How Private Universities Are Handling Legacy Admissions In Southern California

Scrutiny of college admission secured through the privilege of money, family ties, and fraud hit a fever pitch after the 2019 Varsity Blues Scandal. But after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down affirmative action policies nationwide in June, supporters of affirmative action once again question why colleges and universities continue to use family and donor ties in admissions.

Institutions both public and private are getting rid of legacy admissions. Colorado banned the practice for its public colleges in 2021.

After the Varsity Blues scandal, California lawmakers approved a bill that required all universities receiving state funding to submit annual reports on whether they practice legacy admissions. The state’s public universities do not consider legacy in admissions, but many of the private ones do.

Information for those reports is collected by the Association of Independent California Colleges and Universities (AICCU), although schools can submit reports themselves, as Stanford University and the University of Southern California do.

LAist obtained copies of those reports from San Francisco Assemblymember Phil Ting’s office. Ting authored the state legislation mandating the disclosures.

Where legacy status matters

In Southern California, even as many private colleges still consider legacy status, they say the practice doesn’t give relevant applicants a major advantage.

Here’s an example from USC, California's largest accredited university:

USC disclosed in that report that it admitted 1,740 applicants this past school year with ties to donors and alumni; USC admitted 8,304 students total in Fall 2022. (That number doesn't account for transfer students and spring admits; LAist asked for those numbers, but USC said that legacy status for that data wasn't available.) The university added that “only a very small percentage had relationships with non-alumni donors.”

Other institutions that take into account family and donor ties also say their admitted legacy students met the bar for admission.

“While the university tracks familial history with Pepperdine, the Office of Admission maintains the same requirements, standards, and qualifications for all applicants, including those without legacy history,” said Pepperdine University spokesman Michael Friel in an email.

“During the 2022 and 2023 admission cycles, legacy applicants were admitted at a lower rate than the admit rate of our general applicant pool,” he said.

Pepperdine disclosed to Sacramento that it admitted 86 applicants with “some manner of preferential treatment to applicants on the basis of their relationship to donors of [sic] alumni,” as the report category states in Fall 2022.

A representative for AICCU underlined to LAist that the manner in which preferential treatment through family and donor ties works on each campus is determined by that campus.

The state requirement does not compel Pepperdine or any other private college or university to detail how important or unimportant family and donor ties were for each of those admitted students.

California requires some legacy admission transparency

The June 2023 report lists 65 institutions — including Loyola Marymount University, Cal Lutheran, and Chapman University — that stated they did not provide any manner of preferential treatment to applicants based on donor or alumni relationships for the Fall 2022 class.

As the pool of applicants from underrepresented communities such as Black and Latino students grows and college enrollment drops, legacy admissions policies may tarnish private colleges’ image and efforts to attract these students, faculty say.

“[Focus on legacy admissions] will rub some of the shine away from those colleges and universities that we’ve been putting on a pedestal,” said Mitchell Chang, professor of education at UCLA and the interim provost of diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Even though schools like USC are receiving a record number of applications, private colleges and universities should be concerned, Chang said, because underrepresented students have more options these days. Think of the heavy recruiting historically Black colleges and universities do among Black communities in Southern California.

“We ask every applicant if they have any family members that have attended the college,” said Maricela Martinez, vice president of enrollment at Occidental College, one of L.A.’s oldest higher education institutions.

“This year moving forward we will no longer ask that question,” she said.

Oxy, as the college is known, hasn’t used information about family ties for admissions “in recent history,” she said.

The college hopes that by putting the practice into a formal policy, she said, future applicants will know that the college is trying to create a racially, ethnically, and economically diverse student body.

None of the private higher education institutions that replied to LAist’s request for comment — USC, Loyola Marymount University, Pepperdine University, Cal Lutheran, Pomona College, Chapman University, Biola University, and Whittier College — said that they’d get rid of the family ties question as Oxy has.

Whittier College said it gives applicants with alumni ties a $1,000 scholarship.

A drastic action by these institutions to do away with legacy admissions or consideration of donor or family ties may not level the playing field for underrepresented applicants, as activists seek to do.

“The applicants from wealthy families have access to way more educational opportunities,” Chang said. “Let’s say internships, a stronger record of volunteering, and doing community service,” which continues to be an advantage in college applications.