New York policymakers are ramping up efforts to ban legacy-based admissions to colleges — a change NYU said it made “some years” ago. Andrew Gounardes, a state senator leading the initiative, told WSN that the next steps in campaigning for more equitable college admissions would be to reform the early decision process.
Gounardes introduced a bill that deems it discriminatory for private and public universities to evaluate applicants based on their alumni relations in February 2023. He said that if the bill — titled the Fair College Admissions Act — were to pass this year, many other states would introduce similar policies. In September, California passed legislation banning all universities in the state from considering legacy and donor preferences in admissions — following suit behind states like Colorado and Virginia, which have only banned such admissions at public schools.
“Legacy admissions are basically affirmative action for privileged kids,” Gounardes said. “If the court is going to strike it down for kids who need that opportunity or who benefit from that opportunity, why should we allow it to continue for students who already have a significant leg up?”
NYU announced that it would remove a question from the Common Application asking applicants about their alumni relations in September 2023 to reflect its lack of consideration for legacy status. In a statement to WSN, university spokesperson Joseph Tirella reaffirmed NYU’s admission practices, stating that it has not considered applicants’ legacy “for some years.”
“While the university is always happy to have the children of alums apply and attend, unlike many peer schools, being the child of an alum is not a factor in our admissions decision-making, nor do we pay heed to legacy status in shaping a class,” Tirella said.
Goundardes and Assemblymember Latrice Walker, who also initiated the bill, both said it gained support following the Supreme Court’s ban on affirmative action in 2023. NYU’s first class admitted after the ruling saw a sharp drop in enrollment from underrepresented minorities — Black student enrollment fell to 4% from 7% and Latino student enrollment fell to 10% from 15%, while Asian American and white student enrollment increased for the class of 2028.
While Goundardes called legacy-based admissions the most “obnoxious” barrier to higher education, he said that early decision admissions, which offer applicants a higher chance of acceptance to a university, pose the “greatest harm” to diversity on college campuses. He said that early decision excludes low-income students by forcing them to commit to attending a college without knowing their financial aid package. In the 2023-24 admissions cycle, NYU received more than 22,000 early decision applicants — its largest number on record and a 56% increase over the last five years.
“We have some of the most exclusionary schools in the country right here in our state,” Gounardes said. “We give them millions of dollars in state money and they’re using that money to build barriers instead of tearing down walls.”
Contact Sophia Chen at [email protected].
