These Schools Have Banned Legacy Admissions

While a growing number of elite universities have recently ended legacy admissions practices, some schools ended the practice long ago or never employed it at all.

Updated on March 11, 2024

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Fact-checked by Marley Rose

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Edited by

•

Fact-checked by Marley Rose

Updated on March 11, 2024

Learn more about our editorial process

Image Credit: Jacob Boomsma / iStock / Getty Images Plus

Data Summary

Legacy admissions is the practice of giving preferential treatment to children of alumni and donors at colleges and universities.
During the 2022-2023 academic year, more than 1,300 institutions reported that they did not consider an applicant's legacy status for admission.^{Note Reference [1]}
During the same year, however, one-third of selective four-year institutions (32%) reported that they did consider legacy status.^{Note Reference [2]}
Since the 2023 Supreme Court ruling that banned affirmative action at colleges and universities, at least six institutions have ended their legacy admissions policies.
Dozens more schools ended their legacy policies prior to 2023, according to archived admissions data.

Legacy admissions practices have been a recurrent subject of debate in higher education for decades. But in 2023, they were further thrust into the spotlight following the Supreme Court ruling that ended affirmative action.

Higher education experts, future applicants, and their families wondered if it was time to put an end to the controversial practice that increases the likelihood of unfairness in college admissions.

As a result, a growing number of institutions have put a formal end to the century-old tradition.

In this report, we detail which schools have recently announced that they will no longer consider an applicant's legacy status, and which schools abandoned the practice long ago.

What Is Legacy Admissions?

Legacy admissions is the practice of giving preferential treatment to applicants whose relatives attended the same institution.

Many schools that practice legacy admissions have claimed that legacy status accounts for a small part of an applicant's overall consideration. But the percentage of legacy students at the nation's most elite institutions paints a different picture.

At Harvard University, 32% of the class of 2027 are legacy students.^{Note Reference [3]}
At both Dartmouth and Yale, just over 1 in 10 students (11%) in the class of 2027 have a legacy affiliation.^{Note Reference [4], Note Reference [5]}
At Stanford University, 14.9% of the class of 2026 are legacy students.^{Note Reference [6]}
And at Cornell University, legacy students account for just under 15% of the class of 2025.^{Note Reference [7]}

Each of these institutions has a general acceptance rate under 10%, yet they admit more than 10% of students who are related to alumni.^{Note Reference [8]}

While these numbers may seem exclusive to Ivy League institutions, it's not just the Harvards and Yales of higher education that consider legacy status. According to recent data from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), during the 2022-2023 academic year, 32% of selective four-year institutions considered an applicant's legacy status during the admissions process.^{Note Reference [2]}

Still, more than 1,300 colleges and universities during the same period reported that they did not consider legacy status even if it was submitted.

The following lists showcase the institutions that have formally ended their legacy admissions policies or that never had legacy admissions policies at all.

Schools That Recently Ended Legacy Admissions Practices

Below is a list of some of the colleges and universities that ended legacy admissions practices following the U.S. Supreme Court's 2023 ruling on affirmative action.

Schools That Ended Legacy Admissions Prior to 2023

Each year, thousands of institutions submit information about their admissions considerations on a form known as the Common Data Set (CDS). The following list shows that for the 2022-2023 academic year, these schools' CDS reports all indicated that alumni relations was not considered. Some of these institutions put an end to legacy practices decades ago.

Auburn University

California State University, Long Beach
Chapman University
Pomona College
University of California, Berkeley
University of California, Davis
University of California, Irvine
University of California, Los Angeles
University of California, Merced
University of California, Riverside
University of California, San Diego
University of California, San Francisco
University of California, Santa Barbara
University of California, Santa Cruz
University of San Francisco

University of Colorado, Boulder

University of Connecticut

University of Florida

Georgia Institute of Technology
Mercer University

University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

Purdue University, Main Campus

University of Maryland
John Hopkins University

Amherst College
Clark University
Northeastern University

Saint Louis University

Texas A&M University
University of Texas, Arlington
University of Texas, Austin
University of Texas, Dallas
University of Texas, El Paso
University of Texas, Permian Basin
University of Texas, Rio Grande Valley
University of Texas, San Antonio
University of Texas, Tyler

George Mason University
Hampton University

Schools That Never Considered Legacy Status

California Institute of Technology
The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
University of Washington

Some Schools and States Are Rethinking Their Legacy Admissions Policies

Amid controversy, backlash, and even a few legacy admissions lawsuits, a small number of institutions are currently reviewing their long-standing legacy policies.

In October 2023, Yale University president Peter Salovey said on a panel that they have begun having conversations about whether or not accounting for legacy status is getting in the way of diversifying their applicant pool.^{Note Reference [9]}

Just one month prior, Brown University president Christina H. Paxson formed a committee to reexamine the institution's policies on legacy status, early decision, and test-optional admissions.^{Note Reference [10]}

On Feb. 15, the Maryland House of Delegates passed a bill that will ban legacy admissions practices at the state's public colleges and universities if ratified.^{Note Reference [11]}

And most recently, Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin approved a bill that will do the same in Virginia, effective July 1, 2024.^{Note Reference [12]}