Recently Amherst announced that it was doing away with legacy admission preferences, and it’s been heralded in many places as “a big deal.” I know that legacy preference, as it stands, is exclusionary and that its statistics aren’t pretty: students who receive legacy preference are overwhelmingly white. I’m not down with this kind of discrimination, but I think it has the chance of becoming something else, too. I agree that legacy preference is a really important thing for exclusive schools to examine, but in light of some of Smith’s most recent announcements, I want to suggest that perhaps there’s a more sophisticated approach to legacy admissions, since this is likely up for consideration here, too.
Thirty years ago I was a working class kid, getting ready to head off to college and I could only dream of going to a school like Smith. Monetarily, it was way out of my league and —from what I’ve heard from many who attended Smith in the eighties and early nineties— the college was still working its way out of a reputation as a finishing school for rich white women. People who attended Smith on scholarship and financial aid back then have plenty to say about how they were treated here. I would have never fit in at Smith in those days.
Smith still has a long way to go and I am not going to knock the progress it has made, especially after the latest announcement that Smith will replace loans with grants for those receiving financial aid (KMac, I’m gonna let those Louboutins slide after that announcement). These kinds of moves make a Smith education far more accessible and it makes the potential for success after college better, too. Graduating with a huge pile of debt doesn’t work for anyone, especially these days.
Regardless, I have an alternative perspective on legacy preference to present, especially at a school like Smith where the alumni network is offered as one of the biggest perks of attending this college. We are an historically women’s college that claims its original purpose as offering an “education equal to those which are afforded now in our colleges to young men.” Smith is exclusive, but we are not Amherst, and we’re changing in different ways here at Smith.
But here’s the thing: in my mind, legacy preference can mean something far different than Tad and his mediocre prep school grades possibly pushing out a public school genius. There may be a more nuanced way of looking at legacy than just abolishing it altogether.
For example: what if we offered legacy preference especially to the children of low-income, non-white and first-gen children of alums? What if legacy preference could be one more way in which we increase the diversity of student populations on exclusive campuses? If discrimination and poverty can be generational, so can methods we use to change them.
Legacy is important to me because after all these years, I’m finally changing mine and I’ve worked really hard to get here. I am well aware that the color of my skin has granted me some privilege in that regard, but I come from a long line of low-income, working class people and immigrants, and I am the first person in my family to go to college. Legacy preference here at Smith means something much different to me, and it can mean something different to many of the students who are part of Smith’s ever-more diverse population. It’s not to say I’m relying on this to eventually get my daughter into Smith, but at ten, she’s already talking about what house she hopes to live in when she comes here. As a theater and dance enthusiast, when she takes her friends around campus, she walks them over to Mendenhall and says, “this area over here is probably where I’ll be spending most of my time.”
Of course, this is a bit personal. I’m a she-wolf when it comes to my daughter. I want her to have every opportunity I didn’t and every opportunity I’ve worked so hard to give her. For me, that does mean that she also has legacy preference on her side, which Smith sold to me as one of the many benefits of coming here. She’s aware that without good grades and a good application, legacy preference won’t matter anyway – we’re not the kind of family they name buildings after.
For some of us, legacy preference means that our children can continue the hard work we’ve put in, not just to secure our own education but to nurture another generation of Smithies to work for a world — and a student population— that is more diverse, equitable and inclusive. I think the faces of legacy preference have every potential of reflecting the equity work that Smith has already put in.
