How Does Legacy Affect College Admissions?

Today, there is much discourse around improving the fairness and inclusivity of college admissions.  Ideally, admissions should be based on academic and extracurricular strength alone.

However, a college has to run itself like a business, and it’s undeniable that accepting legacy students is financially beneficial for colleges. But why? Let’s explore what it means to be a legacy applicant in 2022.

What does it mean to be a legacy?

Being a “legacy” applicant at a college means someone in your family has previously attended that institution. There are different types of legacy applicants: 

• Being a “primary legacy” gives applicants the greatest leg up: this means that either one or both of your parents attended that university. 

• Being a “secondary legacy” is not as important, but can still help with admissions. Secondary legacies have a relative that is not their parent who attended the school of interest (siblings, grandparents, aunts, uncles, etc.).

Why does being a legacy matter?

Admissions departments don’t like to straight out state that legacies are beneficial for the school’s endowment (basically, the monetary assets that a school invests to support its educational resources, infrastructure, faculty, and other needs). But as we said before, colleges are businesses; smart applicants know this, and use it to their advantage. 

While colleges may claim (often in fine print) that they favor legacies for the vague benefit of community building across generations of alumni and students, the reality is that…

accepting legacies = more money in the school’s pocket.

Schools favor legacies because there is a greater chance of receiving donor money from legacy families.

What about schools that don’t favor legacies?

You may have heard that Amherst College got rid of its admission policy that favored legacy applicants-- legacies have historically made up 11% of Amherst’s freshman classes. This has caused some other schools, including Yale and Brown, to face some pressure to revise their own policies (which seems unlikely). 

While some elite institutions, like MIT and Texas A&M, have successfully banned the favoring of legacies in their admissions processes (with no drastic economic repercussions), about 75% of the United States’ top 100 universities take legacy into account when decision making.

If you are not a legacy applicant, do not fret! Legacy students still make up the minority of student bodies, and the strength of the candidate’s application is much more important to most schools. 

How can I use being a legacy (or not being a legacy) to my advantage?

Just because you are a legacy does not mean you will be automatically accepted into the university. Your grades, extracurricular involvement, test scores, and application essays must all be excellent to be considered for admission to elite institutions.

In order to maximize the benefits of the applicant’s legacy status, alumni parents should be sure to consistently involve themselves with the institution in question, from participation in alumni events to networking with other alumni, and donation if possible. 

Applicants can usually state if they have relatives that have attended the school in their application. However, be careful to not be heavy handed in pushing your legacy status. Remember, schools are shy about favoring legacies outright.

If you are not a legacy, again, there is no reason to stress. Schools are primarily interested in accepting strong students who will contribute to their school community, regardless of legacy status. That being said, if you want to have a sense of which schools favor legacy more than others, or how to best position yourself for acceptance into an elite university, schedule a free consultation with our college acceptance experts.