This article represents one side of a conversation between two HPR writers on the topic of Harvard’s legacy admissions. See here for the other side.
Even after years of campaigns for diversity, increased financial aid, and accessibility to all students, Harvard’s campus still does not accurately reflect society today. A recent article in The Crimson, “What Should Harvard’s Legacy Be” urged the College to “eliminate legacy preference in admissions, to make the admissions process more transparent…and to actively strive toward a legacy of equal access for its many qualified applicants” in order to better combat its homogeneity. Unfortunately, in a society dominated by institutional benefits for the wealthy, preference for legacy applicants is a tiny detail in the larger picture of Harvard’s massively flawed “meritocracy.”
First of all, it must be established that legacy applicants don’t have such high acceptance rates simply because of their legacy status. Different studies have cited a multitude of statistics; the most commonly cited stating that in the 30 most elite universities, primary legacies are 45.1 percent more likely to be accepted. There is a fundamental problem with this data. These statistics not only downplay the merit of these applicants, but they also ignore the institutional educational benefits they have received. Being a Harvard legacy means that they are significantly more likely to come from a family of wealth that values education. The annual survey by The Crimson of the current freshman class states that on average, legacy students have higher test scores than their non-legacy counterparts. Furthermore, 37.3 percent of legacies come from families with incomes of $500,000 or more. They have more access to key resources such as college counselors, SAT tutors, and job or internship opportunities. All of these factors create a significantly more desirable college applicant. They aren’t being accepted to Harvard solely because they are legacies; they are being accepted because they are taking advantage of the plethora of resources at their disposal. And who can blame them?
There needs to be a complete overhaul of the college admissions process. The only preference—if any at all—should be given to students that come from particularly poor socioeconomic backgrounds. Of course they need to be just as qualified as their counterparts, but special consideration should be taken for the fact that they didn’t have the majority of opportunities that most of the current students at Harvard received. With almost half of Harvard undergraduates coming from the top 3.8 percent wealthiest families, there is clearly a lack of economic diversity.
So what should we take away from this? The problem of legacy admissions really isn’t its own entity; it’s a byproduct of the economically unequal society in which we live. Wealth disparities are perpetuated—if not widened—by the fact that it is extremely difficult to rise out of poverty and receive a top education. In his book, Affirmative Action for the Rich: Legacy Preferences in College Admissions, Richard Kahlenberg points out that alumni of just 12 elite institutions, who make up less than 1 percent of the United States population, occupy 42 percent of government leadership positions and 54 percent of business leadership positions.
The real question isn’t whether or not legacy students are qualified. Having, on average, higher standardized test scores and impressive resumes, they clearly are. The real problem is accounting for the fact that there are plenty of other qualified students who simply didn’t have the multitude of opportunities that they did. Ultimately, this can’t be solved only with Harvard eliminating all non-academic admission factors. The issue runs much deeper than that. There needs to be a better allocation of educational resources to students of lower socioeconomic status. It is the responsibility of local, state, and federal governments to ensure that budget discrepancies between school districts don’t continually widen the gap between the rich and the poor by creating unequal educational standards.
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