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Trust me, MA is not better than others . Don’t look at average statistics. They are garbage.MA seriously lacks magnet schools. Except for one tiny one (that only holds 11th grade), there is nothing else available. Lexington is good, but it is mostly parents effort.In contrast , NJ has tons of magnet schools, and so do NC, VA, MD and IL. Thomas Jefferson , Montgomery Bair and Bergen County Academies have made name on national scale just because they are magnet schools.Washington State also has gifted programs. University of Washington offers early college experience to selected high school students- something to look for.There are plenty of districts near Redmond that are on national scale - something similar to Palo Alto, Aurora,IL and Lexington.Don’t fret it. We live in Massachusetts but not in Lexington. Any other town is just run of the mill.

Pinker is someone I would call a genius. His books have taught me a great deal about how language and the brain works. He’s wonderfully literate, well spoken, and cares about education and students.Before I address whether his proposal is a good idea, let’s just say for the sake of argument that his words persuade the college presidents, boards and educators to either use the current national exam (either the SAT or ACT—he does not seem to know the ACT now has market share in the standardized testing wars) or some other test that has yet to be created. How would this change things?The biggest change would be not that the students at Harvard would be much smarter (more on that later) but they would look a lot different. The percentage of Asian students would rise significantly and the percentage of under-represented students would drop. In addition, unless some system was put in place to give a bit of leeway for international students, their percentage might drop, although there are more than enough high testers across the board from Singapore, China, and Korea alone that it would simply mean that very few international students from outside Asia would be accepted either.How do I know this? In the book "No longer Separate Not Yet Equal", the authors sought to create a way to level the playing field for under-represented students and low-income students. They gathered information from a huge data set. One of the things they found, however, was that Asians students are held to much higher standards than anyone else in admission. Asian students, on average, score more than 140 points higher on SATS than whites and several hundred points higher than African-Americans/Blacks or Latinos/Hispanics.Pinker is aware of this:“Jerome Karabel has unearthed a damning paper trail showing that in the first half of the twentieth century, holistic admissions were explicitly engineered to cap the number of Jewish students. Ron Unz, in an exposé even more scathing than Deresiewicz’s, has assembled impressive circumstantial evidence that the same thing is happening today with Asians.”I have written about this issue a number of times, and the data is there to demonstrate Asians have a much harder time getting admitted to Ivies than any other group, despite having the best numeric credentials. For those who might not believe Unz’s research, I will simply point to some schools that do admit students to highly selective schools based on tests.Stuyvescent High School in New York uses a test to determine who gets in. The percentage of Asians? Over 75%. Thomas Jefferson High School in Fairfax, VA uses a test too. The percentage of Asians is a little but lower than Stuyvesant but not by much.At the college level there is no highly selective university that exclusively uses tests to admit students. However, the U California system does have automatic acceptance for students who score at a certain level on the SAT and have certain grades. (They also select students who have not reached this automatic admit rate and they do this holistically). The percentage of Asians at Berkeley and UCLA is over 50% (they don’t report it this way as they leave out international students from Asia when they report their percentages).Given that the evidence and data seems compelling that there is racism gong on against Asians one would assume there would be an outcry by educators. I’m just kidding. The predominant feeling among many is that Asians are already “over-represented” at schools in terms of their percentage within the entire US population. (There is a lot of effort going on in New York to get rid of the test for the magnet high schools in order to increase diversity --which means, in specific terms, more under-represented students). Most educators think Prop 209 in California has hurt the diversity on the U Cal schools' campuses. (It seems a bit hard to accept this simply as a given since the percentage of white students at Berkeley is just over 30%, but diversity is often a substitute for African American, something the Supreme Court certainly did not intend, as Asians were included in the Bakke case, and there are few African Americans, especially males, there.)On the other hand, the percentage of African American and Hispanic/Latino students would drop at places like Harvard. The number of underrepresented students at Stuyvescent and TJ is very low indeed. Would Pinker advocate that the most elite schools in the US have tiny percentages of these students? He does not say so, but he knows this would be the result and I think he is needs to put on his pragmatist’s hat and understand that these groups should be represented on campuses at the most elite universities in the US.Another change that would occur would be economic. I use this word in two ways. The first, the student body would change, as on average, low-income students tend to score lower on tests than those from high-income families. He is aware that the SAT comes under critical scrutiny from the likes of Deresiewicz and many, many educators:“As for Deresiewicz’s pronouncement that “SAT is supposed to measure aptitude, but what it actually measures is parental income, which it tracks quite closely,” this is bad social science. SAT correlates with parental income (more relevantly, socioeconomic status or SES), but that doesn’t mean it measures it; the correlation could simply mean that smarter parents have smarter kids who get higher SAT scores, and that smarter parents have more intellectually demanding and thus higher-paying jobs. Fortunately, SAT doesn’t track SES all that closely (only about 0.25 on a scale from -1 to 1), and this opens the statistical door to see what it really does measure. The answer is: aptitude. Paul Sackett and his collaborators have shown that SAT scores predict future university grades, holding all else constant, whereas parental SES does not. Matt McGue has shown, moreover, that adolescents’ test scores track the SES only of their biological parents, not (for adopted kids) of their adoptive parents, suggesting that the tracking reflects shared genes, not economic privilege.”Pinker cites data here, but he does not know, I guess, how hard it is for low income kids to compete when they attend crummy schools in which learning is anything but encouraged among peers, and in which teachers are not often superstars. There are tiny percentages of students at the lowest economic end who can rise to the top of the testing pool, but there are many factors that Pinker leaves out in his “proof” here, so that I think he is overstating his case.One thing he brings up that is virtually never mentioned when it comes to admission: genes. Pinker believes that students are born with a certain amount of intelligence and it varies based on genetic inheritance. There certainly is a lot data to back this up, but among most in education “all men (sic) are created equal”. In other words, Pinker must realize that those in education are in the business of promoting equality rather than difference when it come to inherited intelligence. I am on Pinker’s side when it comes to understanding that while we may all just be people, some people are smarter than others and it isn’t just upbringing that makes this happen. But at the same time, circumstances affect lives, at least according to some researchers, about as much as genetics and Pinker does not address this.The other economic issue Pinker does not address is how making admission test based will hurt any school in the pocketbook. While it may be true that more high income kids will get in with a single test option, that does not always translate into dollars except for tuition, but tuition does not even cover the whole cost of education let alone permit new programs. A book, written a while ago, "The Price of Admission", by Dan Golden, looked at the way schools like Harvard take rich kids even if they aren’t academic superstars. They don’t have to be legacies (and to be fair to legacies, the stats at Harvard show most of them are as good or better at testing than any other group) but they have to be super rich. The book got a lot of people angry. Why should the rich get a break after all?Here is what I have said to groups about this topic. Suppose a school makes a decision to accept a student who is the chid of a billionaire. Suppose the billionaire gives millions for a building or funds a chair or creates a whole new program for students? A rich student who works hard enough will graduate and likely have a good life. He or she may even give lots of money in the future. But the parent who gives millions for something tangible has created something that will benefit many. A building can last for a century or more. 4 years of a kid on campus who wouldn’t have gotten in otherwise does not seem to me to be that high a moral price.If things were different in this country I would not argue for this but the fact is that there is very little money being given to colleges and universities by the government. They do provide some for financial aid, but they aren’t often funding buildings or academic programs on taxpayers' dimes. Even state supported schools have experienced huge budget cuts over the last decade. In addition, research dollars from the government have been cut significantly too. Schools need money, even those with multibillion-dollar endowments. Not a lot of people know that the biggest debt holders among colleges are those at the very top. Banks give them huge loans because they know their credit is good. Schools are not awash in cash. They don’t touch the principal of an endowment. If they did they would soon start having to cut things.Without big money coming in from donations schools will not be able to do some of the things they need to do to stay the best in the world. China has pledged a trillion dollars to education. They are pouring money into building state of the art labs, opening new programs and schools and a whole lot more. While US schools still top the list of best schools both in the US News and in world rankings, without money and investment in research, the next generation will see a decline in the prestige of a US education. If you don’t believe me, look at the stats of graduate students applying to the US from China. The number has declined for several years in a row, but this has not been given much press because schools in the US are enrolling many undergraduates from China to help pay the bills (virtually all of them are full payers). Schools make decisions that have to do with the economic health of the institution and that is something Pinker does not address.I also feel the need to point out a couple of logical fallacies that come into play in Pinker’s words. While Pinker is a world-class scientist that does not mean he is an expert on Harvard admission. To assume his words carry great weight on his topic because of his status as a scientist is not logical:argumentum ad verecundiam (also known as: argument from authority, appeal to false authority, argument from false authority, ipse dixit, testimonials [form of])Definition: Using an authority as evidence in your argument when the authority is not really an authority on the facts relevant to the argument. As the audience, allowing an irrelevant authority to add credibility to the claim being made.Logical Form:According to person 1, Y is true.Therefore, Y is trueIf Pinker is really just another interested party rather than someone who has spent a lot of time researching Harvard’s admission practices, he should not be given much weight for his opinions unless he backs up what he says with data. That is what the scientific method teaches us and so does the study of logic. He does provide some data and some of it I have quoted here, but when it comes to admission he commits a logical fallacy that would earn him a low grade in an introductory philosophy class"At the admissions end, it’s common knowledge that Harvard selects at most10 percent (some say 5 percent) of its students on the basis of academic merit. …The rest are selected “holistically,” based also on participation in athletics, the arts, charity, activism, travel, and, we inferred (Not in front of the children!), race, donations, and legacy status (since anything can be hidden behind the holistic fig leaf)."argumentum ad antiquitatem(also known as: appeal to common practice, appeal to antiquity, proof from tradition, appeal to past practice, gadarene swine fallacy [form of], traditional wisdom)Description: Using historical preferences of the people (tradition), either in general or as specific as the historical preferences of a single individual, as evidence that the historical preference is correct. Traditions are often passed from generation to generation with no other explanation besides, “this is the way it has always been done”—which is not a reason, it is an absence of a reason.Logical Form:We have been doing X for generations.Therefore, we should keep doing X.Our ancestors thought X was right.Therefore, X is right.Instead of appealing to common wisdom, Pinker should have looked in The Harvard Crimson this week. They posted a 5 part series, filled with data, on the incoming class at Harvard. I think if he had read the data he might have altered some of his words. For example, he seems to think that the students at Harvard, aside from the 10% who get in on academics, are not the smartest, as measured by the SAT or some other test. If this were true he’d have a point, but here are the stats about SATs at Harvard:The average self-reported unweighted GPA on a 4.0 scale was 3.93. Fifty-four percent of students reported a perfect 4.0 or above, the same as last year, and the lowest score reported was a 3.3, a marginal increase over respondents to last year’s survey.Freshmen reported an average composite SAT score of 2228, in line with that of last year’s class. The reported average subject score was consistent across the three sections, with an average of 742 in the math section, 745 on writing, and 742 on critical reading.Class of 2018 By the NumbersWhat this data shows is that almost the entire class has earned scores at the very top, regardless of the use of ‘holistic admission’. What Pinker does not perhaps understand is that holistic admission is not a free for all. The first things readers look at are transcripts and testing. Schools are ranked based on average SAT scores (among many other things) so to maintain a top ranking admission offices at the most elite schools pick students with great testing across the board. I can’t speak for Harvard but I know one Ivy that has an unstated cutoff of 750 for those students not in special groups (athletes, under-represented students, and development cases and some legacies). Does Pinker think that by just using a core and increasing the average SAT a few points will make the class smarter?As a previous respondent has pointed out, the SAT does not distinguish well at top (It was not always this way, but the SAT was recentered a while back, so now many more students can score 800 as opposed to the handful who used to get perfect scores on both sections.). But there is more to it than that. The SAT is rather a blunt instrument. It does predict well at the end of the spectrum or at the end of the bell curve, but there is not data that I have seen (and I don’t think it exists) that says a scores of 2250 will predict less academic success that a 2350.The other big omission by Pinker is that he talks only about testing when testing is not nearly as good a predictor of academic success as academic program and performance in the program. These two things are far better measures of academic success. Adding SATS with them increases the predicting for success. And very high scores do predict success not just at school but in life too. Pinker is right about this, but again this is not something that educators want to promote so he is facing a hostile audience.In 2009, the Dean of Admission at Harvard, Bill Ftizsimmons, said the following: “We have found that the best predictors at Harvard are Advanced Placement tests and International Baccalaureate Exams, closely followed by the College Board subject tests. High school grades are next in predictive power, followed by the SAT and ACT. The writing tests of the SAT and ACT have predictive power similar to the subject tests”. The New York TimesPinker seems unaware of this data and statement as he does not mention AP or IB. He doesn’t mention SAT 2 Subject tests either. He does not mention grades and program. All told, he leaves out a great deal of information about what predicts success and what Harvard admission looks for. (I should add that after these remarks by Fitzsimmons, the rush to pile on AP courses on the part of students took an unhealthy turn. It used to be that a student taking 4 or 5 APs would be looked at as taking a great program. Now students often take more than 10 in high school. As a result Fitzsimons and others have backed off talking about APs and IB much.)Finally, Pinker seems to think that measuring smarts by testing is an easy way to get great kids. It’s a way of identifying kids who are smart in one way, but I wonder how much time he actually spends talking with students. I have interviewed thousands of students, and helped prep them for jobs and graduate school and internships too. Pinker may not think interviews help predict success but I can certainly say that I can tell after an interview if I would want that student in my class or not. A person who can talk well, ask great questions, demonstrate knowledge on a variety of subjects will be an active participant in class. Someone who may have great scores but does not show much interest in talking or even asking questions may write a great exam, but I don’t think he or she will add much value to the class itself and to the way knowledge grows when it is shared. The Greeks knew that knowledge is verbal or at least it is in a dialogue or a dialectical exchange. A lecture class is a different things altogether. A great test taker can sit and listen take a test and get an A, but I want someone with some soft skills in a seminar.Just this week, Mark Edmundson, a friend of mine, published a book on football and learning. He isn’t all for sports, but he isn't against them either. Like most things, there are some skills that can be learned that can help a person in school and in life that can come from an activity. And there are some bad things that can happen too. But Pinker does not address the development of certain life and learning skills tha can come from art, or sports or service etc.This makes me wonder a bit about whether he gets out much. I have been moved to tears by student productions, been changed by student activities, and taught by many students though conversations that did always center on academic topics. I owe my knowledge of the world far more to the international students I have spent countless hours with than I did reading about cultures in books. Education comes in lots of forms and Pinker misses this too.

Q. How do you feel about "Legacy" admissions to college? (admitted because other family members went there or large donation was made to college)Legacy preferences or legacy admission - WikipediaDoes being a “legacy” actually matter?What Are Legacy Admissions When Applying to College?10 Myths About Legacy Preferences in College AdmissionsWhat Is A College Legacy? What If You're Not a Legacy ?(Top 25 schools)Legacy preferences or legacy admission - Wikipedia is preference to certain applicants on the basis of their familial relationship to alumni of that institution, practiced almost exclusively at American colleges and universities. Widespread: almost three-quarters of research universities and nearly all liberal arts colleges.Schools vary how broadly extend preferences, with some only to children of undergraduate alumni, others extend to children, grandchildren, siblings, nephews, and nieces of alumni of undergraduates and graduates.Preferential treatment substantial bonus points on admissions assessments and extra consideration if initially rejected. As a body of entering freshmen, legacies almost invariably have substantially lower GPAs and SAT scores, and, during their undergraduate careers, typically perform worse. A 2005 analysis of 180,000 student records obtained from nineteen selective colleges and universities found legacy raised chances of admission by 20 percentage points.In recent decades, the use expanded to include admissions to graduate schools and professional fields of study, including law schools.Currently, the Ivy League admit 10% to 30% of each entering class using legacy admissions.For 2008 entering undergraduate class, U Penn 42% of legacies early decision and 34% regular admissions cycle, versus 29.3% all who applied early decision and 16.4% regular cycle.University of PennsylvaniaIn 2009, Princeton admitted 42% of legacy —more than 4.5 times the 9% rate of non-legacies. In 2006, Brown University 34% legacy, versus 14% overall admissions rate. In 2003, Harvard admitted 40% of legacy compared to the overall 11%. In short, Ivy League and other top schools typically admit legacies at two to five times their overall admission rates.Many colleges have various mechanisms for coaching legacies through the admissions process and for advising them about strategies for constructing successful applications. Common scholarships or tuition discounts earmarked for legacies and for legacies to be charged in-state tuition fees.Where legacies are rejected, some universities offer legacy admissions counseling and help with placement at other colleges. Such students encouraged to enroll at lesser ranked school, then to reapply as transfer students. U.S. News & World Report and other media take into account only the SAT scores and high school grades, college can accept poor achieving legacies as transfer students without hurting its standing. Harvard caters to the children of well-connected alumni and big donors through the "Z-list". Z-listers are often guaranteed admittance while in high school but obliged to take a year off between high school and attending Harvard, doing whatever they wish in the interim.At some schools, legacy preferences have an effect on admissions comparable to other factors such as being a recruited athlete or affirmative action. One study of three selective private research universities in the United States showed the following effects (admissions disadvantage and advantage in terms of SAT points on the new 1600-point scale):Blacks: +230Hispanics: +185Asians: -50Recruited athletes: +200Legacies (children of alumni): +160Initially appear students of color most favored, widespread favoring of legacies has greatly reduced acceptance rates for black, Latino, and Asian-American because overwhelming majority of legacy students are white. According to a 2008 study, Duke's legacies are more likely white, Protestant, citizens, private high-school and richer than overall student body. In 2000-2001, of 567 alumni children attending Princeton, 10 were Latino and 4 were black.In 1990, Education Department's Office of Civil Rights (OCR) determined Harvard admitted legacies twice the rate, explained why 18% of white applicants were admitted but only 13% of Asian-American applicants during the previous decade.Legacy students as an overall pool of applicants routinely have poorer grades and lower SAT scores than the general pool of applicants for undergraduate admissions (athletes excepted).In the 1990s, the University of California's Board of Regents banned affirmative action and legacy preference.In 2008, alumni donations 28% of all donations to higher education. Because private universities rely heavily on donations from alumni, critics argue legacy preferences indirectly sell university placement and perpetuating an oligarchy and plutocracy as they lower the weight of academic merit in exchange for financial one. Legacy students tend to be white wealthy, contributing to socioeconomic injustices and hinders economic mobility within society, in effect creating a de facto caste system.Decision to prefer legacies has not been shown to increase donations. Several institutions do extremely well without legacy admissions, including MIT and Caltech.Some supporters of elimination of all non-academic preferences point out highly selective institutions such as Oxford and Cambridge, do not use legacy, or athletic preferences.In public schools, legacy preferences may violate the Nobility Clause and the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution by creating a hereditary privilege and discriminating on the basis of ancestry. Legacy preferences in both public and private universities may be illegal under the Civil Rights Act of 1866 (now codified in Section 1981 of the U.S. Code).Does being a “legacy” actually matter?A study of thirty elite colleges, found that primary legacy students are an astonishing 45% more likely to get into a highly selective college or university than a non-legacy. Secondary legacies receive a lesser pick-me-up of 13%. One study revealed that being a legacy was equivalent in admissions value to a 160 point gain on the SATs (on a 1600 point scale). At Harvard, third offered admission are legacy. Fellow Ivies, U Penn and Brown admit upwards of 33% of legacies, double overall admit rate. Princeton, with minuscule 7% admissions rate, admit over 40% of legacy.Three-quarters of all research institutions and liberal arts colleges factor legacy status into admissions decisions. All Ivies and many other ultra-elite private schools such as Georgetown, Duke, Swarthmore, Middlebury, Amherst, and Tufts. A much smaller number of highly-selective schools openly oppose granting favor to legacy status. MIT, CalTech, and Cooper Union.Other schools, such as Stanford and UNC, only take primary legacy into consideration. Much heavier consideration to parent attended undergraduate school versus graduate.Why do schools care? Publicly, institutions defend as way to respect tradition and acknowledge those who helped to lay the foundation. “Intergeneration continuity.” There is little question that legacy schools expect that they will receive greater financial contributions in exchange for keeping things in the family. One major study found that schools who grant legacy status actually had no fund raising advantage over schools who do not.What Are Legacy Admissions When Applying to College? In general, parents and siblings are the only people who matter. Couple reasons, both having to do with loyalty:Future Donors. Family more than one person attended, greater-than-average loyalty to the school. More alumni donations down the road.Yield. Legacy already familiar with the college, and better yield than general applicant pool.10 Myths About Legacy Preferences in College AdmissionsBy Richard D. Kahlenberg SEPTEMBER 22, 20101. Legacy preferences are just a "tie breaker" in close calls.Princeton's Thomas Espenshade research suggests that their legacy weight is significant, on the order of adding 160 SAT points to a candidate's record. William Bowen, of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and colleagues found that, legacy increased one's chances of admission to a selective institution by 20 percentage points. Given student whose academic record gave her a 40-percent chance of admissions would have nearly a 60-percent chance.Children of alumni generally make up 10 to 25 percent of the student body at selective institutions. At Cal Tech, which does not use legacy preferences, only 1.5 percent.2. Legacy preferences have an honorable history of fostering loyalty at America's great institutions of higher learning.Legacies originated following World War I as a reaction to an influx of immigrant students, particularly Jews, into America's selective colleges. As Jews often outcompeted traditional constituencies on standard meritocratic criteria, universities adopted Jewish quotas. When explicit quotas became hard to defend, the universities began to use more-indirect means to limit Jewish enrollment, including considerations of "character," geographic diversity, and legacy status.3. Legacy preferences are a necessary evil to support the financial vitality of colleges and universities—including the ability to provide scholarships for low-income and working-class students.No statistically significant evidence of a causal relationship between legacy-preference policies and total alumni giving at top universities.The researchers also examined giving at seven institutions that dropped legacy preferences during the period of the study. They found "no short-term measurable reduction in alumni giving as a result of abolishing legacy preferences."Legacy preferences not necessary to maintain high standards of excellence. Caltech, Berkeley, Oxford, and Cambridge do not employ legacy preferences.4. After a generation of affirmative action, legacy preferences are finally beginning to help families of color. Pulling the rug out now would hurt minority students.In fact, legacy preferences continue to disproportionately hurt students of color. Underrepresented minorities make up 12.5 percent of the applicant pool at selective colleges and universities but only 6.7 percent of the legacy-applicant pool. At Harvard, only 7.6 percent of legacy admits in 2002 were underrepresented minorities, compared with 17.8 percent of all students. At the University of Virginia, 91 percent of early-decision legacy admits in 2002 were white, 1.6 percent black, and 0.5 percent Hispanic.5. An attack on legacy preferences could indirectly hurt affirmative-action policies by suggesting that "merit" is the only permissible basis for admissions.Legacy disproportionately benefit whites and reduces, rather than enhance, racial and ethnic diversity in higher education. Legacy preferences explicitly classify individuals by bloodline and do so in a way that compounds existing hierarchy.6. Legacy preferences may be unfair, but they are not illegal. Unlike discrimination based on race, which is forbidden under the 14th Amendment, it is perfectly legal to discriminate based on legacy status, as the courts have held.Remarkably, legacy preferences have been litigated only once in federal court, applicant to UNC Chapel Hill Jane Cheryl Rosenstock, in the 1970s. A New York resident rejected,claimed constitutional rights violated by variety of preferences, including in-state, minorities, low-income, athletes, and legacies. Rosenstock was not compelling candidate—combined SAT score was about 850, substantially lower than most out-of-state applicants—and she was also a weak litigant. Never argued legacy preferences are hereditary, presented a "suspect" classification that should be judged by "strict scrutiny" standard under amendment's equal-protection clause.District-court judge in Rosenstock v. Board of Governors of UNC, held rational to believe alumni preferences translate into additional revenue to universities. A generation later, two new legal theories. First, Carlton Larson, law professor at UC Davis, legacy preferences at public universities violate constitutional provision "no state shall ... grant any Title of Nobility." Constitution prohibits "government-sponsored hereditary privileges"—including legacy preferences at public universities. The founders would have resisted the idea of state-supported-university admissions based even in part on ancestry.Steve Shadowen and Sozi Tulante argue legacy preferences violates 14th Amendment's equal-protection clause. Individuals are to be judged on their own merits, not by what their parents do. Civil Rights Act of 1866 prohibits discrimination on basis of both "race" and "ancestry." Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act outlaws discrimination only on the basis of "race, color, or national origin."7. Legacy preferences have been around a long time and are unlikely to ever go away, because powerful political forces support them.Americans oppose legacy preferences by 75 percent to 23 percent, and in the past decade or so, 16 leading institutions have abandoned them. As affirmative-action programs come under increasing attack, legacy preferences become even harder to justify politically.Legacy preferences are unstable. Assuming true entice alumni larger donations than otherwise would— IRS regulations raise questions about whether those donations should be tax deductible. If universities and colleges are conferring a monetary benefit in exchange for donations, then arrangement "shatters first principle underlying charitable deduction, that donations not 'enrich the giver.'" IRS regulations place universities in a legal Catch-22: Either donations are not linked to legacy preferences, fundamental rationale for ancestry discrimination is flawed; or giving is linked to legacy preferences, not tax deductible.8. Legacy preferences don't keep nonlegacy applicants out of college entirely. They just reduce the chances of going to a particular selective college, so the stakes are low.54 percent of America's corporate leaders and 42 percent of governmental leaders are graduates of just 12 institutions.9. Everyone does it. Legacies are just an inherent reality in higher education throughout the world.Legacy preferences are almost exclusively American custom." The irony, also deeply un-American.” Thomas Jefferson famously sought to promote in America a "natural aristocracy" based on "virtue and talent," rather than an "artificial aristocracy" based on wealth. For the most part, American higher education sought to democratize, opening doors to women, people of color, and financially needy. Legacy preferences are an outlier in that trend.Richard D. Kahlenberg, a senior fellow at the Century Foundation, is the editor of Affirmative Action for the Rich: Legacy Preferences in College Admissions.What Is A College Legacy? What If You're Not a Legacy?A legacy is usually a child of a graduate. If one or both of your parents graduated from a school. In short, colleges believe admitting legacies keep alumni involved, and ensure new generation of active alumni. “Legacy can cure the sick, but it can’t raise the dead.” It’s far from a guarantee of admission.RoadmapThree examples of top schools (Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania, and MIT) regard legacy status. Review top 25 schools (according to US News) favor legacies, based on quotes from admissions and/or alumni websites.Harvard College: “An Additional Look”Harvard values legacies to a degree. The sons and daughters of Harvard alumni would get “an additional look” if they couldn’t decide between otherwise comparable candidates.According to the Class of 2018 survey, 16% of students at Harvard have at least one parent who is an alumnus. In a 2011 article in the Harvard Crimson, legacies are admitted at a rate of 30%. Given Harvard’s acceptance rates hover just below 6% – that’s a pretty big advantage!That said, children of Harvard alumni are more likely to have grown up with more money, gone to better schools, and received superior college counseling, meaning that their legacy status may have more inadvertently caused them to get in, rather than being the deciding factor.University of Pennsylvania: Legacy Matters, but Matters More When You Apply EarlyThe University of Pennsylvania notes on website “Children and grandchildren of alumni will receive the most consideration for their affiliation with the University during Early Decision.”Legacies get in at a rate of 40% plus. Four times overall admission rate of 10%. (About 13% of the Class of 2018 has legacy status.)Furthermore, alumni get additional admissions resources, including monthly “First Friday Drop-In Hours,” which are information sessions especially for alumni, faculty, and staff and their children held on campus, and “Inside Penn Admissions” page, www.admissions.upenn.edu/inside.”MIT: "We Don't Do Legacy"MIT prides itself on being as meritocratic as possible, so they don’t consider the legacy status of students applying. So even if both your parents graduated from MIT, that won’t help you get in!That makes for a more level playing field for candidates applying to MIT, even though it’s a very tough field to play on. (Read the most recent admission stats for MIT over at their website.)The Top 25: Who Cares About Legacy?Colleges that Do Value LegaciesBrown UniversityFrom the Brown Daily Herald: "Having a parent who attended Brown comes into play when applicants “are essentially equivalent,” in which case admission officers “will tilt toward the candidate whose parents attended the college,” Miller said. Admission officers give “small” consideration to grandparent legacy status and “almost no” weight to sibling legacy cases, he added."Legacy status is a "tilt" or "push" in an applicant's favor.Carnegie Mellon UniversityCarnegie Mellon offers special events for legacies and their families, including preferential seating at graduation.Columbia UniversityColumbia has a policy quite similar to Harvard's: "When an applicant is extremely competitive and compares favorably with other similarly talented candidates, being daughter/ son of Columbia University graduate may be a slight advantage.”Cornell UniversityFrom Cornell Daily Sun: "According to statistics released by Cornell, 15 percent of Cornell’s entire undergraduate population is comprised of legacy students. This figure is higher than percentages at many of Cornell’s Ivy League counterparts."Duke UniversityFrom the Duke alumni website: “The Admissions Office reads each student’s application twice. But for alumni-affiliated applications, the office provides an additional review to ensure no detail is missed. Being from an alumni family itself is a factor that admissions officers consider, knowing that such applicants would enter with a special understanding of Duke and its traditions. However, alumni affiliation is far from a guarantee of admission.”Emory UniversityFrom email with admissions office: "Office of Undergraduate Admissions values legacy connections of applicants and encourages students to detail their university ties accurately on their application. A legacy connection is considered as part of application, but no way a guarantee of admission."Georgetown UniversityWe called the admissions office and got this information: "In early action we don't review legacy, during regular decision we will…. it's not a huge factor, it's something that we will notice as part of an overall holistic review process."So in contrast to Penn, which gives most weight to legacies during early decision, Georgetown legacy status will only be considered under regular decision.Harvard UniversityAs discussed above, Harvard will give legacy applicants "an additional look" and admits them at a higher rate than non-legacy candidates.Johns Hopkins UniversityWe spoke to the admissions staff at Johns Hopkins to ask about how legacy status will affect an application. "It doesn't make a difference if you apply early or regular, you need to make sure that you correctly note your legacy status on the application. We'll look at it, it's not going to have a lot of weight."Northwestern UniversityFrom an email with the admissions office: "During the application process we do take into consideration whether a student has a sibling, parent, or grandparent that graduated from Northwestern. However, it is important to note that no admission decision will ever be made solely based on legacy status. In other words, this is just one additional positive piece of information that we look at, but will not be the deciding factor."University of Notre DameFrom the Notre Dame Observer: "The number of admitted legacy children remains higher than at most elite colleges, Bishop said. Twenty-four percent of this year’s admitted class is a legacy compared to about 12 percent at most top 10 schools, he said, but this is because legacy applicants tend to be very qualified."Princeton UniversityFrom an article in the Daily Princetonian: “Acceptance rate for alumni children and step-children has wavered without a specific trend between 35 and 42 percent since the Class of 2000, with the Class of 2018 hitting a record low of 31 percent, according to the Princeton Profiles.”Recall Princeton's regular admission rate is well below 10%, so the "low" of 31% is still quite high.Rice UniversityFrom email with admissions office: "No specific benefit implemented across the board for the children of alumni. Often, legacy status is viewed favorably, but mainly a function of student knowing about Rice-specific opportunities and being able to effectively communicate their interest in Rice through the supplement and visits to campus."Stanford UniversityLegacies are admitted at three times the rate of other applicants, according to a Stanford Magazine article, and admission is also dependent on how engaged the alumni have been with the university.University of Chicago (U Chicago)“Legacy status is something that we can consider, but in a holistic admissions process, it is one of many many factors that will be a part of our decision-making process—and would not be something that could overcome an otherwise lackluster application.”University of Pennsylvania (U Penn)As we discussed above, the University of Pennsylvania favors legacy applicants and provides extra services to legacy families.University of Southern California (USC)We called USC and spoke an an admissions representative: "We certainly want to know you have a parent who graduated from USC…that piece of information would certainly be of interest for us."USC only has a regular decision plan, and an earlier deadline for scholarships (December 1st). Legacy status will not factor at all into scholarship consideration.University of Virginia (U Va)University of Virginia has an admission liaison program set up to help children of alumni navigate the admissions process. This is notable since they’re a public university, and public universities are much less likely to notice and favor legacy ties. (University of Michigan favors legacies as well.)Vanderbilt UniversityFrom the Vanderbilt Admissions FAQs: "the admissions office has received no mandate from the university administration to grant preference to the children or siblings of Vanderbilt alumni. When a student‘s record closely mirrors those of other students being offered admission, legacy status may be taken into consideration."So similar to the Harvard policy, legacy status could be tipping factor.Washington University in Saint Louis (Wash U)From an email with the adissions office: "We take into account that your family has ties to the university, however, we still evaluate each student on the merits of their own application."Yale UniversityFrom a New York Times article: ““We turn away 80 percent of our legacies, and we feel it every day,” Mr. Brenzel said, adding that he rejected more offspring of the school’s Sterling donors than he accepted this year (Sterling donors are among the most generous contributors to Yale). He argued that legacies scored 20 points higher on the SAT than the rest of the class as a whole. “Still, 20% of legacies getting in is still a much higher rate than the average admission rate at Yale, which last year reached a low of 6%.Colleges That Don't Value LegaciesThese schools offer zero consideration or additional help to children of alumni in the admissions process.California Institute of Technology (Caltech)From a 2010 article: "throughout its history Caltech has never been interested in reaching out in any special way to alumni children, and according to one estimate, less than 2 percent of its current undergraduate students have a parent who attended the university. This compares with many other elite private colleges and universities where legacy students comprise as much as 10-15 percent of each entering class (at Notre Dame the figure is close to one-quarter)."Caltech mentioned alongside MIT as a "top research school" with no legacy preference.Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)As we dicussed above, MIT, grants no weight to legacy status during application review.University of California Berkeley (UC Berkeley)UC Berkeley does not consider legacy status.Further Reading:First of all, learn more about why some colleges value legacy ties so much. Next, get an in-depth look at the admissions process at Stanford as well as how legacies seem to be favored (“The percentage of alumni children admitted to Stanford is roughly three times the overall percentage of acceptance: somewhere in the mid to high teens"). Also learn about the other side – what happens when a legacy kid doesn’t get in.Finally, here is a link to a study that found legacy applicants have vastly increased odds of admission, which has been quoted in many op-eds against the practice, including The New York Times and The Harvard Crimson.