NRCCUA NEWS!
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - 1/19/2006

1/19/2007

By ELIZABETH F. FARRELL

Every other summer, Sewanee: the University of the South invites a handful of prospective students to take an exclusive tour of its campus and surroundings, in Tennessee. Forget routine visits to dormitories and dining halls; this excursion includes scenic hikes, caving expeditions, and a chance to ring the bells in the historic Breslin Tower, a 120-year-old campus landmark.

This special treatment is reserved for "legacy" students. Sewanee, like many other small private colleges, aggressively recruits prospective students whose parents, grandparents, siblings, or even aunts or uncles graduated from the institution. "Like any good Southerner, we're pretty liberal about who we call kin," says David Lesesne, dean of admission at Sewanee.

Sewanee has found that legacy applicants are far more likely than nonlegacy applicants to attend the college if accepted: 44 percent of alumni children who receive admissions offers enroll, compared with 30 percent of all applicants. This year 107 of Sewanee's 412 freshmen are legacy students, the highest proportion ever.

"Legacies are a positive thing for us," says Mr. Lesesne. "We've been very intentional about trying to enhance our recruitment of these students."

In recent years, the public outcry over preferential treatment for legacy students in college admissions has grown louder, and some well-known politicians, including Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, a Massachusetts Democrat, have decried the practice. Critics say that favoring the children of alumni unfairly benefits a group of students who are typically white and affluent. Last month both Democrat and Republican members of the U.S. Senate's Finance Committee criticized some elite colleges, including Harvard University, for showing favoritism toward the children of alumni.

In response to widespread complaints from state lawmakers and civil-rights advocates, Texas A&M University ended its longstanding policy of giving an admissions edge to legacy applicants two years ago. Other large public institutions have followed suit.

But at many small private institutions, particularly women's and religious colleges, admissions officers say that legacy students are crucial to their institutions' livelihood, and that recruiting them does not compromise efforts to create a diverse class. In fact, many of these institutions are seeking out academically qualified legacies more aggressively than ever before, hoping to raise their prestige and attract more high-achieving students.

Even some large public universities, including the University of South Dakota and the Eau Claire and La Crosse campuses of the University of Wisconsin, have started offering discounted tuition rates to children of out-of-state alumni.

Some college officials say the public debate over legacy admissions ignores a crucial fact: At many institutions, it is difficult to find qualified students who want to enroll. Unlike Ivy League institutions and highly competitive public universities, most colleges do not have a surplus of desirable applicants.

Wendy B. Libby, president of Stephens College, a women's institution in Columbia, Mo., says she struggles with that challenge every year: "Unlike other universities at 100-percent capacity, we aren't choosing the legacy over another student, because we need both."

The Turnaround College

Legacies can help revive institutions that are struggling to survive. In 2003, when Ms. Libby assumed the presidency of Stephens, undergraduate enrollment had plummeted to only 439 students from a one-time high of 2,200, and the college was in financial trouble.

Although similar predicaments had forced other women's colleges to close their doors or become coeducational, Ms. Libby saw another solution. She and other top officials decided that, in addition to cutting costs, they could revitalize Stephens by reaching out to alumnae. That meant tracking more of them down, communicating with them often, and encouraging them to send their daughters to Stephens.

Two years ago, Stephens's alumnae-relations board started regularly mailing baby clothes with the college's logos to graduates with newborn daughters. As at many other institutions, admissions officials and alumni-relations staff at the college began collaborating more closely to identify and woo the children of alumni.

For instance, the admissions staff now helps the development office find the names and ages of alumnae children, who receive information on Stephens as soon as they begin their sophomore years in high school. Any admitted legacy student is now eligible for an annual $500 scholarship.

Three years later, enrollment at Stephens has increased by 50 percent, to 640 students. Stephens officials also estimate that the proportion of legacy students enrolling has increased to 10 percent, compared with 5 percent before 2003. And the institution is now operating in the black, according to Ms. Libby. "We're one of the real success stories," she says, "and I think one of the major ways we have improved our admissions is by encouraging legacy enrollments."

Of course, dissatisfied alumni are not likely to encourage their children to apply to their alma maters. So Stephens and many other colleges are doing more to foster strong relationships with their graduates.

"Legacy admissions are much more tied to the overall evolution of an institution and its service to alumni," says Jeffrey E. Arnold, vice president for marketing and research at 422 Group, an Atlanta admissions-consulting company. "It's a great example of how the standard business-marketing practices of customer-relationship management have invaded the world of higher education."

Colleges are providing more services to alumni at every stage of their lives. Recent graduates, for example, might receive information about professional-networking events sponsored by the institution, while senior citizens might get information about estate planning (including how to include their alma maters in their will).

One of the most effective ways to help alumni is by reaching out to them when their children are preparing to apply to college. Parents invariably compare any other college with their own, says Mr. Arnold, making their alma mater a natural place to start their child's college search.

Dominican University, a small Catholic college near Chicago, offers information sessions at its alumni reunions. These seminars give parents general information about the college-admissions process and financial planning, as well as about the unique benefits Dominican extends to children of alumni, such as automatic $2,000 annual scholarships, which help defray the yearly $21,000 tuition bill.

"We did it as more of a service, to connect with alumni at a point when their children are making a significant decision," says Pamela A. Johnson, vice president for enrollment management at Dominican, "and to give them the opportunity to consider continuing their family tradition. ... Even if they weren't thinking about sending their children here, they may become interested just because of that personal contact they get with the admissions staff."

Washington College, in Chestertown, Md., offers a presentation for potential legacy applicants and their parents during every homecoming weekend, when alumni with children are likely to be on the campus. Elmhurst College, in Illinois, provides information sessions for alumni with children during its annual family weekend.

Direct Marketing

Colleges are also turning to more-sophisticated databases and software to find potential legacy applicants. Last year the National Research Center for College and University Admissions, a nonprofit organization in Lee's Summit, Mo., began offering a service that allows colleges, including Dominican, to match addresses in their alumni databases against the center's lists of academic and personal profiles for collegebound high-school students. Don Munce, the company's president, says demand for this product has surged over the last six months.

"Getting legacy students to attend is the best kind of vote of confidence you can give to an institution," says Mr. Munce. "They really send a positive message to the faculty and other students about the value families find in that college."

Meanwhile, a growing number of alumni-relations offices are gathering such information on their own. Washington College , in Maryland, sends out an annual e-mail message to its entire alumni contact list, asking for the names and ages of their children, as do Elmhurst and Centre College, in Danville, Ky. Those colleges use that information to mail personalized letters and brochures to legacy students before they begin their junior years in high school.

The first letter those students receive from Dominican, for instance, describes the university's traditions, history, and Catholic heritage.

"Today many more students are unaffiliated with the church, so they have more questions about how the religious affiliation of our college might limit their experience," says Ms. Johnson. "But with these students, who are more likely to be raised in a Catholic tradition, we can draw more on how our education will help develop their value system."

Last year Dominican used the research center's address-matching service to find an additional 350 qualified legacy students, and then mailed admissions materials to each of them. In 2006 the number of legacy students enrolling rose to 18 from eight the previous year, and so far this year the university has already received 24 legacy applications. On average, the university admits 1,200 students for 370 available slots.

Officials at Bradley University, in Peoria, Ill., used the same search service and identified 1,600 prospective applicants with a parent who had attended the university. Five percent of the 5,200 students who applied to Bradley last year were legacies, and 10 percent of the enrolling freshman class were related to a graduate.

Colleges often give legacies personalized attention through the entire admissions process. For instance, many admissions officers call each legacy applicant they accept, instead of only mailing them a standard form letter. Spelman College, a women's institution in Atlanta, makes sure that each legacy applicant receives a call from an alumna outside her family to congratulate her when she is accepted.

At Sewanee, applicants with siblings who are current or former students at the college are contacted by a current student who also had a sister or brother attend.

"A lot of times these students are concerned that, especially at a small school like ours, they will be living in their older brother or sister's shadow," says Mr. Lesesne. "For them to hear from a peer who says 'Oh, I really feel like I can be my own person here,' it makes a big difference in quelling their concerns."

Legacies are not immune from rejection, though most admissions officials say they let down legacies a little easier than the average applicant. Before Centre College mails rejection letters, J. Carey Thompson, dean of admission, says he usually calls the alumni relative of each rejected legacy applicant to explain why the student is not a good fit for the institution.

And if Ms. Johnson, at Dominican, has any misgivings about a legacy's application, she gives that potential student a chance to respond to those concerns before she makes a final decision.

Contributions of Legacies

Although small private colleges are working harder to attract legacies, officials at many of those institutions say they do not compromise their admissions standards to enroll such applicants. After all, many colleges must admit three or more applicants for every slot they have available to ensure that they can fill their freshman classes.

Furthermore, some college officials say their legacy policies do not prevent them from admitting low-income and minority students, as some critics of legacy admissions claim.

"To us this is not an access issue — it's about the angst that members of Congress, and, frankly, the press have about the admissions practices at this tiny band of elite schools," says Sarah A. Flanagan, vice president for government relations at the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities. "Most people don't apply to or care about those schools, and to say legacies are a bad thing because of them would be seriously misguided."

Even as Sewanee has recruited more legacies, it has increased its minority enrollment to 12 percent, up from 8 percent two years ago. Centre College managed to steadily improve its campus diversity over the last eight years despite maintaining a steady 15 percent proportion of legacy students: in 1998 only 5 percent of the student body were minorities, but the class enrolling this fall is 9 percent minority students.

In the rare instances when two applicants are equally qualified and one has legacy status, however, officials at some institutions admit they will choose the child of a graduate over another applicant. And Elizabeth Downey, senior alumni officer for Elmhurst College, in Illinois, says that practice makes sense because children of alumni tend to succeed in the classroom — and to give generously to their alma maters after they graduate.

Some colleges have found that legacy students are more likely than their nonlegacy peers to graduate in four years. At Calvin College, a small Christian institution in Grand Rapids, Mich., the six-year graduation rate of all students over the last four years was 73 percent, compared with 80 percent for children of alumni.

Many legacy students also tend to strongly embrace their institutions' history and traditions, says Arlene Wesley Cash, vice president for enrollment management at Spelman. Her institution even has a Granddaughter's Club, a service organization exclusively for students who have grandmothers who graduated from Spelman.

"It's a good sign and a healthy one for people to see a group like this on campus," Ms. Cash says. "At other institutions that have more of a history of entitlement, it may have a different connotation. Here, it is about service and doesn't have an exclusive feel."