Nathan News

Describing its incoming class of 2025, Yale boasted that its students come from 48 states, 68 countries and 1,221 high schools. Additionally, the university announced last year that 51% of the class identified as students of color.

Yet even as Yale promotes the diversity of its freshmen, the college has clung to an admissions tradition — inherited preferences — that primarily benefits white, wealthy, and well-connected students. Of the incoming students, 14% were the offspring of a Yale graduate, receiving the kind of admissions boost also used at other elite institutions.

Little has made a dent in the century-old tradition, despite efforts to end the preference led by progressive students, lawmakers and education reformers. Many colleges claim that alumni cement family ties and multigenerational loyalty. And only a few elite colleges have abolished the preference.

The practice of legacy admissions, however, may soon face its biggest test yet — and in a twist, its future could be tied to the future of affirmative action.

The Supreme Court is expected to hear arguments this fall about race-conscious admissions policies at Harvard and the University of North Carolina. If the court ends or reverses the widely used practice of considering race in student selection, as many experts expect, the decision could result in a reconsideration of legacy applicants. Explicitly favoring the children of former students — some of whom would be competitive candidates regardless of socioeconomic advantage — would become harder to defend if racial preferences were no longer allowed.

“If the Supreme Court bans affirmative action, inherited preferences won’t be long for this world,” said Justin Driver, a professor at Yale Law School. Mr Driver, a Supreme Court and education expert, supports race-conscious admissions and called inherited preferences “a bit like encouraging Elon Musk to buy the winning lottery ticket”.

The University of California system, University of Georgia and Texas A&M all ended legacy preferences when pressured by lawsuits and ballot initiatives to stop using affirmative action, according to a Century Foundation analysis.

Students for Fair Admissions, the conservative group that filed the Supreme Court cases against Harvard and North Carolina — and also sued Yale — argued that eliminating inherited preferences is a way to help achieve the racial diversity without using affirmative action, which the organization says is discriminatory. A member of the court, Judge Clarence Thomas, openly opposed affirmative action and signaled his belief that inherited preferences and other factors poison the admissions process.

This context puts universities in a decidedly difficult position when it comes to defending legacy admissions. The subject is so sensitive that few officials of selective colleges with inherited preferences would discuss it.

The use of legacy admissions dates back to the 1920s, when elite colleges, traditionally the domain of wealthy Protestants, began to fear that places were being taken by Jews and Catholics.

The exact number of schools that use inherited preferences is unknown, but a survey by Inside Higher Ed in 2018 found that 42% of private schools — including most of the nation’s elite institutions — and 6% of schools public were using the strategy. Only a handful of elite colleges — including Johns Hopkins and Amherst — have dropped out of preference in recent years.

Many college officials have argued that inherited preferences are only a small part of the selection process. But on a practical level, they help colleges manage their enrollment rates and forecast their tuition revenue. Students who are heirs, as the children of former students are called, are more likely to attend if admitted, increasing a factor known as “yield” in the industry.

Donations are also a factor. “I think a lot of elite and exclusive schools feel they need to use the inherited preference element as a fundraising mechanism from alumni,” said Andrew Gounardes, a state senator from Brooklyn, who recently sponsored a bill that would have banned legacy preferences in New York.

His bill faced opposition from the state’s private school association, the Commission on Independent Colleges and Universities, which includes highly selective colleges such as Columbia, Cornell and Colgate.

In Connecticut, where lawmakers held a hearing on the issue in February, Yale was among the private schools that spoke out in opposition. In written testimony, Jeremiah Quinlan, Yale’s dean of undergraduate admissions, called the proposed ban a government intrusion into university affairs.

“The process of selecting students for admission, along with the processes of hiring faculty and deciding which courses to offer, define a campus community and culture,” he wrote.

Peter Arcidiacono, a Duke economist who analyzed Harvard data published in the Students for Fair Admissions case, found that a typical candidate of white heritage would be five times more likely to be admitted.

His analysis also revealed that over the years former candidates enjoyed a greater advantage. While the share of admitted students who are heirs or athletes has remained stable, there has been little growth in the number of applicants who fall into these categories. At the same time, applications to Harvard and other elite colleges have increased sharply.

Even if inherited preferences were eliminated at Harvard, according to the study, it would not compensate for the loss of diversity if race-conscious admissions were also eliminated.

Harvard declined to release numbers on its legacy admissions, but a Harvard Crimson survey of incoming students reported that legacy made up about 15.5% of last year’s freshman class. Dr. Arcidiacono’s analysis, spanning several years, found a 14% legacy admission rate at Harvard.

For most, the exact impact of legacy admissions on campus is a black box. “Universities hide their data,” said Dr. Arcidiacono, who was hired as an expert witness by Students for Fair Admissions.

The New York Times attempted to interview more than 20 presidents and admissions directors at selective schools that use inherited preferences, but a large majority were not made available for interviews, including the Yale President Peter Salovey and Harvard President Lawrence S. Bacow. .

Several other university leaders have publicly defended the system, saying it builds loyalty and a special bond.

“We are an institution that was created in a family – the Duke family,” Vincent Price, Duke’s president, said in an address to the faculty. He added: “The idea that you would disallow inherited preferences, or disallow any particular factor into consideration, is troublesome.” A survey this year by The Chronicle, a student newspaper, found that about 22% of freshmen had parents or siblings who attended Duke.

Dr. Price was not made available for an interview. Neither did Cornell President Martha Pollack.

In a 2018 interview with the campus newspaper, Dr. Pollack said, “We’re trying to create a Cornell family that lives on for generations.” Cornell would not release its legacy numbers.

College officials who agreed to speak to The Times generally downplayed the importance of an inherited preference in their admissions process — and pointed out that some black alumni support the practice.

Black college degrees soared in the United States following the civil rights movement, quadrupling from 1970 to 2010. The children of many of these black graduates are ready to go to college.

The University of Virginia, a highly selective public flagship school that began admitting black students in the 1950s, sometimes pays extra attention to legacies, which made up about 14% of freshmen and transfer students the year last, according to Steve Farmer, the vice-rector of enrollment.

In an interview, Mr Farmer said the topic came up at a black alumni reunion this year. “I was speaking with people one by one, and three of the first five questions were about legacy admissions for students of color,” Mr. Farmer said.

“We have tons of friends whose kids are starting school,” said Sanford S. Williams, a lecturer at UCLA Law School and an active black alumnus of the University of Virginia. “They think, ‘Why is it that every time we get the chance to do something the rug from under our feet gets pulled out? “”

Mr. Williams and his wife, a doctor, both have degrees from Virginia, as do their three children. And it supports inherited preferences, as long as they are only a small part of the admissions process.

Future alumni may feel differently.

Logan Roberts, a white student from Groton, NY, leads a first-generation student organization at Yale, where he said class divisions had become stark in the wake of the nationwide Varsity Blues scandal, in which parents were caught trying to bribe their children. way to elite colleges, including Yale.

Mr. Roberts, a rising senior, drafted a resolution opposing inherited preferences that was passed in October by the Yale College Board Senate.

“Students who already have a head start don’t need another head start,” he said.