A Princeton University study released last week found that students who are given an edge in college admissions because they have legacy status perform worse academically than minorities and athletes who are also given preferences.
Princeton Sociology Prof. Douglas Massey, who conducted the study, concluded that the more preference a college gives a legacy applicant – as measured by the gap between that applicant’s high school grade point average and the mean GPA for the institution – the worse that student will perform during their first two years of college, as measured by their GPA.
Massey based his findings on data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Freshmen. The survey includes data from about 3,900 students who entered 28 public and private selective colleges in the fall of 1999.
Massey said although legacy students generally had higher GPAs and lower dropout rates than minority students, they perfformed worse academically than minorities and athletes relative to the preferences they are given in the admissions process.
In 1999, legacy applicants were given bonuses equivalent to about 47 points on the old 1600-point SAT test, the study found. Minority applicants received the equivalent of a 77-point bonus on the SAT and athletes received on average a 108-point bonus.
The study works from the premise that students who were admitted with lower qualifications than the average applicant perform worse in college.
It found that 7 percent of legacy students who were given preferences in the admissions process had dropped out by the end of their junior year. During the same time period, 11 percent of minority students and 5 percent of athletes who were given preferences in the admissions process had dropped out.
But Massey said legacy students drop out of college at a higher rate than minorities or athletes relative to the advantage they are given in the admissions process.
Likewise, Massey said legacy students had higher GPAs than minority students or athletes because they were given less of an advantage in the admissions process.
On average, legacy students had a 3.26 GPA after two years in college. Student athletes had an average GPA of 3.12 and minority students had an average GPA of 3.05 over the same period.
“There is a direct relation between the ease of admission and the average GPA of students at selective universities,” Massey said.
The study said one reason legacy students perform worse relative to the preferences they are given is that colleges do not have specially targeted academic support and counseling services for legacy students like they often do for minorities and athletes.
The study was released during a growing national debate about the practice of affirmative action in public institutions. In November, Michigan voters banned the consideration of race in public college admissions, but giving preference to athletes and legacy students is still allowed.
Massey said the study should make people realize that minorities are not the only subgroup that receives preference in college admissions.
“We do not expect these findings to settle the debate on affirmative action,” Massey said. “We do hope, however, that they enable readers to place the issue of minority affirmative action in a broader context.”
Barmak Nassirian, associate executive director of the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers, said that many colleges give preferences to the children of alumni because they believe it will encourage those alumni to donate.
The University of Michigan’s published evaluation guidelines say that alumni provide “service and support to the larger University community.”
As a result, the students related to these alumni should be given “discretionary consideration,” the guidelines say.
Students with parents who graduated from the University are given the strongest consideration, followed by those with grandparents, siblings or spouses who graduated from the University.
Under the old point-based admissions system, which was struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2003, the University gave applicants four points if their parent had graduated from the University. It gave applicants one point if they had a grandparent, spouse or sibling who graduated from the University. Under that system, minority applicants received 20 points.