Over the years, we have called many times for an end to legacy admission, the practice of offering preferential treatment in admissions to the children and grandchildren of a school’s alumni base. But in that same breath, we have also asserted that providing preferential treatment to the progeny of all alumni can’t just be eliminated in one fell swoop. And why? 

Because the alumni who have contributed major dollars to their alma maters are primarily responsible for filling the financial aid coffers that educate low-income students at very these schools. And, yes, these alumni do expect something back for their donations — a quid pro quo, if you will — in the form of their children and grandchildren receiving preferential treatment in admissions.

Most Alumni Aren’t Major Donors

While there is no perfect solution to ending legacy admission, we have long proposed — including in conversation with Malcolm Gladwell for his podcast, Revisionist History — eliminating the legacy advantage for all but a subset of alumni — for all but the progeny of the major donors. But Ivy Coach! How could you! We know, we know. It’s not a perfect solution. But we don’t believe there is a perfect solution, and our solution is at least grounded in data. In fact, in a report entitled “An Empirical Analysis Of The Impact Of Legacy Preferences On Alumni Giving At Top Universities,” the study’s authors, Chad Coffman, Tara O’Neil, and Brian Starr, write:

Our primary finding is that, after inclusion of appropriate controls, including wealth, there is no statistically significant evidence of a causal relationship between legacy preference policies and total alumni giving among top universities. Using annual panel data covering 1998 to 2008 for the top one hundred universities, we show that…more than 70 percent of the variation in alumni giving across institutions and time can be explained. The coefficients all have the expected signs and there is no statistically significant evidence that legacy preferences impact total alumni giving…Legacy preference policies, in their pure form, do not purport to reward alumni donations with a greater chance of acceptance; they purport to give a greater chance of acceptance to all alumni, regardless of whether they donate.

Alumni Giving in the Ivy League, Ranked

The data doesn’t lie, but tell that to the Ivy League, which remains a bastion of legacy preference among elite universities. Every Ivy League school still practices legacy admissions, but the rate of alumni giving at these schools varies widely. Let’s compare alumni giving across the Ivy League:

Ivy League School	Reported Percentage of Alumni Who Donated (2019-2023)
Princeton University	46%
Dartmouth College	36%
Harvard University	33.1%
Yale University	28.3%
Cornell University	26.1%
Brown University	N/A
Columbia University	N/A
University of Pennsylvania	N/A

It shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise that Princeton University has the most generous alumni. This close-knit campus fosters lifelong friendships via institutions such as the Eating Clubs and historic traditions like celebratory bonfires after defeating Harvard and Yale at football. Still, a donation rate of nearly 50% is quite impressive.

Coming up 10% shy of Princeton is Dartmouth College, where 36% of alumni gave back in recent years. Long nights in the woods of New Hampshire must create a fondness for Dartmouth that some alumni can’t seem to shake even after they graduate. 

Cornell sits at the bottom of this list, with 26.1% of alumni giving back in recent years. This isn’t a donation rate to write off, as it’s worlds above other highly selective institutions, but with Cornell boasting a huge, decentralized undergraduate community that has less of a shared culture than at some of the other Ivies, is it any surprise fewer alumni choose to give back?

Major Donors Fill Financial Aid Coffers, and Thus Their Children Arguably Merit Advantage in Admissions

It’s essential to receive the above data with a grain of salt. Most donations recorded by Ivy League schools are for insignificant sums, not the sorts of donations that get you a library named in your honor. Colleges shouldn’t be filling so many slots with the progeny of alumni who don’t make major donations or contribute big time to subsidizing the education costs of their alma mater’s low-income students, especially given that there is no clear relationship with giving and legacy preference!

Instead, only the children of major (and we mean major!) donors should receive preferential treatment in elite college admissions. It’s a small price to pay for these schools to maintain the financial feasibility of their incredibly robust financial aid programs.

So wait, Ivy Coach, you want only the super privileged to receive preferential treatment in admissions, not the not super privileged? Yes, that’s precisely right. This will free up lots of slots in each incoming class, and this way, the well-heeled can continue to fill college financial aid coffers that subsidize the education of low-income students.