哈佛校友子女錄取率高達30％

Yale Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut.

Hypathway's Notes: 如果你的父母的任何一方從美國的一所大學畢業，你進入同一所大學的機會將會明顯增加。給校友子女們錄取的優待在美國被稱為legacy錄取， 我們也稱之為校友子女優惠錄取。在許多情況下，隻有你的母親或父親的本科學校才算數。有時本校教師的子女們也給於類似的照顧。有關專家指出，校友子女優惠錄取似乎是美國獨特的做法，因為類似的係統幾乎在亞洲和歐洲主要國家不存在。對這種差異的通常的解釋，可能涉及從一開始美國的多數著名大學都是私立大學，而英國或日本的大學一般是國營的。校友子女優惠錄取是一個很好的工具用於吸引校友對他們母校的捐款。今年哈佛2015班創造了6.2％的錄取率新低，而其校友子女的錄取率則高達30％，幾乎是普通錄取的五倍。雖然他們極力鼓吹對少數族裔學生的平權行動，自由派人士認為校友子女優惠是一個為富人家庭設計的另一種形式的平權行動，因為學生家長中至少有一位擁有名校的學位。

我們可以很容易地指出幾個有名的校友子女優惠錄取的例子，像布什就讀耶魯因為他的父親和祖父都是耶魯本科畢業生，盡管有吸毒和酗酒的警察記錄戈爾的兒子照樣上哈佛，以及最近哈佛錄取虎媽的女兒等等。名氣不大的還包括耶魯校長理查德萊文的女兒讀斯坦福。報告的數字顯示，哈佛的校友子女錄取率在哈佛耶魯和普林斯頓之間是最高的。校方反駁的理由是，因為他們成長於資源豐富的知識分子家庭，校友子女應該準備更加充分。耶魯大學甚至指出，他們的校友子女申請人平均的標準測試分數或平時成績比普通申請人更高。可能耶魯是這樣，但哈佛拒絕透露他們這方麵的數據則留下了揣測的可能。當然我們看到事情在向好的方向發展，因為現在給於校友子女的優待明顯低於幾十年以前。我們的一個來自波士頓的朋友告訴我說，他們知道哈佛富的校友子女甚至請私人教師來幫助他們完成家庭作業。這對於跟隨父親的腳步上哈佛的戈爾的特權兒子可不是一個正麵的形象。

If one of your parents graduated from a college in the Untied States, your chance to getting in the same school is significantly higher. The preference given to the alumni kids was called legacy in America. In many cases, only your mother or father's undergraduate schools count. Sometimes, faculty's kids were also given the similar preference. Experts stated that regarding college admission it is a unique policy for the United States to practice since similar system is virtually not existing in major countries in Asia and Europe. The common explanation to this difference is probably that from the beginning America's famous colleges were founded as the private schools in contrast to their counterparts in England or Japan which were mainly run by state. Legacy would be a perfect tool to attract alumni donations to their Alma Maters. This year Harvard enjoys its record low acceptance rate of 6.2% for the class of 2015 while its legacy acceptance rate was as high as 30%, almost five folds advantage over the regular pool. While they are cherishing the affirmative action for minority students, liberals argue that legacy preference is an another way of affirmative actions for the rich families since the students' parents at least one of them had a degree from the elite schools.

We can easily point out several famous legacy examples as George W. Bush enrolled Yale since his father and grandfather were all Yalies, Al Gore's son went to Harvard despite his several incidents with police on drug and alcohol and now Tiger mom's daughter goes to Harvard. Less famous ones would include that Yale President Richard Levin's daughter went to Stanford. Reported numbers showed that Harvard's legacy rate are the highest among Harvard, Yale and Princeton. The schools' counter arguments are that legacies are usually well prepared as they have been raised in an intellectually stimulated environment. Yale even states that their legacy applicants have higher numbers with regard to standardized testing scores or GPA than the regular application pool. This might be the case for Yale but Harvard refused to disclose their legacy's data,giving rooms for speculations. Moving to a positive direction,legacy preference was weighted much less significantly nowadays compared to several decades ago. One of our friends who was from Boston area told me that they were aware that some of the rich legacy kids at Harvard even hired private tutors to finish their home works, a not-positive image for a privileged son like Al Gore's who follows his father's foot step to Harvard.
 

Legacy Admit Rate at 30 Percent

By Justin C. Worland , Harvard CRIMSON STAFF WRITER
 
Published: Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Harvard’s acceptance rate for legacies has hovered around 30percent—more than four times the regular admission rate—in recent admissions cycles, Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid William R.Fitzsimmons ’67 told The Crimson in an interview this week.

Fitzsimmons also said that Harvard’s undergraduate population is comprised of approximately 12 to 13 percent legacies, a group he defined as children of Harvard College alumni and Radcliffe College alumnae.

Fitzsimmons’ comments came the week after a discussion at New York University on legacy admissions between Yale Dean of Undergraduate Admissions Jeffrey Brenzel, senior fellow at The Century Foundation Richard D. Kahlenberg ’85, and Bloomberg News editor at large Daniel L. Golden ’78.

According to a New York Times story on the event, Brenzel said that Yale rejected 80 percent of its legacy applicants. Brenzel reported that Yale legacies comprise less than 10 percent of the class,according to Kahlenberg.

Brenzel also said that there is a positive correlation between alumni donations and legacy admissions. According to Brenzel, Yale fundraising suffers when fewer legacies are accepted. Still, he said, this year Yale rejected more children of top donors than it accepted.

Asked if the Admissions Office communicates with University development at Harvard, Fitzsimmons emphasized the copious amount of information he receives about each applicant. “There is no formal mechanism of communication,” he said.

Kahlenberg, who edited a book entitled “Affirmative Action for the Rich: Legacy Preferences in College Admissions,” has worked to draw attention to the issue of legacy admissions at highly selective colleges.

“There’s been so much focus on affirmative action in college admissions ... Here there is a very large affirmative action program for wealthy students that gets very little attention,” Kahlenberg said. “It’s really a relic of European-style aristocracy that has no place in American higher education.”

Fitzsimmons defended Harvard’s legacy admissions rate.

“If you look at the credentials of Harvard alumni and alumnae sons and daughters, they are better candidates on average,” said Fitzsimmons, part of what he sees as the explanation for the disparity in the acceptance rate. “Very few who apply have no chance of getting in.”

Because of the family background of legacies, he said, students are more likely to be aware if they are unlikely to be accepted.

“It does no one any good to have a student come here and have an unhappy experience,” Fitzsimmons said.

Fitzsimmons said that legacy status, in addition to factors such as place of residence, acts as one of many “tips” in the admissions process at Harvard. All other things being substantially equal, he said, legacy status can “tip” an applicant into the group of accepted students.

But Fitzsimmons emphasized that a number factors, beyond the “tip,”lead to this higher acceptance rate. He said the pool of legacy applicants is a  self-selecting group.

“Some parents are particularly reluctant to push their own institution,” Fitzsimmons said. “They want to make sure that their son or daughter really wants to go.”

—Staff writer Justin C. Worland can be reached [e-mail].

Posted Wed, 05/18/2011 - 16:21 by Fishville at tongjiyiren.com