In the Class of 2008, 127 students, approximately 8.7 percent of the class, have family members who graduated from Brown.
Ailish Kress '08 is one of those 127 students who are making Brown a family affair. Though she did not receive her acceptance letter to Brown until this past winter, Ailish has been going to the University since before she could walk. As a fourth-generation Brown student, Ailish grew up not only seeing the Brown campus but hearing the stories of all her family members who walked through the Van Wickle Gates before her.
But Ailish, who lives in Massachusetts, comes to Brown as a legacy at a time when college officials around the country are examining legacy admissions, which some critics say allow the sense of community and tradition to overcome other admission factors.
Ailish's family tradition began with her great-great-grandfather John Terrence Campbell McGuire '15, who was then followed by his son, James Brady McGuire '38.
Ailish's mother, Breffni McGuire '76, said she never wanted to go to any other school but Brown. "My father went there and loved it, so it just seemed natural," she said.
Brown was a male tradition in the McGuire family until the University combined with Pembroke in 1971 - the same year that McGuire sent in her application and garnered another acceptance letter for her family tree.
McGuire and her husband Jim Kress '75, who met while at Brown, have remained active within the Brown community since their graduations. Both conduct alumni interviews with prospective Brown students for the Brown Alumni Schools Committees and are members of the Brown Club of Boston.
McGuire said that she and her husband had hoped that Ailish's legacy status would give her an edge in the competitive application process. "You hope," she said, "but you really don't know."
Ailish, on the other hand, said she didn't really think that her legacy status would give her an advantage. The only things she said she expected as a potential fourth-generation Brown student were an inundation of mailings from the University and phone calls for media interviews.
Unlike her mother, Ailish was interested in schools other than Brown. During her junior year of high school, Ailish went on numerous college tours but ultimately decided that, like so many of her family members, she, too, would be happy at Brown. The next year, she took her place in the family tradition.
But considering legacy status in admissions came under fire this year, as university administrators and public officials, including Democratic vice presidential running mate John Edwards, debated whether the sense of community and tradition outweighs the undue advantage created by legacy preference.
Brown's official legacy policy states that all other things being equal, children of alumni might be given a slight advantage in the application process.
For the class of 2008, 41 percent of legacy applicants were accepted, as opposed to the 16 percent accepted from the entire applicant group, said Director of Admission Michael Goldberger.
According to a Jan. 2004 article in The Economist, Brown's legacy statistics are fairly typical among the nation's top schools. The magazine found that legacy students account for 10 to 15 percent of every freshman class at most Ivy League universities.
The Economist also reported that, on average, legacy applicants are two to four times more likely to be accepted to the best universities than non-legacy applicants.
Despite these statistics, Goldberger said that "for all applicants, the protocol starts out exactly the same" at Brown. Grades, courses, activities and recommendations carry far more weight than legacy status.
Yet when legacy is taken into account, not all legacy status receives the same consideration. Goldberger said the admissions office considers the level of alumni activity when reviewing legacy applications. That activity includes conducting alumni interviews and participating in Brown clubs throughout the country that serve as local centers for alumni activity. The office, however, does not consider or possess information concerning alumni donations.
Goldberger said legacy status is considered in the application process not for monetary reasons, but because it promotes "a sense of family."
Despite the sense of community fostered by legacy admissions, the practice has recently come under attack. A Jan. 9 decision by Texas A&M University to stop giving preferential treatment to the relatives of alumni has fueled a debate over the appropriateness of legacy advantage, according to USA Today.
Similarly, Edwards made putting a stop to legacy preferences a theme of his presidential campaign.
In a speech at the University of Maryland on Nov. 21, Edwards said, "The legacy preference rewards students who had the most advantages to begin with. It is a birthright out of the 18th-century British aristocracy, not the 21st-century American democracy. It is wrong."
According to CNN, the practice of including legacy in the admissions process first became popular in the 19th century as a method of keeping fathers happy and limiting the number of Jewish applicants.
Though Goldberger did not know the demographic make-up of accepted legacy applicants, he said the group probably has a higher percentage of white students than the rest of the class. He said legacy applicants tend to look more like the class the came 20 years before them. Due to this lag, Goldberger said that in another 20 years accepted legacy students may be more representative of the diversity currently found at Brown.
Most public and almost all private colleges in America take legacy into consideration when processing applications, though Texas A&M, the University of Georgia and the University of California-Berkeley do not, according to CNN.
Goldberger said every winter, the admissions office reviews all aspects of the admissions process. Therefore, in light of the current controversy surrounding legacy preference, "we would talk about changing the process," he said. Every year, the admissions office considers eliminating legacy preferences, but, for now, students such as Ailish will receive a slight advantage for keeping their family traditions alive.
Herald staff writer Danielle Cerny '06 edits the Campus Watch section. She can be reached at dcerny@browndailyherald.com.
