“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 for alumni to be “blindly loyal to the university,” while Princeton merely “[paid] lip-service to the values of Tradition and Loyalty” in its “mindless drive towards social engineering,” he wrote.
Golden’s daughter, according to the letter, was very accomplished: 1420 on the SATs, 4.11 GPA in “a rigorous private school,” all-state setter and captain of a state championship volleyball team in Florida. She was also a third-generation legacy, he wrote. “Oh, and yes, her sister is presently a junior at Princeton.”
For Golden, legacy acceptance was a question of loyalty. And in ending its automatic acceptance of legacies who could be expected to succeed academically, the University had violated its respect for alumni.
So Golden decided to stop donating to the University. “After 43 years of blind loyalty,” he wrote, “this sucker has woken up.”
Over the next few months, the flurry of responses to Golden’s heated letter shed light on a larger debate about the University’s priorities in admission as they pertained to legacies. Many were unsympathetic, calling Golden’s reaction to the rejection “disturbing” and “utterly indefensible." Henry Oechler ’68 wrote, “I thought the divine right of kings (and queens) ended some time ago.”
Legacies are now evaluated “in the same rigorous review as every applicant,” though “significant family ties to the University” are taken into consideration, Dean of Admission Janet Rapelye said. Opinions on legacy admission range from those who call for an end to legacy preference to those who — like Golden — call for a greater advantage for legacy applicants.
A central question concerns alumni loyalty and the extent to which the strength of the University’s alumni community relies on the presence of a legacy advantage.
Alumni supporting a legacy advantage often say that they want their children to benefit from the same educational opportunities that they enjoyed at the University. But for some, it’s also personal — admitting their children demonstrates loyalty to those alumni who have supported the University.
Youngsuk Chi ’83, a former University trustee whose daughters both attend the University, said that his Princeton experience was very meaningful to him and that he would have been disappointed if his daughters had not been admitted to the University.
Chi had exposed his daughters to the University as young children through windows like Reunions, and he said he was pleased when they decided to apply. “I wanted them to see how happy I was when I was with my Princeton friends and how engaged I was as a volunteer,” he explained. “But I never forced them. It’s never easy to think that you might be walking in the shadow of your parents.”
Indeed, though many alumni strongly opposed the arguments Golden made in his letter, others were sympathetic to his feelings about his daughter’s rejection, with some sharing their own disappointments at their children’s rejections from the University.
“What saddens me most is that [my son] may never experience the same rigor and depth of learning that I had at Princeton,” wrote Stewart Levin ’75, whose son was rejected by Princeton in 2003. “To this day, I continue to reflect back on what he and I might have done differently.”
Others, such as Vincent Menna ’61, were more blunt, viewing their children’s admission decisions as a message to alumni. “Is the University attempting to alienate its alumni?” he asked in a letter, adding that he could not understand the rejection of Golden’s daughter.
Legacy preference in admission is considered to help cement alumni loyalty, said Christie Reed ’93, a former college counselor at a private school near Philadelphia. She explained that Princeton places a unique focus on ensuring that its alumni feel they hold an important place at the University many years after they graduate.
“In general, I think that having members of the same family share in the experience that is Princeton just helps to strengthen the alumni body as a whole,” she said, explaining that events like the P-Rade at Reunions can “bring tears to your eyes.”
“One of the things [Princeton] does is it creates a really vibrant alumni body,” Reed added.
Owen Coyle ’12, whose mother attended Princeton, echoed Reed’s sentiment, explaining that what makes Princeton special is that its alumni “love this place so much.”
Legacy admissions can be a part of that loyalty, Coyle added. “If you had the tiniest bit of advantage in the admissions, it makes [the alumni] feel like the University has a little bit of loyalty towards them too,” he said. “Legacy is a small price to pay in exchange for that.”
Coyle said he hopes the sense of alumni loyalty will continue in the future. “There’s something to having a system like this, and from a purely selfish perspective I would like to see the system continue,” he said. “I understand that it might lead to exclusion, but I’ve definitely enjoyed it.”
Several responses to Golden’s letter addressed the issue of loyalty and the complicated family issues that arise from legacy preference in admission. James Kahn ’48 wrote in a letter to Princeton Alumni Weekly that he reacted “with great sadness” upon reading that one of Golden’s daughters was a junior at Princeton, while the other was rejected. “How cold and detached must the committee be not to understand the painful family dynamics resulting from this particular rejection of an apparently outstanding applicant, a rejection which breaks the skin of a three-generation Princeton family,” he wrote.
Chi, however, said that the ambiguity of the admission process means that mistakes are inevitable. “Do you think it makes a big difference? No,” he said. “We have a certain amount of room to make errors because these kids are so good. We get it wrong — so what? America has 40,000 great colleges and universities. They’re going to learn and they’re going to become great people.”
But other alumni contend that part of what makes Princeton special is its overriding focus on academics, which relies on admitting applicants based on merit.
Chi said that applying Golden’s suggestion of highly preferential legacy admission would entail sacrificing the University’s standards. “How would we remain the best in the world?” he said of the idea. “I would ask those people what made them think their relationship with Princeton is so special to merit an automatic admission — their generosity and size of their checkbook?”
Even the legacy advantage outlined in the University’s current policy leaves many uneasy.
“It’s really hard to argue that someone deserves a spot because their parents went here and gave money,” geosciences professor Frederik Simons said. “If that were the policy, then you could just buy your diploma. This place is not for sale.”
Simons said he feels that wealthy legacies, in particular, already enjoy many advantages and thus don’t need an added boost in admission. “Do they need an extra advantage?” he said. “No. So what is the basis of the argument? Why them? Why not me? They’ll do fine at Yale.”
In fact, some legacy applicants cited a desire for meritocratic admission policies, noting that the legacy advantage can taint an acceptance with self-doubt. Some legacy applicants are even hesitant to advertise their legacy status in their applications to Princeton. Meghan Stevenson-Krausz, a legacy applicant who would have been the 13th member of her family to attend the University but was not admitted to Princeton, said she considered not referencing her family’s 134-year Princeton tradition in her application but ultimately decided that such a move would be foolish.
“Everyone’s trying to use some way to get ahead,” she said. “I felt a little weird about it because I don’t like to get things that way. I’m a huge proponent of merit ... I want to know that I earned it, you know?”
Another source of debate regarding legacy preference revolves around the University’s reliance on alumni for its economic well-being and Annual Giving program.
Golden is not alone in tying legacy admissions to his financial support of the University.
Favorable legacy admission makes alumni “feel warm and fuzzy towards [the University],” Richard Mott ’73 wrote in a letter to the Princeton Alumni Weekly. “Warm and fuzzy feelings translate into donations.”
One argument some for maintaining the legacy advantage affirms that the policy actually improves access for low-income students: By pleasing alumni, the policy increases donations, which can then be used to support financial aid.
Indeed, some students are grateful for the opportunities afforded by alumni donations that may have resulted from the acceptance of legacies. “If not for legacies, we wouldn’t be able to do a lot of the things we do at Princeton,” Lena Qiu ’10, a non-legacy, said.
But some alumni said that donations would continue to flow even if the legacy advantage was eliminated.
“[My son’s rejection] has not, however, soured me on Princeton and, indeed, late last year I chose to make a contribution to Alumni Giving,” Levin wrote.
Similarly, Chi was adamant that his relationship with the University would not have changed even if both of his daughters had not been admitted. “Would I be disappointed to a point that I would sever my ties with the University? Absolutely no way,” he said emphatically. “Foremost, it’s my relationship with Princeton that matters — I’m not imposing that on the rest of my family.”
This is the last article in a three-part series on legacies.
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