Legacy should have been abolished long time ago. It’s the epitome of systematic racism.
There's not enough room for all the qualified applicants.
Choosing based on family is less fair than a lottery but it's not like a lottery is very good either.
This system doesn’t really exist in Canada so I’m finding it very interesting
Legacy gets one looked at. Its not an automatic admission.
Unlesss you are simply stating that legacy admissions should be disqualified (this would be ridiculous), then also consider that:
you may be making the "research" error of uncontrolled variables that include the fact that legacy kids are likely to be smart, their parents are astute enough to track them in a manner that makes them better candidates on average, and that their parents are more aware of the process that they can relate to the child.
Al leading to a statistically significant rate of legacy admissions that has nothing at all to do with unfairness.
It's systematic racism because legacy admission has been part of the official admission system for the longest time. It's a system to favor the incumbents, the riches, the powerful, and the non-minority.
I'm not that familiar with the US legacy system but even if it is just "we'll definitely take a look at your application" that isn't competing on even ground is it?
It might not guarantee you a place but it's clearly an unfair advantage.
Versus say a public school (American) candidate who gets filtered out earlier because they graduated in the middle of their class.
I don't recall anyone promising anyone else a perfectly even playing field down to the most minuscule detail.
The people arguing that point seem to be demanding a social standard and then working from the assumption that it is a shared standard, value, and may even be the law. None of which is true.
But the more important points are at the end of my last post, which point to the fact that people arguing against the rate of legacy admissions haven't a leg to stand on without first controlling for obvious variables.
Neither do I but that doesn't mean that we should make trivial changes to even the playing field where possible. Especially when that trivial change is just to stop doing something that is very obviously unfair.
At this point I'm guessing you or your children benefited from the legacy system and don't want to feel guilty about it because I can't really imagine any other reason to defend the system. It's very obviously unfair, and there is very obviously no good reason to keep it (other than money of course).
> people arguing against the rate of legacy admissions haven't a leg to stand on without first controlling for obvious variables.
You don't need to do any statistical analysis to prove it has an effect to know that it is unfair. Like, if you took fair dice and then sanded one side slightly, you don't need to actually do any actual analysis to know that you shouldn't do that because there are no possible good effects and one possible bad effect.
Legacy isn't fairness "down to the most minuscule detail" it is a significant part of admissions procedures, written into the rules. It would be reduce the complexity of admissions to simply throw out all legacy-related text. If it indeed provides no help to those legacy students, surely that's a win-win for everyone?
1. does having a parent who is an alum make a student more qualified?
2. does having a parent who is an alum increase the likelihood of an applicant being accepted?
Calling it "systematic racism" may bring with it a lot of other cultural baggage at the moment, but I think fundamentally we can at least agree that Legacy Admissions are a way of preserving the status quo, in opposition to social mobility.
