Boston University's student newspaper reported last month on the university's seemingly contradictory statements about whether the private research university uses legacy preferences in admissions. University spokesperson Colin Riley told The Daily Free Press that the university "never had" a policy giving an advantage to children of alumni in admissions, and confirmed this in a subsequent email to Higher Ed Dive. However, at the same time, he also told the student media that the university has not considered legacy status for "several years." Was it "never" or "at one time" that alumni relations were considered? The university's statements are confusing.

Riley did not respond to multiple follow-up emails to clarify the university's actual practices. Boston University, however, reports in both of its current public datasets that it does consider alumni relations. Riley stated that going forward, the university will indicate in its annual Common Data Set submission that it does not consider alumni relations, but did not specify whether it will change the report submitted to another dataset maintained by the U.S. Department of Education.

The confusion over legacy preferences is not unique to Boston University. Several other colleges have publicly reported considering alumni relations in admissions, only to later state that this was not the case. Institutions also define legacy admissions differently: does it refer only to children of alumni, or does it also include grandchildren, nieces, nephews, and other relatives? Inconsistent data standards make research difficult, especially at a time when opposition to legacy admissions is growing.

Since the U.S. Supreme Court struck down race-based admissions policies this summer, some policymakers, commentators, and even college leaders have called for abolishing legacy admissions. They argue that the ruling will further push historically marginalized students away from higher education, while legacy status gives wealthy and white applicants an unfair advantage. However, if legacy admissions are a problem that needs to be banned, given the current ambiguity of the data, no one has a complete picture of the issue.

An incomplete picture

Legacy preferences have long been shrouded in secrecy. Even when colleges report considering alumni relations, the public typically has no way of knowing how much weight they carry. Meanwhile, many colleges do not need legacy policies because they admit most or all of their applicants. Nevertheless, occasional revelations about legacy admissions still draw public attention. Data disclosed during the Supreme Court case showed that Harvard applicants with legacy connections were nearly six times more likely to be admitted than those without family ties. Researchers studying admissions practices at Harvard and other elite institutions suggest that abolishing systems favoring wealthy families, including legacy preferences, would help improve socioeconomic diversity on campus.

"It's absolutely shameful that colleges — especially public ones — are still offering this advantage," said James Murphy, deputy director of higher education policy at the progressive think tank Education Reform Now, a vocal critic of legacy admissions. Murphy has reviewed Common Data Sets from hundreds of colleges in his research, but parsing the data is not easy. Each institution has its own file format, so there is no aggregated information on legacy preferences. Murphy noted that colleges also make mistakes in these reports, possibly leaving certain fields blank or changing information from year to year.

Last year, the University of Connecticut indicated in its Common Data Set that it considers alumni relations, even though a spokesperson at the time told Higher Ed Dive that it was a reporting error. The Common Data Set can also lack context. Take New York University, a selective private nonprofit institution, for example. Spokesperson Joseph Tirella wrote in an email last week that the university has "not admitted students based on legacy status for several years." However, the university's most recent Common Data Set indicates that it considers alumni relations. Tirella explained that this is because the university includes a question in the Common Application that allows applicants to indicate if they are children of alumni. The Common Application is an online portal through which students can apply to more than 1,000 institutions, and individual schools can customize certain questions. Tirella said NYU will remove the question about alumni relations in the next admissions cycle. He acknowledged that, in hindsight, the university perhaps should have reported in the Common Data Set that it does not consider alumni relations, "which would have been a more accurate description of how we use that information in our decision-making — but because we did have the question on our form, 'considered' also seemed like a valid answer. We understand this caused confusion, especially at a time when legacy admissions are under scrutiny."

For Murphy, the NYU case illustrates that one of the biggest flaws in legacy data is the lack of a uniform definition. "You can't ignore legacy status. The only fair approach is to not offer that option at all," Murphy said. If admissions reviewers at colleges can see an applicant's connection to alumni, they will rely on legacy admissions. This is exactly the situation at Boston University — the school says it does not consider alumni relations but still asks about it on the application, its student newspaper reported.

Other data sources

A newer data source on legacy admissions is the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS), a public database maintained by the U.S. Department of Education. Colleges report statistics to IPEDS on admissions, tuition, admissions practices, and more. Starting in the 2022-23 academic year, the Department of Education began asking colleges whether they use legacy status. However, IPEDS information is self-reported by colleges and can be subject to misinterpretation. The Department of Education said the winter 2022-23 IPEDS data will be released publicly in late November or early December. IPEDS defines legacy status as "students with a family relationship to the institution, including children of alumni or relatives, or siblings currently enrolled," a definition based on the Department's research into practices at multiple colleges.

News outlets and higher education organizations have also attempted to quantify the use of legacy admissions through their own surveys or public databases, but both paths have limitations. The Washington Post identified more than 100 prominent colleges that consider legacy status in July, but the newspaper relied in part on Common Data Set files that may be flawed. Inside Higher Ed conducts an annual admissions survey asking colleges about their legacy policies, but fewer than 240 admissions leaders responded this year, which may not be representative of the thousands of colleges in the U.S. The National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC) typically surveys institutions annually about their admissions processes, including whether they incorporate legacy policies, said Melissa Clinedinst, its director of research and grants. The survey was paused for classes entering from fall 2019 through fall 2022. In this year's version, of the 185 institutions that responded to the legacy question, more than 65% reported that alumni relations had no impact on admissions. Clinedinst agreed that having a uniform definition in surveys would be helpful, but it can be tricky. "In a national survey like this, how deep can you really go without adding to the survey burden?" she asked.

Even smaller-scale surveys can present problems. In 2019, California passed a law requiring certain private colleges to disclose whether they give priority to children of alumni or donors, with disclosures required annually until 2024. The catalyst for the law was the Varsity Blues scandal, which exposed wealthy parents bribing to help their children get into elite universities. The most recent data collection under the law found that five private colleges in California give preferential treatment to applicants with alumni or donor connections. A few years ago, Pitzer College, one of the state's prominent private colleges, reported giving priority to alumni applicants, but the then-director of admissions, Santiago Ybarra, said that was not the case. Ybarra is now assistant director of admissions at the University of California, Santa Cruz. He does not remember the exact wording of the question but recalled that the state's phrasing was vague, leading Pitzer officials to incorrectly indicate that the college considered legacy factors. They later saw how other peer institutions answered the question and corrected the error the following year.

Criticism of legacy admissions builds

Ybarra believes colleges have no incentive to clarify their legacy policies. Vague policies give them leeway — they can claim they do not formally consider legacy relationships in admissions, but still court wealthy alumni donors — and donors may have children. Ybarra said that even without documentation, colleges know whether an applicant is connected to alumni or faculty. "It's always a topic," he said.

Although legacy status may be just a small part of the admissions world, policymakers are giving it renewed attention. The issue surfaced during oral arguments in the Supreme Court cases over race-conscious admissions at Harvard University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The case was one of the first occasions where the Biden administration publicly expressed disapproval of legacy policies. Elizabeth Prelogar, the Solicitor General representing the U.S. government, suggested the Supreme Court could ban legacy admissions. President Joe Biden also said in public statements that policies like legacy "expand privilege rather than opportunity."

"Our most inclusive institutions often lack sufficient resources, while our most selective, well-resourced institutions admit applicants overwhelmingly from affluent backgrounds," said James Kvaal, the U.S. Under Secretary of Education — the department's highest-ranking official for higher education — in a written statement to Higher Ed Dive. "Colleges should seriously examine policies and practices that expand privilege rather than opportunity, and that includes preferences for legacies. We need a level playing field — especially in college admissions."

Legacy admissions carry a long history of bias. The concept became more popular after World War II. The Ivy League schools — which previously dominated higher education — historically admitted mostly male, white, and Protestant students. The shift toward legacy preferences was a way for them to increase selectivity, thereby keeping out the growing number of Jewish applicants. Since then, the concept of legacy admissions has continually raised questions of fairness. In one case, the Department of Education investigated Harvard's admissions practices in 1988, alleging discrimination against Asian Americans, after which...