Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin signed a bill banning the consideration of legacy to public universities, making the commonwealth the second state to end admission advantages through family connections.
These ties to alumni and donors cannot be taken into consideration for application under the terms of House Bill 48, which the Republican Youngkin signed on Friday.
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on The Race Is On, And It’s Getting WeirdIf anything, it's addicted to it.
on The Race Is On, And It’s Getting WeirdAn assumption that makes no sense.
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That’s the University of Richmond and the University of Virginia.Report
Virginia has rather a few Top Tier State Schools schools that folks forget about: UVA, William & Mary, and VA Tech are National top 75… Then George Mason, JMU and VCU for next 100 national rankings. There’s really something for everyone at some VA state funded school. Not just THE U or some such for other states.Report
I’ve been told by people who are much better than I am that, as an opponent of affirmative action—and therefore obviously a white supremacist—I’m supposed to be mad about this, because it disproportionately benefits white people.
Oddly, I’m not. I wonder what’s up with that.Report
If you’re an opponent of race-based criteria in university admissions, it makes you more an Asian-supremacist than a white supremacist.
But to unnecessarily steelman the accusation, I think the thought process is not so much that you’re supposed to support legacy admissions, it’s that spending so much more time talking about AA than about legacy admits is supposed to reveal that you are not in support of fairness for its own sake but only to exclude the beneficiaries of AA.Report
I don’t know that I’ve ever seen someone argue that universities ought to keep legacies.
I’ve seen arguments that getting rid of legacies won’t “work”.
I’ve seen arguments that getting rid of legacies will solve a different problem than the one that the pro-AA people will want to have solved.
I, myself, have pointed out that “rubbing shoulders with legacies” is one of the actual benefits of going to a place with legacies and so getting rid of legacies actually makes going to the ivies less of a good thing rather than more of one.
But I’ve never seen someone argue that universities ought to keep them. Like, earnestly.
But I’ve never seen a legacy or a university administrator pick up the topic. They do a very good job of not engaging in the argument.Report
Aside from the legacy admissions themselves, the only natural constituency I can think of for it would be the universities that use it as part of their fund raising strategy.Report
The part I haven’t seen well detailed is the difference between “legacy” academic performance and “normal students”.
Given that “rich enough to be someone the U wants to cultivate” maps pretty well with “rich enough to throw money at your kids’ education”, I assume “legacies” can mostly get into the U on their own.
The entire thing may be a non-issue.Report
Have you ever heard the term “Gentleman’s C”?Report
It depends on the acceptance rate, doesn’t it?
George Mason = 81%
UVA = 20%
Harvard = 5%
Most legacies can get in to GMU without needing any legacy help… but by the time you’re competing for a slot at Harvard — even if you are a reasonably bright legacy — you leverage whatever boxes you can tick to edge out those 1st generation posers.Report
There should be a distinction between Private and Public universities.
Private Uni’s won’t eliminate Legacies for precisely the reasons you mention: The Legacies *are* the reason… plus fundraising.
But Public Uni’s shouldn’t have legacies as they shouldn’t have stakeholders who cultivate legacy exclusivities.
…of course fundraising off the promise of a special consideration? Tempting even for State sponsored schools. Then again, the legacy checkbox for a Virginia school is a box oft ticked in Virginia — so not all that compelling of a list.Report
I would like to think that the mission of public schools is such that it would be a no brainer. Of course I assume what I would like to think the mission of public schools is probably diverges in some significant ways from those that make the decisions.Report
All long-lived organizations (ie, they survive while multiple generations of mere humans are born, grow, and die) depend to some extent on tradition. Part of that is legacy recruiting: Dad belonged, and Grandma belonged, and now I’m going to belong. I’m sure, for example, that Army recruiters put a bit more oomph in their pitch when they’re dealing with someone whose family has Army veterans in the previous generation. Every few years my undergraduate school’s alumni magazine publishes an article highlighting current students who are third or even fourth generation attendees. Some legacy applicants who aren’t otherwise quite qualified get in; sometimes the tradition is the difference for a highly-qualified legacy applicant choosing their parents’ school over an alternative.Report