Reporter Golden blasts unfair legacy admissions

The advantage enjoyed by children of rich and powerful families in gaining admission to elite colleges violates basic notions of fairness, Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Golden said in a lecture Wednesday night.

Golden, author of the recent book, "The Price of Admission," argued that there are essentially four groups of people granted "preferences of privilege" by college admissions officers: legacies, "development cases," which range from Hollywood stars and their children to the children of state legislators, athletes and children of the faculty and staff of the university.

Legacy preference is given at "the vast majority of America's top-50 universities," Golden said. "This includes legacy preference [for] anywhere from 10 percent to 25 percent [of those] admitted, at three to four times the rate of admission."

Children of alumni make up roughly 10 percent of Princeton's Class of 2010. In his Pulitzer Prizewinning 2003 Journal series on college admissions, Golden reported that roughly 35 percent of legacy applicants to Princeton are accepted. For all applicants, the admit rate is around 10 percent.

President Tilghman has defended Princeton's practice of giving special consideration to legacy applicants, arguing that the financial wellbeing of the University depends on the generosity of alumni.

"I have looked very carefully at the statistics of our legacy admits and our non-legacy admits," Tilghman told the Associated Press recently. "And if you look at their academic qualification, you cannot tell the difference between those two pools. They are really indistinguishable [from] one another."

Golden described Tilghman's statement as "a bit misleading," saying that one must look at the difference between completely "unhooked" applicants — those who do not receive any preference from the admissions office — and admitted legacies. "If you compare there, you will find the SAT gap," he said.

In development cases, applicants are granted admission with the understanding or expectation that their parents will donate money and bring prestige to the university. "Development preference is another word for fundraising," Golden said. "It amounts to 300 or 400 SAT points."

Children of faculty and staff put the admissions staff in a particularly tough position. Since employees receive a tuition discount, admissions officers are often wary of placing them under financial stress by rejecting their children. These children, though, are already advantaged because their parents "are highly educated, and studies show that gives a boost to children in achievement," Golden said.

Golden, a Harvard graduate, received the Pulitzer Prize in 2004 for his beat reporting for the Journal. Before joining the Journal in 1999, he spent 17 years with the Boston Globe.

The lecture was part of the Pace Center's series on "Civic Awareness and Action."