The impact of legacy status on undergraduate admissions at elite colleges and universities

Economics of Education Review

Volumn 30, Issue 3, 2011, Pages 480-492

  Hurwitz, Michael ^a  

^a HARVARD GRADUATE SCHOOL OF EDUCATION   (United States)

Author keywords

Admissions preferences; College admissions; Conditional logistic regression; Legacy; Selective colleges

Indexed keywords

ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE; EDUCATIONAL DEVELOPMENT; HIGHER EDUCATION; LOGISTICS; QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS; REGRESSION ANALYSIS; UNIVERSITY SECTOR;

EID: 79952628988     PISSN: 02727757     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1016/j.econedurev.2010.12.002     Document Type: Article

References (50)

1. AAUP Does diversity make a difference? Three research studies on diversity in college classrooms 2000, American Council on Education and American Association of University Professors, Washington, DC, Retrieved August 11, 2010. http://www.aaup.org/NR/rdonlyres/97003B7B-055F-4318-B14A-5336321FB742/0/DIVREP.PDF.
2. ® 2005, SAS Institute Inc., Cary, NC.
3. ®. SUGI conference paper 184-31 2006, Retrieved October 24, 2008. http://www2.sas.com/proceedings/sugi31/184-31.pdf.
4. Avery C., Fairbanks A., Zeckhauser R. The early admissions game: Joining the elite 2003, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA.
5. Avery, C., Glickman, M., Hoxby, C. M., & Metrick, A. (2005, December). A revealed preference ranking of U.S. colleges and universities. NBER Working Paper 10803. Retrieved August 4, 2008. http://www.nber.org/papers/w10803.pdf.
6. Avery, C., & Hoxby, C. M. (2003, February). Do and should financial aid packages affect students' college choices?. NBER Working Paper 9482. Retrieved August 10, 2009. http://www.nber.org/papers/w9482.pdf.
7. Avery, C., & Levin, J. D. (2009, April). Early admissions at selective colleges. NBER Working Paper 14844. Retrieved April 8, 2009. http://www.nber.org/papers/w14844.pdf.
8. Bound J., Hershbein B., Long B.T. Playing the admissions game: Student reactions to increasing college competition. Journal of Economic Perspectives 2009, 23(4):119-146.
9. Bowen W.G., Kurzweil M.A., Tobin E.M. Equity and excellence in American higher education 2005, University of Virginia Press, Charlottesville, VA.
10. Chamberlain G. Analysis of covariance with qualitative data. Review of Economic Studies 1980, 47(146):225-238.
11. Croizet J.C., Claire T. Extending the concept of stereotype threat to social class: The intellectual underperformance of students from low socioeconomic backgrounds. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 1998, 24(6):588-594.
12. Ehrenberg R.G. Tuition rising: Why college costs so much 2000, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA.
13. Eide E., Brewer D.J., Ehrenberg R.G. Does it pay to attend an elite private college? Evidence on the effects of undergraduate college quality on graduate school attendance. Economics of Education Review 1998, 17(4):371-376.
14. Espenshade T.J., Chung C.Y., Walling J.L. Admission preferences for minority students, athletes, and legacies at elite universities. Social Science Quarterly 2004, 85(5):1422-1446.
15. Golden D. The price of admission: How America's ruling class buys its way into elite colleges-And who gets left outside the gates 2006, Crown Publishers, New York.
16. Golden D. To boost donor numbers, colleges adopt new tricks. The Wall Street Journal March 2, 2007, A1.
17. Grodsky E., Kalogrides D. The declining significance of race in college admissions decisions. American Journal of Education 2008, 115(1):1-33.
18. Hernández Michele A. A is for admission: The insider's guide to getting into the Ivy League and other top colleges 1997, Warner Books, Inc., New York.
19. Heller D.E. Merit aid and college access. Symposium on the consequences of merit-based student aid 2006, Retrieved December 4, 2009. http://www.personal.psu.edu/deh29/papers/WISCAPE_2006_paper.pdf.
20. Hill C.B., Winston G.C. Low-income students and highly selective private colleges: Geography, searching, and recruiting. Economics of Education Review 2010, 29:495-503.
21. Holmes J. Prestige, charitable deductions and other determinants of alumni giving: Evidence from a highly selective liberal arts college. Economics of Education Review 2009, 28:18-28.
22. Hosmer D.W., Lemeshow S. Applied logistic regression 2000, Wiley, New York. 2nd ed.
23. Howell C., Turner S.E. Legacies in black and white: The racial composition of the legacy pool. Research in Higher Education 2004, 45(4):325-351.
24. Hoxby C.M. The changing selectivity of American colleges. Journal of Economic Perspectives 2009, 23(4):95-118.
25. Hoxby, C. M., & Terry (Long), B. (1999). Explaining rising income and wage inequality among the college educated. NBER Working Paper 6873. Retrieved August 4, 2008. http://www.nber.org/papers/w6873.pdf.
26. Jensen E.J., Wu S. Early decision and college performance. Economics of Education Review 2010, 29:517-525.
27. Kane T.J. The long road to race-blindness. Science 2003, 302:571-573.
28. Karabel J. The chosen: The hidden history of admission and exclusion at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton 2005, Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston.
29. Long B.T. How have college decisions changed over time? An application of the conditional logistic choice model. Journal of Econometrics 2004, 121(1-2):271-296.
30. Manski C., Wise D. College choice in America 1983, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA.
31. Martin N.D., Spenner K.I. Capital conversion and accumulation: A social portrait of legacies at an elite university. Research in Higher Education 2009, 50:623-648.
32. Massey D.S., Mooney M. The effects of America's three affirmative action programs on academic performance. Social Problems 2007, 54(1):99-117.
33. McFadden D. Conditional logit analysis of qualitative choice behavior. Frontiers in Econometrics 1973, 105-142. Academic Press, New York. P. Zarembka (Ed.).
34. McPherson M.S., Schapiro M.O. Chapter 24 US Higher Education Finance. Handbook of economics of education 2006, vol. 2:1403-1434. Elsevier Press.
35. Meer J., Rosen H.S. The impact of athletic performance on alumni giving: An analysis of microdata. Economics of Education Review 2009, 28:287-294.
36. Megalli M. So your dad went to Harvard: Now what about the lower board scores of White legacies?. The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education 1995, 7:71-73.
37. Monks J., Ehrenberg R.G. U.S. News & World Report's college rankings: Why they do matter. Change 1999, 31:42-51.
38. Niu S.X., Tienda M. Choosing colleges: Identifying and modeling choice sets. Social Science Research 2008, 37(2):416-433.
39. Orfield G. Affirmative action works-But judges and policy makers need to hear that verdict. The Chronicle of Higher Education 1999, December 10.
40. Perfetto, G. (2010). The end of higher education enrollment as we know it: What colleges and universities need to understand before it's too late. Admissions Lab White Paper. Retrieved August 13, 2010. http://www.admissionslab.com/portals/0/white-papers/The-End-of-Higher-Education-Enrollment.pdf.
41. Perret A. College is twice as likely to admit legacy applicants. The Dartmouth.com News 2008, April 17, Retrieved March 7, 2009. http://thedartmouth.com/2008/04/17/news/admissions/.
42. Shulman J.L., Bowen W.G. The game of life: College sports and educational values 2001, Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ.
43. Spivack M.S. The admissions gap. The Washington Post 2009, April 12, W10.
44. Steele C.M., Aronson J. Stereotype threat and the intellectual test performance of African Americans. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 1995, 69(5):797-811.
45. Steinberg J. The gatekeepers: Inside the admissions process of a premier college 2002, Viking Press, New York.
46. Thomas D., Shepard T. Legacy admissions are defensible, because the process can't be fair. The Chronicle of Higher Education: The Chronicle Review 2003, March 14, Retrieved August 4, 2008. http://chronicle.com/free/v49/i27/27b01501.htm.
47. U.S. News and World Report Best Colleges 2009. (2008).
48. Wightman L.F. The threat to diversity in legal education: An empirical analysis in the consequences of abandoning race as a factor in law school admissions decisions. New York University Law Review 1997, 72(1):1-53.
49. Winston G.C. Subsidies, hierarchy and peers: The awkward economics of higher education. Journal of Economic Perspectives 1999, 13(1):13-36.
50. Winston G.C., Zimmerman D.J. Peer effects in higher education. College choices: The economics of where to go, when to go, and how to pay for it. National Bureau of Economic Research conference report 2004, 395-421. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago. C.M. Hoxby (Ed.).