This story was reported and written by VPM News.
This fall’s enrolling freshmen are the first students impacted by new legislation prohibiting public Virginia universities from providing preferential treatment to students with a legacy connection to the school when making admissions decisions.
Virginia is one of only five states that have passed similar legislation — along with California, Colorado, Illinois and Maryland — according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. California and Maryland’s legislation applies to both public and private colleges and universities.
Before the bill took effect in July, only a few public Virginia colleges acknowledged that they’d been formally considering legacy status in admissions decisions.
And while these schools have now made minor adjustments to their admissions processes to comply with the new law, university officials told VPM News they don’t think the changes will make much of a difference in who is ultimately admitted to their schools — and who ends up enrolling there.
“We don't expect this to have much impact at all on what we see play out,” said Tim Wolfe, dean of admission for the College of William & Mary.
Prior to the legislative change, the percentage of W&M enrollees who were legacies hovered between 8% and 9% in recent years — smaller than the share of enrollees who were first-generation college students.
That percentage dropped less than a percentage point in this fall’s incoming freshman class: from 8.2% to 7.6%.
Wolfe said this data suggests that even without considering legacy status, students with a family connection to the school will likely make up roughly the same percentage of the college’s admissions offers.
“I would expect that it'll probably be very, very similar to what we've seen in recent years,” Wolfe said.
Colleges are still able to track the number of students who self-identify as legacy students, because it’s a question on the Common Application. But as Virginia Military Institute admissions director Joe Hagy said, staff can’t see a student’s legacy status while they review that student’s application — only after offers are made.
Previously, a student’s legacy status accounted for about 4% of VMI’s weighted admissions score. Now, it is not part of that formula.
“We’ve removed all labels and all identifiers, so we really are looking at everybody through the same lens,” Hagy said.
He added that because legacy status was previously such a small factor in VMI’s admissions decisions, he doesn’t “think it’s going to prohibit us from appointing individuals who happen to be a legacy.”
Of this year’s freshman class at VMI, only 4% had a parents who were alumni, while 13% had other relatives who attended VMI. Those numbers are only a slight decrease from seven years ago, when those figures were 6% and 19%, respectively.
“A little bit more likely to enroll”
Before the law took effect, William & Mary’s policy about the consideration of a student’s legacy status had been in effect since the late 1970s.
The 1978 policy stated that “other considerations being essentially equal, preference will be given to the applications of children of alumni of all schools of the college.”
Wolfe said that prior policy was used to help the school achieve its target admissions rate, because students with a legacy connection enroll at a higher rate than those without a similar connection.
Since students who apply to William & Mary are often also admitted to other highly selective universities, Wolfe said legacy status was just one way to predict the likelihood that they’d actually enroll.
“It’s just one more thing that we were able to look at or use in saying, ‘Yeah, OK, we recognize that this student probably has a little bit more familiarity with the university, so they’re probably a little bit more likely to enroll,” Wolfe said. “But that’s basically it.”
Less than 30% of students who are offered a spot at William & Mary decide to attend the school, which is known formally as the “yield rate.”
“That’s not uncommon, particularly for highly visible national universities, because our applicant pool tends to be some of the best of the best — not only the commonwealth, but throughout the country,” Wolfe said.
He added: “It makes all of our jobs that much more complicated.”
Wolfe said William & Mary is still weighing other indicators that a student is more likely to accept an offer and enroll, like whether they attended a campus tour or completed an optional interview.
Students who visit campus or participate in an interview are up to three times as likely to enroll at W&M as an applicant who has done neither.
Wolfe said many legacy students often also complete campus tours and interviews — another reason he doesn’t think the legislation will have much of an impact on the percentage of students with a prior connection to the school.
“A unique perspective”
University of Virginia dean of admission Gregory Roberts said the school “preempted” changes regarding consideration of a student’s legacy status before the Virginia legislation passed.
Last year, UVA added two essay questions — one required, one optional — to its application. The prompts ask students to talk about how their past experiences and perspectives, which can include legacy status, prepare them to contribute to the university community. (VMI and William & Mary include similar prompts on their applications.)
Roberts said the prompts allow prospective students to “share some information about their experience as a human being.”
“Our job is to read them and see if we believe that that experience — whether it involves any part of their background — allows him to bring in a unique perspective to UVA that will contribute to our university campus,” he said.
However, Roberts stressed that simply acknowledging a legacy connection alone won’t make a difference in admissions decisions. The percentage of legacy students enrolling at UVA this fall only dropped about 1 percentage point, he said.
“Our job is to try to enroll classes that are filled with talented, ambitious, kind, thoughtful kids who have a lot of different backgrounds and have different thoughts and beliefs,” Roberts added. “I don't think any of that will ever change. I think how you go about doing that can change depending upon legislation and other things, but we'll just do the best we can.”
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