Legacy Status as a Signal in College Admissions
Abstract
Opponents of legacy admit policies claim such policies are inherently discriminatory and contrary to a merit-based system yet many universities award admissions points to legacy applicants. The term "legacy" is used to describe a college student whose parent is an alumnus of the same university. This dissertation looks at measurable performance benefits to investigate the idea that legacy status provides some information to admissions offices. Empirical data from the Air Force Academy graduating classes of 1994 to 2005 are used. The variables of interest include traditional academic measures as well as student choices of academic major and career field and several post-educational measures. Log it or multinomial logistic regressions are run for each performance measure while controlling for high school performance standardized test scores and demographic data. Legacy status has no significant impact on grades order x of merit college major or Air Force rank. However legacy status is associated with a 0.10 increase in the probability of graduation and 0.04 point higher military performance average. The graduation figure results from legacy admits being less likely to voluntarily quit and the results are even more dramatic for less qualified students. For graduates legacy status leads to a 0.09 increase in the probability of being a rated officer and 0.11 increase in the probability of serving at least 8 years in the Air Force. These results are robust to model specification.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jan 01, 2006
- Accession Number
- ADA462454
Entities
People
- Leonard D. Cabrera
Organizations
- University of Florida