved, who care how the place does — so selecting for commitment shapes the institution and not merely its intake. The preference also works upward through the family. The legacy preference is one way of encouraging alumni to remain engaged with the college for the rest of their lives, since an alumnus whose children may one day attend has a continuing stake in the institution rather than a receding one. There is a practical dimension as well. Because legacy admits are the children of parents who also went to these schools, they tend to be more knowledgeable about them and often already have strong connections there, so they arrive understanding the institution rather than learning it from scratch. Legacy admissions therefore help colleges admit students who really want to be there and who will likely stay involved with the college far past their time as students.

Premises

Counter-arguments

Colleges should end legacy admissions because there is no evidence nor data that shows that the children of alumni have a stronger affinity for the schools their parents went to. Legacy students are more prone to applying to schools their parents went to because of encouragement from their parents rather than because they actually have the desire to go to that same school. Similar to the fact that there is no statistically significant evidence that legacy preferences impact total alumni giving, the same is true for the notion that legacies somehow care or have a stronger desire for admission than non-legacies. These are just assumptions made that perpetuate this harmful policy. Colleges should put an end to legacy admissions because there is no statistical evidence that shows their benefit.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] The affinity is asserted without evidence. Applying to a parent's university is at least as consistent with family encouragement, familiarity and expectation as with independent enthusiasm, and the argument offers no measure that separates the two. [Rejecting P2] Even if legacy applicants were more attached, that does not license a preference in admissions. Demonstrated interest can be weighed through the ordinary application, and the premise never addresses the policy's cost — an advantage granted for a reason unrelated to merit, inherited from a period when the alumni body it draws on was far less diverse.