Legacy preference in America

Résumé du document

Never has there been a subject that has aroused as much discussion as that of legacy preference. In America to get accepted to college, every applicant is confronted with the traditional admissions process. Legacy preference has always been a practice promoting alumni children and allowing them to stand a better chance to enter University than non-legacy applicants. The most obvious reason for this practice is the heavy temptation of monetary advantages: alumni donations. Generally used by colleges, this unfair practice has a significant negative impact on minorities, since it often creates race or gender discrimination.

Our argument is essentially that nowadays the practice of legacy admissions leads to divisions within modern American society. Indeed, legacy practice creates discrimination against minorities.

Extraits

[...] Legacy preference in America Never has there been a subject that has aroused as much discussion as that of legacy preference. In America to get accepted to college, every applicant is confronted with the traditional admissions process. Legacy preference has always been a practice promoting alumni children and allowing them to stand a better chance to enter University than non-legacy applicants. The most obvious reason for this practice is the heavy temptation of monetary advantages: alumni donations. Generally used by colleges, this unfair practice has a significant negative impact on minorities, since it often creates race or gender discrimination. [...]

[...] You can get into Harvard because of the mere merits of your birth, rather than those of your life or your mind. You can get in because your parent is a graduate. You can get in because you are a “legacy.” (“A Second Look Attacking Legacy Preference”) Furthermore, Kahlenberg indicates that if you are the son or the daughter of an alumnus, you can beneficiate of an advantage of 160 points added to your SAT score. Obviously this practice advantages legacy applicants and increases their chances to get accepted by 20%. [...]

[...] Legacy preference applied in a large amount of American Colleges is considered such as an increasing strong process. Richard D. Kahlenberg, a senior fellow at the Century Foundation, a non-profit organization of research, explains that “[this practice] is fundamentally unfair because it's a preference that advantages the already advantaged” (quoted by Lewin in “Study Finds Family Connections Give Big Advantage in College Admissions”). Indeed, universities often judge applicants on legacy factor and sometimes forget the principal values of meritocracy. Several published statistics show that legacy admissions is still present in modern America. [...]

[...] Legacy preference is becoming so controversial in many different universities and the values of merit have changed. Then, our discussion was explain money, rather than merit, often facilitates admissions for legacy applicants Universities such as Harvard or Yale are not definitively based on the intellectual level of their applicants but rather on their financial level. Finally, this paper was exam the fact that minorities are unjustifiably refused due to race, ancestry or cross-cultural discrimination in legacy admissions. Legacy practice affects the majority, dishonors and harms deserving applicants through its apparent discrimination. [...]

[...] Our case against the legacy preference system in America is based on three arguments. Firstly, this study of the topic will deal with the fact that in the world of university admissions, the meaning of meritocracy has been corrupted, before turning to the problem that money, rather than merit, often facilitates admissions for legacy applicants. Finally, we shall examine the fact that minorities are unjustifiably refused due to race, ancestry or cross-cultural discrimination in legacy admissions. While it is true that legacy admissions has always creates many problems in the world of education, we must not overlook the fact that universities consider the fact to privilege legacies like a reward for alumni loyalty. [...]