Legacy and Athlete Preferences at Harvard

Peter Arcidiacono, Josh Kinsler and Tyler Ransom

No 2019-080, Working Papers from Human Capital and Economic Opportunity Working Group

Abstract: The lawsuit Students For Fair Admissions v. Harvard University provided an unprecedented look at how an elite school makes admissions decisions. Using publicly released reports, we examine the preferences Harvard gives for recruited athletes, legacies, those on the dean's interest list, and children of faculty and staff (ALDCs). Among white admits, over 43% are ALDC. Among admits who are African American, Asian American, and Hispanic, the share is less than 16% each. Our model of admissions shows that roughly three quarters of white ALDC admits would have been rejected if they had been treated as white non-ALDCs. Removing preferences for athletes and legacies would significantly alter the racial distribution of admitted students, with the share of white admits falling and all other groups rising or remaining unchanged.

Keywords: legacy admissions; college admissions; racial bias (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I10 J15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019-12
Note: ECI
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

Downloads: (external link)
http://humcap.uchicago.edu/RePEc/hka/wpaper/Arcidi ... ferences-harvard.pdf First version, December 6, 2019 (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Legacy and Athlete Preferences at Harvard (2022)
Working Paper: Legacy and Athlete Preferences at Harvard (2019)
Working Paper: Legacy and Athlete Preferences at Harvard (2019)
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