Will Ulrich: One legacy worth abolishing

I'm glad that the Locust Walk bridge over 38th Street is back to being fully operational. Of course it was charming that Penn began renovations on it just as the summer ended, transforming the usually convenient overpass into a clogged artery of slow-as-slime pedestrians. Still, I'm glad that inconvenience has ended.

I suppose I'm also glad that the old Class of '49 Bridge has undergone a lucrative facelift. Now a Women's Walkway and a Generational Walk, the old standby looks good. Although I don't have a clue what that giant egg is doing halfway up the east side, the new bricks, lights and metal do-dads do spruce up that bit of Locust. That, and it's nice to see all the names of the donors who generously dished out the funds to have their monikers engraved underfoot.

The 125th anniversary of women at Penn is a nice milestone to commemorate, and the fact that the families enshrined on the bridge have sent many generations to Penn is laudable.

What bothers me about this new "generational" walk is that it reminds me of the insidious phenomenon of legacy admissions. By this I mean the policy of granting preferential treatment to the children of alumni in the admissions process.

A holdover from the days when higher education in America was about as democratic as Pol Pot, the favoring of legacies should be abolished at elite institutions of higher education. Penn and the rest of the Ivy League should put a stop to this affirmative action in favor of entrenched privilege.

On the face of it, favoring the children of alumni makes some sense. After all, a school like Penn thrives because of the contributions of wealthy graduates. Because of this, the practice seems perfectly justifiable.

The man in charge of letting students into Penn is quite forthright about this issue.

"The alumni are our taxpayers, if you think of the state school model," longtime Dean of Admissions Lee Stetson said. "We want them to stay part of the family here at Penn, so we give them this benefit while still making sure that the students are quite strong."

Penn boasts a clear policy on the benefits that legacies receive. Alumni children are to receive no special treatment at all when it comes to regular decision applications, but they do receive some preference if they decide that Penn is their first choice and apply early.

Alumni children, who comprise about 12 percent of Penn's student population, consequently fare better in the early admit pool. Although they may have to deal with the 18 percent admission rate once regular deadlines roll around, legacies get in about 35-40 percent of the time during the early round -- about 5 to 10 percent more often than other students.

Although a far cry from the days when the dullard son of a Ivy Leaguer could head off to daddy's school as well, this policy is still unacceptable.

First, the preference given to alumni children flouts the criterion used to justify the benefit afforded to athletes and racial minorities. But a student doesn't have something special to add to undergrad life at Penn simply in virtue of his or her parentage.

Second, by esteeming the inherent value of "keeping families Penn families," legacy preference fundamentally overlooks the real purpose an institution of higher learning.

Penn is not a country club; it is not a conglomerate of privileged families. It is, instead, a center of scholarship and teaching, so its goal in admissions should be to assemble a freshman class ideally suited for such pursuits. It has no business making sure that somebody has the same opportunities that his father or mother did.

Stetson is careful to point out -- and I think rightly -- that the performance of alumni children is comparable to the performance of any average sampling of Penn undergrads. Obviously, I don't think that the University is in the habit of admitting horrifically underqualified applicants, even if their family funded a building.

Stetson admits that rejecting legacies creates tension.

"It's always a very agonizing situation for the families and for us.... Some families never recover from it," Stetson said.

If Penn and institutions like it are willing to make these tough decisions, decisions that could make an important donor very angry, why don't they do away with legacy admissions all together?

Although I know my hope is probably unrealistic, I pray that next year's Penn application -- while still asking for all the important information like what club a student led and what the 217th page of his biography will look like -- drops one query from its current version.

I hope it no longer asks applicants if they have a family connection to Penn.

That's one question that doesn't matter. Will Ulrich is a senior Philosophy major from the Bronx, N.Y.

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