The New York Times has a pretty balanced article on legacies at Middlebury college. Note these facts:
While legacies made up 12 percent of the freshman class entering Middlebury in the fall of 1965, they are just 5 percent of the current freshman class. It can be difficult to mount an argument that those admitted to this class were not otherwise qualified, at least by the yardstick of the SAT: the 30 legacies in the current freshman class posted an average SAT score (1389) that is 33 points higher than that of the class as a whole.
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But that argument frequently makes it no easier for legacies to convince a classmate that their admissions were merited.
Rich well connected white kids that actually have higher test scores than the average (at least at this school), and yet their classmates still look down on them and feel that they didn’t get in “on merit.” How do you think it works out for minority students who are academically not in the same league as their peers and stand out in a crowd?
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