Here's a specific school market! (for 2025)

https://manifold.markets/IsaacLiu/in-2025-which-colleges-will-announc

In 2025, which colleges will announce they are ending legacy admissions?

An announcement legacy admissions are ending this year or are winding down to end some future year will count. A state/federal legal change is not enough, the school has to say they are changing admissions policy to comply. It doesn't have to be an official press release, a spokesperson saying something about it is enough. The question concerns undergrad/bachelor's only. Please add answers! Also feel free to comment links/sources to help resolve.

Banned at Stanford + USC + many other California schools.

Out of mana! This should be around 20%, however I am broke

One way this resolves yes: human extinction.

@MartinRandall counterpoint: the existence of humans doesn't change the policies of their institutions. would the removal of all ivy league schools turn this YES? I'd be surprised

@Stralor I think avoiding legacy humans also de facto abolishes legacy admissions.

Oh well, I'll leave it to the genocidal AIs to figure out the resolution in that case.

Not an Ivy league, but still: https://triblive.com/news/children-relatives-of-alumni-no-longer-have-admissions-edge-at-carnegie-mellon-pitt/

Children, relatives of alumni no longer have admissions edge at Carnegie Mellon, Pitt

For decades, Carnegie Mellon University viewed whether a student applicant was related to alumni as an “important” or “considered” factor in admissions decisions. But it appears that legacies, as children or relatives of alumni are called, no longer have an edge in admissions…

@JuriChome CMU has already had a tiered loyalty society for donors for quite some time. That's where they make the most of their money. Their alumni giving program is much smaller than that of any ivy league school. They are both elite schools, but it's a wildly different alumni culture. You can't equivalize tech schools and ivies in that regard.

This news means nothing IMO.

I think if you ask the general question "will a business remove a highly profitable component of their business model?" the answer pretty clearly seems like "absolutely not, unless some tremendous outside pressure compels them to."

Given that the outrage brigade currently seems angrier about losing the ability to discriminate against asian students than they do about highly successful people being able to guarantee their kids' success, I would be tremendously surprised if any sort of large public campaign against legacy admissions even gets formed, and I'd rate its odds of success even lower.

@AndrewHartman I follow that logic for donor admissions. How are legacy admissions important to the business model? Just a general correlation that they will likely end up donating in later life? Or does "legacy" secretly mean legacy+donor, and if your parents went somewhere and didn't "donate" then you get blocked?

@MartinRandall The difference in actual education between an Ivy and another top state or private school is essentially nil. The fact that they can charge multiples of their competition's tuition for their service rests mostly on the fact they're selling access to the legacy students for the rest of the student body.

Maybe this is an overly cynical view of their model, but I think it explains the facts better than the vague "prestige" argument, don't you?

@MartinRandall Legacies have much higher yield (which AOs always seek to maximize). An admitted legacy student is all but guaranteed to enroll. I also recall a study that stated that 42% of legacies were flagged as top donor candidates by elite colleges (vs 6% for the general student body), so it does presumably have significant revenue effects as well.

@jeremiahsamroo Legacies are also much more involved alumni, which ivies care about a great deal.

In short, the material benefits of legacy admissions outweigh the diversity drawbacks and the meritocratic benefits/drawbacks are equivocal.

@jeremiahsamroo Elite colleges have been investing in first gen low income recruiting for some time now and this is likely where new diversity efforts will be pushed, given that white & asian students have significantly higher incomes and are less likely to be first gen college students.

This makes it all but guaranteed that ivies+ will double down on legacy admissions to ensure that they have a stable revenue producing base, as FGLI students are significantly less loyal alumni & donors.

😹

LOL never

@jeremiahsamroo How would this resolve if they got rid of legacy admits but kept the deans list (particularly noteworthy legacy families, megadonors, and friends of the college)?

@jeremiahsamroo From what it looks like, MIT does not have a dean's list, so this would still resolve NO. Please correct me if I'm wrong

@cc6 ok, yeah that's what I thought. Ivies may nominally remove legacy admissions (like 5% chance) but they will never remove the dean's interest list