Old students are losing their edge at Stanford, private colleges in CA

• California Governor Gavin Newsom announced a ban on legacy preferences in private college admissions.
• It is the second state to ban the practice in private schools, and other states have done the same in public institutions.
• In the wake of the Supreme Court’s affirmative action decision last summer, inheritance preference has come under increased scrutiny.

Students can no longer use inherited connections to help them get accepted to prestigious California schools like Stanford.

On Monday, California Governor Gavin Newsom announced a ban on legacy and donor preferences in admissions at private universities in the state, including Stanford and the University of Southern California.

The announcement makes California the second state, after Maryland, to ban legacy preferences in private college admissions.

“In California, everyone should be able to get ahead through merit, skill and hard work,” Newsom said in a statement. “The California Dream shouldn’t just be accessible to the lucky few, which is why we’re opening the door to higher education wide enough for everyone, the right way.”

In the wake of last summer’s Supreme Court ruling that struck down affirmative action, barring schools from considering race in admissions, the admissions practices of colleges across the country have come under increased scrutiny, with heritage-related preference — and the fairness of the practice — at the center of the conversation. .

As Business Insider previously reported, admitting legacy students was a central way colleges could secure ongoing donations to support their endowments. Ethan Poskanzer, a professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder, previously told BI that legacy students “are more likely to go to college if they’re admitted, so they’re more likely to have their offers accepted, which means a more stable flow of schooling. for college”.

However, some colleges have rejected this idea in the past decade and banned legacy preference in their own admissions practices. Wesleyan President Michael Roth, for example, told CNN last year that the Supreme Court’s affirmative action decision “made it even more clear to me that it is imperative to give preference to the children of graduates.”

Similarly, Gabrielle Star — the president of Pomona College, which escaped legacy admissions in 2017 — said that “for every person who might be disappointed that legacy status isn’t being considered, there are other people who are really proud of which we do not consider them inheritances”.

While California’s ban is specific to private universities—public schools in the University of California system banned the practice in 1998—other states such as Illinois and Virginia have waived the preference for legacy students at their state’s public universities.

“If we value diversity in higher education, we must level the playing field,” California Assemblyman Phil Ting said in a statement. “This is about making the college application process fairer and more equitable. Hard work, good grades, and a well-rounded background should earn you a spot in the next class—not the size of the check your family can write or who you’re related to. at.”