More than one-third of Harvard’s outgoing freshman class reports that a relative also attended the college, according to The Harvard Crimson. On the school's website, the FAQ section for admissions flat-out admits, “Among a group of similarly distinguished applicants, the daughters and sons of Harvard College alumni/ae may receive an additional look.”

While many elite schools in the U.S. have vowed to improve socioeconomic diversity on their campuses, recent developments — including news that dozens of wealthy parents allegedly paid, in total, about $25 million in bribes to cheat their kids into college — suggest otherwise. The definition of “legacy” differs from school to school, but whether or not to consider the alma maters of parents in the college admissions process is once again creating controversy.

Some argue that considering the alma maters of parents flies in the face of the American dream. But some top colleges, like Stanford University, have previously refuted this claim, citing the need to build strong alumni networks.

According to the the University of Pennsylvania's (UPenn) alumni magazine, legacy acceptance rates at the school have run close to 50% in recent years — even applicants whose grandparents went to UPenn get an extra once-over in the admissions office. In 2018, Duke University’s student newspaper reported that prospective students with legacy ties at the university were entitled to “an additional round of review.” Duke's admissions web page has since been updated to say that it "note[s] alumni status when reviewing applicants." According to the FAQs on Columbia University's admissions site, “when an applicant is extremely competitive and compares favorably with other similarly talented candidates,” being the daughter or son of an alumnus may constitute a “slight advantage” that “may especially apply for ‘legacy’ candidates.”

Ben Nguyen, an incoming first-generation student at Stanford, tells Teen Vogue he “received no help from [his] parents” in the financial aid process. “Yet, somewhere in this world, some underqualified kid might’ve gotten in because his mom gave a generous donation, or his dad funded a new library for his alma mater. This is absolutely demoralizing.”

“It seems like an unwarranted and unfair advantage,” Eric Olvera tells Teen Vogue. Eric was just accepted to Harvard on a full-tuition scholarship. “The merits of a parent, or other relative, shouldn’t be the merits of a prospective student,” he says.

His parents are immigrants who came to the United States from Mexico in the 1990s. Eric is a senior at Idaho Falls High School, and he not only has a skyscraping GPA but also aspirations of one day sitting on the Supreme Court. He acknowledges benefiting from admissions biases toward minorities, but he says legacy admissions illustrate preferences of an unnecessary breed: “affirmative action for the wealthy.”

Although legacy admissions do differ from affirmative action, both practices are perfectly legal. A. Scott Bolden, a prominent trial and white-collar-crime lawyer from Washington, D.C., tells Teen Vogue, “The legacy policies are a choice made by [a] college or university to allow prior attendance by family members to factor into their acceptance decisions.” Affirmative action, on the other hand, is a “legal requirement that is added into the acceptance decisions,” he says. Both policies walk a fine line.

“If the legacy policy is used to discriminate against other students of color, academic status, sexual preference [...] then that can be problematic,” Bolden says.

A bill introduced in the California State Legislature in March would block state funding to colleges and universities that consider legacy status (or relation to donors) in admissions.