ENG101 Essay 2 "Legacy Admissions"

Brian DeLapp
ENG101 M02
Essay #2


When students that are thinking about going to college, the one thing that is on their mind is getting the acceptance letter in the mail. When students are looking to get accepted to the well known colleges like Harvard or Yale, the controversial issue of “legacy admissions” is probably bound to cross their minds. Especially the people who didn’t make the cut to get enrolled. People see different views of “legacy admissions”, some say that they’re good to have, when there are other people who think they are unfair and colleges shouldn’t use them.
In the article “Diversity in whose Interest?”, Paula Krebs disagrees with the legacy admissions issue, she believes that just because someone of the wealthier class whose parents can afford to send their child to a Ivy league college, such as Harvard, doesn’t mean that they should. Krebs believes that class becomes an issue when dealing with the acceptance of a student to a major college, because “Class begins shaping children’s fates in the womb”. She implies that families with low-income are less likely to receive well parental care, move to different schools more often, and even being less interactive with their children, unlike the parents that have medium to high income rates.
In 2003 The Post Standard published and article about affirmative action/ and legacy admissions. The article was about a supreme-court decision between a University of Michigan acceptance policy and the policies about student acceptance of all universities and colleges located in the US. Michigan’s undergraduate acceptance policy was assigning points on the race of the student. The points system that they used only gave minority students 20 out of a 150 total. Although the Supreme Court denied the University of Michigan’s policy (points system) they are allowing colleges and universities to continue considering race as a factor in policies to advance diversity and address discrimination. Justice S. O’Connor believes “a diverse student body better prepares all graduates for the working world. It is essential to its educational mission”
George Leef, the VP for research at the John William Pope Center for Higher Education Policy, feels that legacy admissions should not be allowed to be used to accept students for higher education. He sees legacy admissions as “unfair to the students, and that they should be evaluated on their merits”. He also believes that getting rid of legacy preferences will make it easier on the schools to say no to preferences based on race and ethnicity. A problem that he brings up with the admissions is that students are being accepted who are not as academically skilled as other students, which makes the professors, of the classes that their taking, to lessen the requirements of passing the class.
Legacy admissions are “accepting a student due to the fact that his parents or family members attended a college or university in the prior years, not on the students’ academic skills. It is a controversial issue that people disagree with each other on, some agree that it’s good for a college to have sort students out and to keep their reputation as a college. Meanwhile others say it is unfair to the students and that it should be disallowed.






Work Sited Page

Krebs, Paula M. “Diversity in Whose Interest?” Academe pg.135-137 (2008).
ProQuest . TC3 library 22 Feb.2009 http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=1536192431&Fmt=3&clientId=12441&RQT=309&VName=PQD


“Affirmative Action – Split Decision still wisely upholds sound policy in Michigan case”
education. The Post Standard 28 June, 2003 http://docs.newsbank.com/s/InfoWeb/aggdocs/NewsBank/0FCE9BD33893A960/0F9989E5D6CE7776

Pope Center’s George Leef Discusses Legacy Admissions. George Leef.
Youtube.com , 22 Feb. 2009