Legacy study raises questions about policy

President Tilghman has asked Dean of the College Nancy Malkiel to examine the data on the performance of legacy students at the University. The move comes after a recent study conducted by Princeton sociologists suggested that, at competitive colleges nationwide, legacy applicants who are accepted with lower qualifications than other admitted students do worse academically than non-legacy students who enter college with equally below-par qualifications.

Tilghman said in an email that she found the results of the study, conducted by sociology professor Douglas Massey, "to be very surprising." She said she has asked Malkiel "to look at the Princeton-specific data to see if his results accord with what happens at Princeton."

Massey's study, coauthored by postdoctoral fellow Margarita Mooney, used data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Freshmen, which surveys 4000 freshmen at 28 competitive colleges across the nation every year, including Princeton. The study examined the grades of minorities, legacy students and athletes.

The University last examined the issue about three years ago, Tilghman said, but added that "at that time, we did not see a trend" like the one observed in Massey's current study.

At a town hall meeting in 2005, Dean of Admission Janet Rapelye said that "Princeton has always had a tradition of paying attention to the children of alums, as most every other private institution in this country."

According to Admission Office data, 39 percent of alumni children who applied for admission for the Class of 2010 were admitted, compared to 10.2 percent of applicants as a whole. Legacies make up 14 percent of the student body. Rapelye was unavailable for comment for this article.

"I can honestly stand up and say that I think we are doing about the right thing for Princeton and alums given our pool," Rapelye also said during the 2005 meeting. "We are not making sacrifices."

"Some of these students we would want even if we didn't know where their parents went," she added. "Having them as part of the Princeton family is an important part of Princeton tradition."

In the course of their study, Massey and Mooney took students' self-reported SAT scores at each school and compared them to those schools' average SAT scores. If students' SAT scores were lower than their schools' average score, then their status as either a minority, child of an alum or athlete was considered to have been a factor in their admission. Massey and Mooney then kept track of a random sampling of students to ask them about their progressing grades five times a year.

"We think [self-reported grades] are reliable," Mooney said.

The study found that legacies as a whole tend to do better than their peers at their respective colleges, and they also have less of a gap between their SAT scores and their schools' average scores than do athletes and minorities. But those who are admitted with lower SAT scores do worse compared to their non-legacy peers who were also admitted despite low scores, the study found.

Massey said the gap between whites and minorities is not as large as the one between legacies and non-legacies.

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He added that admitting under-qualified legacy students may put them at a distinct disadvantage compared to their peers, since they must then struggle to compete with classmates who enter college with better academic preparation.

"You set them up for failure because they have to learn skills that other students already have," he said.

The explanation for why under-qualified legacies' academic performance lags behind that of minority students who are also admitted with lower SAT scores is unclear, Massey said. "Either legacy people don't work hard enough to cover this difference; or minorities work harder to fill the gap," he said. "It's hard to tell what the reason is."

Mooney said her interest in the topic of legacy admissions stems from the nationwide attention that the issue has generated. "I think that people are more concerned about what [legacy admissions] mean for their campus experience," Mooney said. "There's a lot of interest in these elite schools, and there's a lot of debate about affirmative action. We're trying to broaden how people understand [college] admissions." She added that the study's results were consistent with other research findings.

Legacy admissions at elite schools have increasingly come under fire in recent years, with opponents arguing that they privilege wealthy students and lack as compelling a rationale for preferences as those for minorities or athletes. Princeton's decision last year to eliminate its early admissions program, implemented in the wake of a similar move by Harvard, was widely seen as responding in part to accusations that the system favored already privileged students, including legacies.

Some current Princeton students who are legacies said they think the issue of legacy preference needs to be addressed. Zach Glennie '07, whose father is a member of the Class of 1976, said in an email that he is "glad that the effects of these admissions policies are being studied. If preferential treatment for legacy students is hurting them in the long run, we should be aware of this."

"Applicants are all preferred by the admissions office for different reasons," he added. "If we give special treatment to athletes, our motivation is to build strong sports programs that contribute to the social environment on campus ... and generate press for the university. With minority students, the reasons are social responsibility and a wish for diversity among students."

But other students said they think the University holds legacy applicants to the same high standards as non-legacies.

"As far as I know ... they're not going to let you in if you're not qualified," said Flannery Becker '09, whose mother is a member of the Class of 1977. "It's unfair to think that legacies have a foot above [others]. Everyone has their thing that gets them in."

She added that legacies may have a socioeconomic advantage over other applicants, but that does not guarantee them admission.

Erica Johnson '08, whose mother is a member of the Class of 1976, said she also believes legacies are not given special treatment. "I feel like legacies are just as qualified [as everyone else]," she said. "I don't believe they lower the bar ... I don't doubt that being a legacy had some impact, but I don't think that the bar was lowered for me. I was surprised [to be admitted]."

Zach Glennie's sister, Charlotte Glennie '09, said she hasn't "seen any evidence of [legacies doing poorly] at Princeton." She added that she doesn't see her legacy status as a key part of her day-to-day identity, noting that she "[doesn't] really pay attention to" the fact that her father went to Princeton.

"I feel I deserve to be here," she added. "I think it's good for the university. My father said, 'You are a much better [applicant] than I was when I applied.' "

Vicki Chen '09, a non-legacy student, said she doesn't think non-legacies are at a disadvantage in the admissions process. "I don't mind legacies because I think the benefits of having a wealthier school outweigh the cost of having underperforming students," said Chen, who went to Princeton High School, where many of her classmates' parents were Princeton alumni, faculty or both.

"In high school, people would categorize who had legacy parents and who had faculty parents and who had neither, but not necessarily because they didn't deserve to get in," she said.

"Once you're on campus, it doesn't matter," she added. "Everyone adds to the school in a different way."