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E-PrinceFor Richard Golden ’60, the small envelope addressed to his daughter was an unconscionable insult.
“My daughter got her rejection letter from Princeton yesterday,” Golden fumed in a letter to Princeton Alumni Weekly in April 2003. It was not right ...
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yes!
I am a legacy and have taught at the University. I have never seen any rigorous study of this. I assume that many legacies would be likely be admitted on their qualifications anyway (including many that I have taught), so the real issue is what is the rationale for giving a boost to those who would not have made it without the legacy preference? What is the University's experience with those "boosted" legacy admits? How well do they do academically and how do well do they contribute to the life of the University in comparison to others? While many (if not most) students are admitted for other than "pure academic" reasons -- athletes, orchestra members, engineers, internationals and such -- legacy boosts and the "development" boosts are the only students who are admitted for reasons having little or nothing to do with their intrinsic worth as students or as potential members of the University community. (The few "development" boosts that I have been aware of have fared or behaved poorly, or both.) It seems to me that alumni support would be very thin indeed if it depended on generous admissions for legacies. Given that Princeton must decline admissions to a large majority of legacy applicants every year, how does this translate into more giving?
here is the way the legacy thing works:
if your princeton grad parents are teachers or university professors, it gives you absolutely zero advantage regarding admission.
if your princeton grad parents are investment bankers, you can be a C– student and have a 1900 SAT and still be accepted into princeton.
decisions about legacy admissions are all a matter of net worth, nothing else
Peter Dickson '73 asks, "Given that Princeton must decline admissions to a large majority of legacy applicants every year, how does this translate into more giving?"
Well, one hopes-- and suspects-- that future generations of Princetonians who did NOT have the advantage of being born into alumni families would also have a tremendous undergraduate experience. And they would recognize that the Princeton they attended would have been very, very different, had it not been for the many donations and gifts provided by countless generations who went before them. Evidence of the impact of these donations can be found on virtually every building, named scholarship, professorship, etc, and only the most clueless and oblivious fails to realize that without the financial resources provided by its alumni, Princeton would NOT be the institution that it was when they attended, and the institution that it is today.
No one can accurately predict what the future holds, but I would bet that future generations of Princetonians will also enjoy success in their chosen careers, and share some of the fruits of this success with Alma Mater.
Besides, there are lots of students and alumni who were not alumni admits, who
do not have children or children who even had Princeton on their radar. And they still make some awfully nice donations, year in, year out.
That's why it is called voluntary donations.
Great treatment of a tough issue. I was a non-legacy admit and have real problems with giving such privileged people a leg up but I can't help but sympathize with Golden. We are told by others and tell ourselves that we are special, that Princeton is special, and that Princeton is special because we are special and vice versa. It's only natural that one will want to share this experience with one's children and Princeton’s disgustingly low admission rate means there will be a lot of disappointed people out there. Golden's slap at "social engineering" (read: admitting unqualified black and brown people instead of my kid), on the other hand, is far less savory and reveals a sinister edge to this debate that I hope doesn’t reflect the feelings of most alumni.
@analyst
I'm not quite sure I see how that makes any sense. Seeing as I am a legacy (though shy about it), and relatively poor compared to the rest of these long term, multi-generational legacies. Chances are my parents are seeing one of these other princeton grad investment bankers for advice. And maybe they have a son or daughter who was rejected too?
As far as I'm concerned, legacy is just another factor that's thrown in the pot and considered. It stands as much as 4.0 GPA and SAT scores. When everyone has "excellent" scores on EVERYTHING, you need to look for X-factors. And that's what sets people apart. I absolutely do not think "legacy" is qualified in itself enough to be an x-factor.
Basically, alumni with big checkbooks can buy their children admissions into Princeton.
Sounds good. Now I'll go be an investment banker so my own children can get in that way.
So, basically we've found that some alumni think they can threaten Princeton with their checkbooks. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.
"America has 40,000 great colleges and universities."
I'm pretty sure America has closer to 4,000 colleges and universities. Typical shoddy reporting by the Prince.
@timberlake. that's a quote from someone else, not something from the prince...