Three prominent economists recently published a study which has become a focal point for calls to end legacy preferences in college admissions, “Diversifying Society’s Leaders? Â The Determinants and Consequences of Admission to Highly Selective Colleges”, by Raj Chetty, David J. Deming, and John N. Friedman (https://opportunityinsights.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/CollegeAdmissions_Nontech.pdf). Â The study reports five key findings.
1. Ivy-Plus colleges (8 Ivy League plus MIT, Duke, University of Chicago, and Stanford) are more than twice as likely to admit a student from a high-income family as compared to low-or-middle-income families with comparable SAT/ACT scores.
2. Higher admission rates for students from high-income families can be attributed to three factors: Â preferences for children of alumni (legacies), higher non-academic ratings, and athletic recruitment.
3. The three factors underlying the high-income admissions advantage are not associated with better post-college outcomes; in contrast, SAT/ACT scores and academic ratings are highly predictive of post-college success.
4. Attending an Ivy-Plus instead of a flagship public college triples students’ chances of obtaining jobs at prestigious firms and substantially increases their chances of earning in the top 1%.
5. By changing their admissions policies, Ivy-Plus colleges could significantly diversify the socioeconomic backgrounds of America’s highest earners and leaders.
   Barron’s Magazine interviewed study co-author John N. Friedman (chair of the economics department at Brown University and co-editor of the American Economic Review) in an article “Ivy Degrees, Legacies, and Wealth.  Where Colleges Should Go From Here” published August 10, 2023 (https://www.barrons.com/articles/exploring-the-link-between-college-admissions-policies-and-social-mobility-211521a7?st=90lo9siv72gwaeo).  Friedman makes the following key points.
1. “Yet, if you add up the advantages that athletic recruitment and nonacademic ratings give wealthy students, that is actually a bigger deal than legacy preferences.”
2. “These schools are all businesses, and they’re not going to do anybody any good if they have to shut down. Â The 12 schools we studied aren’t so close to that line, but everyone has a budget and trade-offs. Â More money spent on financial aid means there has to be less money spent on something else.”
3. “We find pretty robust evidence that test performance is, by far, the strongest predictor of long-term professional outcomes and earnings potential after graduation. Â Few people would defend them as perfect instruments, but the issue isn’t about getting to the ideal. Â It is about finding whatever measure is least biased or least subject to unintentional influence.”
4. “[Middle-class students] are the least likely to be admitted to these schools once they have achieved a given test score. Â However, they are also much more likely to achieve a given test score than students from lower-income families… Your chances of attending these institutions are much, much higher if you are born into a middle-class family than an impoverished family.”
   Lawyers for Civil Rights filed a complaint against Harvard with the U.S. Department of Education alleging “[Legacy] preferential treatment has nothing to do with an applicant’s merits.  Instead, it is an unfair and unearned benefit that is conferred based on the family that an applicant is born into.  This custom, pattern and practice is exclusionary and discriminatory.  It severely disadvantages and harms applicants of color” (https://www.bostonglobe.com/2023/07/03/metro/harvard-legacy-admissions-supreme-court-2/).
   I offer two observations for your consideration on this emerging controversy regarding legacy admissions.
   My first observation is that the Opportunity Insights study presents no evidence that legacy admits are less qualified than other applicants.  In fact, they are generally more qualified.  The New York Times reports “New data shows that at elite private colleges, the children of alumni, known as legacies, are in fact slightly more qualified than typical applicants, as judged by admissions offices.  Even if their legacy status weren’t considered, they would still be about 33 percent more likely to be admitted than applicants with the same test scores, based on all their other qualifications, demographic characteristics and parents’ income and education, according to an analysis conducted by Opportunity Insights, a research group at Harvard… “This isn’t about unqualified students getting in”, said Michael Hurwitz, who leads policy research at the College Board and has done research on legacy admissions that found similar patterns.  “But when you’re picking a class out of a group of 10 times more qualified students than you can possibly admit, then a modest thumb on the scale translates into a fairly large statistical advantage…”.  A dean of admissions in the Ivy League, who spoke anonymously, said the public perception that legacy students were under qualified or overwhelmingly white was less true among Ivy League colleges and their peers.  “Certainly on the academic side, they’re quite strong,” the person said.  “And because institutions are more diverse over time, legacy applicants are more diverse than they have ever been.”  Elite colleges say they prioritize legacies for a few reasons.  It helps maintain strong ties with alumni, which assists with donations, networking and a sense of community.  When admitted, children of alumni are much more likely to attend — helping with something admissions offices call their yield rate.” (“How Big Is the Legacy Boost at Elite Colleges?https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/27/upshot/ivy-league-legacy-admissions.html).
   I question what is the egregious harm to be addressed by banning legacy admissions?  A “tie goes to the home team” ethos favoring known relationships over unknown is common practice in many arenas of American society.  Elite colleges have important long-term interests in sustaining and deepening ties to their alumni community.  There is no convincing evidence that legacies are unfairly taking seats away from more deserving students.  Legacies who pay full costs of attendance contribute to the “discounted tuition and fees” subsidies received by lower and middle-income students.  There is no persuasive case that legacy preferences “severely disadvantages and harms applicants of color”, as alleged by Lawyers for Civil Rights (it’s likely that most Harvard legacy admits have higher SAT/ACT scores than most black and Latino admits to Harvard).  If there is a relatively small handful of seats occupied by “under-qualified” legacy admits, it does not rise to the level of major social concern.
   My second observation is that it is a weak premise to argue “by changing their admissions policies, Ivy-Plus colleges could significantly diversify the socioeconomic backgrounds of America’s highest earners and leaders”.  Many proponents for using the Opportunity Insights study as a basis for banning legacy admissions are also advocates for test-optional admissions policies.  But they are silent in ignoring the unequivocal evidence cited by study co-author Friedman supporting the efficacy of standardized testing for college admissions.  It is unlikely that students who aren’t high-performers on standardized tests are going to become high-performers in the intense competition to become “America’s highest earners and leaders”.
   Barron’s Magazine posed the following question to John Friedman:  “What role do test scores play in more equitable admissions?  During the Covid pandemic, many colleges dropped standardized tests, although it seems that the SAT and ACT tests are perhaps the least-bad metric we have in terms of measuring academic performance.”  Friedman replied:
“There is a belief about how biased these tests are, or how much work goes into studying for them, or trying to game them. Â Despite that, we find pretty robust evidence that test performance is, by far, the strongest predictor of long-term professional outcomes and earnings potential after graduation. Â Few people would defend them as perfect instruments, but the issue isn’t about getting to the ideal. Â It is about finding whatever measure is least biased or least subjective to unintentional influence… But a large share of the imbalance in testing performance comes from the very large inequities that students experience in the 17 or 18 years leading up to the point at which they take the test and start thinking about where to apply to college. Â Their K-12 schools, the neighborhoods they grow up in, and all sorts of different environmental factors are contributing factors.”
   It is a fair question to ask whether test-optional students admitted to these elite schools are well-prepared to succeed academically.  It is a fair question to ask what academic performance has been achieved by students who opted-out of standardized testing in recent years.  It is morally wrong to admit under-qualified legacy applicants; it is also morally wrong to admit under-qualified non-legacy applicants who are not well-prepared to succeed in an elite academic environment.  While admitting such students may be well-intentioned, it is arguably harmful to students’ self-confidence and self-esteem when they encounter academic classrooms for which they are unprepared.  Elite college classrooms are not the setting to remediate K-12 educational deficiencies.  Massachusetts Institute of Technology addressed this problem in 2022:
“MIT Admissions announced today that it will reinstate its requirement that applicants submit scores from an SAT or ACT exam… The Institute suspended its longstanding requirement in 2020 and 2021 due to the Covid-19 pandemic… Research conducted by the admissions office shows that the standardized tests are an important factor in assessing the academic preparation of applicants from all backgrounds, according to Dean of Admissions and Financial Services Stuart Schmill. Â He says the standardized exams are most helpful for assisting the admissions office in identifying socioeconomically disadvantaged students who are well-prepared for MIT’s challenging education, but who don’t have the opportunity to take advanced coursework, participate in expensive enrichment programs, or otherwise enhance their college applications… We want to be confident an applicant has the academic preparation and noncognitive skills (like resilience, conscientiousness, time-management, and so on) to do well in our challenging, fast-paced academic environment… It turns out the shortest path for many students to demonstrate sufficient preparation — particularly for students with less access to educational capital –is through the SAT/ACT, because most students can study for these exams using free tools at Khan Academy, but they (usually) can’t force their high school to offer advanced calculus courses, for example. Â So the SAT/ACT can actually open the door to MIT for these students, too.” (https://news.mit.edu/2022/stuart-schmill-sat-act-requirement-032…20announced%20today%20that,from%20safely%20taking%20the%20exams).
   Boards of trustees should challenge all elite colleges to be forthright and transparent regarding admissions policies.  Disclose the data on the academic performance of test-optional admits from the past three years of pandemic-related relaxation of SAT and ACT testing requirements.  In contrast to the relatively small handful of seats involved in under-qualified legacy admits, there may be hundreds of seats at each elite college involved in under-qualified test-optional admits.  I think elite colleges have a moral obligation to show that the same standards apply to all applicants, and the standards are those which are most predictive of academic success.
   What do you think?