Monday, March 26, 2007/Chronicle of Higher Education

By PETER SCHMIDT

Children of alumni are uniquely harmed by admissions preferences, study finds



A new study by researchers at Princeton University has found that the children of alumni -- commonly known as "legacies" -- are far more likely than minority students or athletes to run into academic trouble in college if admissions preferences got them through the door.

The farther a selective college lowers the bar for a given legacy applicant -- as measured by the gap between that applicant's grade-point average and the mean for that institution -- the lower the grade-point average that the student is likely to earn, according to a paper written by the two researchers who conducted the study, Douglas S. Massey, a professor of sociology and public affairs, and Margarita Mooney, a postdoctoral fellow in Princeton's Office of Population Research.

What's more, those selective colleges that are the most committed to admitting the children of alumni have the highest dropout rates among such students, says the paper, published in the current issue of the journal Social Problems.

The paper says the researchers found that students who had received extra consideration in admission because they are black, Hispanic, or athletes did not have the same academic problems as legacies, as measured by grades or retention rates, even if college policies of giving minority students and athletes extra consideration in admissions appeared to have some drawbacks.

"We do not expect these findings to settle the debate on affirmative action," Mr. Massey and Ms. Mooney wrote. "We do hope, however, that they enable readers to place the issue of minority affirmative action in a broader context, viewing it as just one of several programs to target a subgroup of students affirmatively."

Barmak Nassirian, an associate executive director of the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers, said on Friday that the study's findings "just pile on more evidence that institutions ought to take a careful look at what they are doing on legacies."

Mr. Nassirian added, however, that "in fairness to institutions, it is important to note that they are engaged in a very important form of cost-benefit analysis." By lowering the bar for some legacy applicants, Mr. Nassirian said, colleges may generate widespread goodwill among alumni, resulting in the donation of money that colleges can use to help "the very students we want to support -- meritorious but needy students."

The study was based on data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Freshmen, which covers about 3,900 students who entered 28 public and private selective colleges in the fall of 1999.

The researchers found that the selective colleges gave less of an edge to legacies than either to athletes or to black or Hispanic students. About 70 percent of athletes, 77 percent of black and Hispanic students, and just 48 percent of legacies had SAT scores below their institution's average. Among those students who appeared to have benefited from extra consideration in admissions, the average bump upward given to a legacy was about 47 SAT points, while athletes and black or Hispanic students appeared to get an edge equal to about 108 SAT points.

On the whole, legacies fared better than the other two populations studied in terms of grades; their mean grade-point average at the end of two years of college was 3.26, compared with 3.12 for athletes and 3.05 for students categorized as black or Hispanic. In terms of their retention rates, legacies were in the middle: 5 percent of athletes, 7 percent of legacies, and 11 percent of black or Hispanic students had dropped out by the end of their junior year.

In conducting their research, Mr. Massey and Ms. Mooney theorized that college policies of granting preference may affect students at both the individual and the institutional level. In other words, a student may be harmed or helped directly by the admissions preference he or she received, or indirectly through the broader consequences of a college's policy of giving an admissions edge to certain groups of students. Legacy students appeared vulnerable on both fronts, earning lower grades than other students if they personally benefited from preferences and being more likely to drop out at those colleges that gave legacy applicants the biggest edge.

Athletes, like legacies, were more likely to drop out of those colleges that seemed most bent on admitting them. But their grades at such colleges actually were higher than the grades of athletes at other colleges, and the individual athletes who received extra consideration did not seem more likely to drop out or earn low grades than other athletes who got in without a thumb's being placed on the scale.

Individual students categorized as either black or Hispanic likewise did not seem harmed by getting extra consideration in admission. But enrolling in a college with an especially aggressive affirmative-action policy seemed to both help and harm. The dropout rates of black and Hispanic students at such institutions were lower than at other colleges, but, on average, those students' grades were not as high as those of their black and Hispanic peers who went elsewhere.

Mr. Massey and Ms. Mooney said the lower academic performance of students at such colleges provides support for "the social-subversion hypothesis," which posits that "a large gap between minority students and others at an institution challenges the legitimacy of their presence on campus, thereby creating a social climate within which it is difficult for them to function effectively."

Interesting.

Blacks are the lowest on the totem poll when it comes to preferential admissions, but we are made the poster child. As with preferences in jobs and contracting, white households receive most of the benefits.

quote:

The researchers found that the selective colleges gave less of an edge to legacies than either to athletes or to black or Hispanic students. About 70 percent of athletes, 77 percent of black and Hispanic students, and just 48 percent of legacies had SAT scores below their institution's average. Among those students who appeared to have benefited from extra consideration in admissions, the average bump upward given to a legacy was about 47 SAT points, while athletes and black or Hispanic students appeared to get an edge equal to about 108 SAT points.

For me, it would more believable if they stated the HBCUs studied, if any. I'm not sure about other HBCUs but I don't think your legacy status makes a difference in admissions. I'm sure it's welcomed and expected