So you agree that Harvard shouldn’t need to factor in legacy status and instead use fairer metrics like SAT scores?

I do think legacy admissions should not be a strike against which seems inevitable now to prevent lawsuits and bad press. I also think legacy admits shouldn't be tarred as less qualified (a polite way to say dumber), affirmative action beneficiaries for white people, and spoiled.

Even if that was a concern, applicants could simply… not mention their legacy status? Or better yet, the application itself could just not collect that data?

I do think legacy admission status counts against now. The SFFA lawsuit accused Harvard of using legacy admissions of being a backdoor affirmative action for white people because the legacy admits were so disproportionately white. I think my point is that in a highly racial context, the facts are thrown out.

To your point, in California, there was a law that was passed in 2019 that requires reporting on legacy admissions now[1] so I think the school is obligated to collect this data (so idk what happens if an applicant omits it). And again, legacy admission status is accused of broadly being affirmative action for white people[2] without evidence.

The reason it counts against now is that if a qualified legacy student is accepted, the data on students must be made public, by law or by public interest. The higher the percent of legacy admits, the more the school is accused of letting unqualified people in, facts be damned. I think that is because of a highly tribal view of school admissions.

[1]: https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/california-lega...

[2]: https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/affirmative-action-white...

The California law you cite only applies to universities that collect and consider legacy data in the first place. Thus, your claim that “if a qualified legacy student is accepted, the data on students must be made public...” does not hold if the universities simply drop legacy status from consideration altogether, which is the goal here. If they don’t collect the data, they can’t be accused of anything.

Honestly, this manipulation of facts and narrative leads me to believe that you are pushing an agenda and not arguing in good faith.

Accusing it of being affirmative action for white people or for "the rich" pretty clearly means people want it to count against. I think you are deliberately ignoring that the SFFA lawsuit said this, politicians said this, and even people ITT said this and clearly these things reflect poorly on the university. There isn't any evidence that legacy admissions is affirmative action for white people or rich people though.

simply drop legacy status from consideration altogether

There isn't any evidence that legacy status counts for. You have never established that it does. Not one of the California schools in that article I cited says that legacy admits have an advantage. Here is Stanford's policy https://provost.stanford.edu/2020/06/26/admissions-considera.... CMU from the OP article said legacy status had no bearing on admissions for years. Harvard likewise. Their reasons for tracking legacy status are probably complicated. I concede at one point they were used to allow in less qualified students but that hasn't been the case for years. But tracking legacy status does not mean it is used to give favorable admissions. I do not believe it does and the legacy admits are probably qualified. That is clearly the case for Harvard. If you did not believe this, you are saying universities are lying about their policies.

So since the accusation that legacy admissions is affirmative action for white people is disingenuous, I believe the people who continue to say that it is are actually the ones not arguing in good faith.

edit: dropping legacy status from applications may not even change the percentage of 'legacy' admits and yet I am sure that universities know who they are. Including it on applications may harm the legacy applications because the universities are now under politically charged pressure which is what I am arguing would be wrong.

To be clear, you are claiming that Harvard explicitly does not consider legacy status when deciding on admissions?

So, when a student is considered being cut in the final stage of the admissions process, i.e. on the “lop list”, and decision makers are provided with only four pieces of information: legacy status, athlete status, financial aid eligibility, and race; you are claiming that legacy status is included for… what, to satisfy the curiosity of admissions committee members? Give me a break. Also, you’re moving the goalposts from “legacy-based admissions are okay” to “actually, legacy-based admissions don’t exist.”

https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/22pdf/20-1199_hgdj.pdf

For the record, I don’t believe that legacy admissions are intended to be “affirmative action for white people”, but I do think the outcome is similar.

ya. Well... I think it's unlikely. There might be cases, I went through some math on this once and concluded that maybe 2% of the incoming class at Harvard could be unqualified legacy admits based on the total pool and the SAT std dev, etc. but even that I doubt. I think legacies probably are qualified based on what I have seen but the main reason I think this is more because admissions are hyper scrutinized now (for the past 10-20 years and they've been publishing student body stats) so if there is a way for Harvard to let in unqualified people it will be noticed and the public would not accept legacy admissions(SFFA lawsuit began almost a decade now). The athletic one is a different beast.

you are claiming that legacy status is included for… what

Possibly a tactic to raise more money because alumni are somewhat tricked into thinking making donations increases the odds their children are accepted. I don't know for sure and they probably should not include it on the application.

Also, you’re moving the goalposts from “legacy-based admissions are okay” to “actually, legacy-based admissions don’t exist.”

haha. Well if a school came out and said we allow some legacy admissions because it raises more money from donors and we need the money (and that wasn't a lie) I think that raises an interesting question about admissions I don't have an answer to. Most schools probably don't need the money now, I don't know where the money goes though. But I don't know what to think about admissions; not convinced there is a perfect formula. I'm not in favor of one group monopolizing schools though.

Is the SAT score the only measure of merit?

The non-legacies are going to miss on the chance to make social connections with legacy admits who have a lot of connections...and access to a lot of resources..

Disproportionally rich is my problem with legacy admissions.

This likely indicates wealthy people can afford SAT preparation tutors.

About 30 points higher than non-legacy students whose average is brought down by affirmative action. VS Asian Americans who need to score 50-100+ points higher for comparable consideration, they're underperforming based on SAT merit.

[1]: https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2018/10/22/asian-american...

Alternate explanation is that particularly sneaky elite admissions boards have learned to coordinate to devalue SAT scores for Asians, they'd rather engineer their mean Asian SAT score around something not embarrassingly high as cover for other cohorts, especially legacy which AFAIK doesn't need AA skew, since they're... legacy. AA primarily brings down average scores of non-legacy, and in this case make legacy look better, like average at Harvard for non asian & non white is 1450 according to your link, which is low considering 1500+ scores is 9th percentile for 223k Asian takers [0&1]. This is slightly conspiratorial, but also essentially what started the anti-AA case was when an Asian applicant with 1590 got rejected from multiple elite colleges, and the case essentially revealed high scores make Asians seem like bland test takers with bad personality even though personality assessment showed otherwise. Asian scores are high enough to break Harvard's argument not just for AA but IMO legacy as well.

Some other considerations, with respect to Harvard, according to latest admission data, @28% asian enrollment out of 2000 for class of 26, that's about 550 asians (previously this was ~20%). The real question the Harvard admissions stats don't show is how many Asians with 1550+ scores are being rejected due to "personality". If you look SAT score distribution [0], Asians are the only group where perfect math score is NOT 99+ percentile rank but "only" 95, and on ERW Asians 750+ score is 95 percentile vs other groups where it's 99+ except whites / multi racial at 98. Meaning Asians have disproportionate candidates with most perfect math and close to perfect ERW scores of all groups. Asians also total score outlier in that 1500+ is "only'' 91 percentile vs 98 to 99+ for everyone else. Collegeboard also has info that about 223k Asians (out of 2.2M takers) took SATs (2020 data [1]), so there's ~20k Asians with 1500+ scores (9th percentile). If extrapolated from 98th percentile of over 1500+ scores from 2.2M takers, that's ~44k total pool over 1500+ candidates of which 45% are Asians. 45% Asian is also in line with UCs where prop 209 banned AA and led to 40+% asian campuses.

Question is how many of 1550+ ones are Asians, keeping in mind ~7000 Asians have perfect math scores. My gut feeling is there are many 1550+ Asians being rejected by elites for skewing scores too high to keep legacy admissions charade going, especially at Harvard, because any Asian who scores that high, which rough napkin math is multiple size of their annual enrollment, would have an application to Harvard and eager to accept. Hence the narrative harvard stats paints via omission even by their student journalists, is that legacy does better non-legacy whose down by affirmative action, and legacy slightly worse than Asian Americans, when reality is Asian Americans have more than enough candidates to saturate scores above legacy and affirmative actions so their aggregate score has to be kept down through admission shenanigans.

[0] https://satsuite.collegeboard.org/media/pdf/sat-percentile-r... [1] https://i.redd.it/l6hb0eq4k5271.jpg

Of course, I don't think SAT score alone should determine entrance and no school has said that was all that mattered for admissions and I think that could be valid because the test score is really just one metric and doesn't give a complete picture. For example is the person a good test taker but a lazy student? That would reflect poorly on the student.

Also for the record and to be clear the legacy score of 1523 is still a high score and less than 1 std dev away from a perfect 1600 so it's not like we're talking about legacies who are totally out of range of admissions.

I agree at some point a 1500 and 1600 score are probably high enough even for elite universities. My broader point is that in composite admissions system like harvard, the score it self can be gamed to generate outcomes like racial composition. And institutes will figure out other ways to circumvent. But if they ever get slapped to move onto a score only admissions, that 1STD will make all the difference.