Students work hard their entire high school careers with their eyes on the Ivy League. But while they might be busting their behinds to break the single-digit entry rate barriers, what they may not realize is the odds might be even less in their favor. According to data published in the Harvard Crimson, legacies are given a significant amount of preferential treatment. While we don’t know how many seats are reserved for legacy students each year, we can tell you that legacy students are typically represented disproportionately in every freshman class.

The Scope

The class of 2022 was over 1/3rd legacy, meaning one-third of admitted freshmen (up from the year before) had either a parent, grandparent, sibling, aunt, uncle, or other relative who attended Harvard before them.

Let that sink in for a second.  

The average acceptance rate overall years 2014 through 2019 was just 5.1 percent.  At the same time, between 2014 and 2019, over 33 percent of legacy applicants made it in.

While, according to a survey done by the Crimson, legacy rates dipped slightly between the classes of 2021 and 2022, it should be noted that, all-around, prospective legacy students have acceptance rates that are five times higher than others.

For Harvard, the scope of legacy admissions has largely been under scrutiny as a result of a 2018 affirmative-action lawsuit filed against the university in 2014 that alleged Harvard’s admissions practices discriminate against Asian-Americans. The lawsuit also drew attention to Harvard’s practice of legacy admissions. According to the Crimson, the lawsuit reported that in classes 2007 through 2016, the number of legacy students outpaced that of first-generation students. More on that below.

Demographics

In 2016, Harvard had its first freshman class that was majority non-white. While schools across America, including those in the Ivy League, are ostensibly doing more to promote diversity and inclusion in their hallways and classrooms, legacy practices appear to continue to foster support for white (and wealthy) applicants.

For the class of 2022, 23.4 percent of white survey respondents were also legacy students. But a published by Duke University provided an even closer look into the issue. According to the report, from 2009 until 2014, 43 percent of white students admitted to Harvard were athletes, legacies, or children of donors and faculty (noting that children of faculty made up a very small sliver of the pool). The study further asserted that few of them—only a quarter—would have been admitted on their own by regular admission standards.

Legacy students also increasingly come from suburban populations. Take the class of 2018 for example. 37.3 percent of accepted legacy students came from households whose income was greater than $500,000. For the class of 2022, that number jumped to 46.4 percent.  

Early and Late Admission

While not much is known about the data for early admitted legacy students, the Crimson survey reported that a majority of freshmen (over 56 percent)  said they were accepted during early action. This number was significantly higher for legacy students, 76 percent of whom said they were accepted early. 

The lawsuit also discovered that legacy students may receive preferential treatment on what’s known as Harvard’s “Z-List,” a lesser-known waitlist of sorts requiring students to take a gap year before entering in. According to the , the court filings showed that about 50 to 60 students were admitted off the Z-List (or “Z-ed”) each year for the classes of 2014 to 2019.  In that time, the list consisted of over 46 percent legacy applicants.

Harvard Ain’t The Only One

For universities, legacy admission is theoretically good for business. Schools like Harvard have been admitting students from the same families for generations. The more they can foster those relationships and keep people invested in the university, the more likely they are to donate. Thus, most schools have a vested interest in attracted repeat customers.

While the Crimson found that legacy students admitted into Harvard’s class of 2022 outpaced their colleagues at Yale, with 14 percent of those surveyed in Harvard’s freshmen class compared to 11.6 percent at Yale.

However, the leg up for legacies is not unique to Harvard by any means.  According to a Guardian , an education software company called Naviance compiled data about legacy students from 64 colleges. They found that on average, admissions for legacies was around 31% higher than that of all applicants.

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