Everyone at Georgetown has one precious memory in common: opening a deceivingly small letter to find out that you had been accepted. I remember that day so clearly. I knew it was coming that Monday, March 29, 2010. I forced my mother to drive to my school with the letter in her hand so I could run to the car between my classes and rip it open. When I read it, we both started screaming.
I could not have been in a happier place. I had just found out that I had been accepted to the school of my dreams. I could whip out my HOYA SAXA shirt and flaunt my blue and gray in front of all my friends. I could wave goodbye to the waves of college-related anxiety that I had experienced over the previous three years. But I also knew I would have to endure social torment, and that morbid judgment that was about to take over my life. Why? Because I am a legacy.
Being upset because a friend has been accepted to a school that rejected you is understandable. But it is a little too much when a friend tells you, to your face, that you didn’t actually deserve your acceptance letter. Throughout senior year, everyone knew that my first choice was Georgetown. But whenever I would worry or express any anxiety to anyone about getting in, they would say the same thing: “Oh come on Morgan, you know you’re going to get in. Your parents went there!”
Well gee, thanks. Thanks for telling me that all of my hard work, my boatload of extra-curricular commitments, and my GPA don’t count for anything. When I did get my letter—when I could not have been happier—the same thing happened. “She only got in because she is a legacy,” friends would say. Again, thanks a bunch.
I can understand what my classmates are moaning about. Because I am a legacy, I did have a real advantage in the admissions process. But the exaggerated portrayal of legacy students as undeserving pricks who are leeching off of their parents’ collegiate successes is completely unfair.
Being a legacy is not the same as being an idiot who relies on Daddy’s money. Every one of us worked extremely hard in high school. We took advanced placement and honors classes, while carrying on our shoulders the responsibilities of clubs, sports, and student government.
Doesn’t that put all of us at a similar level? Haven’t all of us, regardless of whether we are legacies or not, established ourselves as top-notch students? I did not give a wink and a big fat check to the admissions committee. And if I remember correctly, it was I, not my parents, who worked through over three years of intensive college prep classes.
Believe it or not, others have advantages in the admission process, too. I suffered word daggers to the heart, but no one made wounding comments to the future Harvard soccer star. I faced the judging eyes of my peers, but the musical prodigy didn’t. What about the high school football star? What about men? After all, women make up the majority of college students and elite schools strive to maintain gender parity.
It’s the world of college admissions. There is nothing wrong with telling the school who you are and why you are special. Are you really asking us—and when I say us I do not just mean legacies, but all college students—to omit these unique qualities on our application?
Should I really purposely not write down where my parents went to college? Should the lacrosse players have declined to send tapes of their best games to recruiters? Should Mexican-Americans just say that they are Caucasian? Why should we have to do that? We shouldn’t.
Plenty of us have advantages, but it would be silly of us to hide them. This may come as a shock, but there is actually more to getting into college than your GPA and SAT scores. Legacies, students with athletic ability, and people of color bring diversity to this school.
I am a legacy and I am proud of it. I am in no way denying that I had an advantage in the admission process. But so did a lot of people. 10 percent of the class of 2014 are legacies, and I think they ought to be pretty proud of it too.
“Doesn’t that put all of us at a similar level? Haven’t all of us, regardless of whether we are legacies or not, established ourselves as top-notch students?”
No. All Georgetown students are not at the same level, and while you may have worked just as hard as the other (presumably) rather privileged students at your high school, the issue is that there are plenty of other people in the world who worked hard, don’t have one, two or any parents who went to college (let alone Georgetown), are probably brighter than you, and could have had that spot.
Also, seeing as how homogeneous this school’s student body has historically been, legacies don’t add diversity. They perpetuate a lot of the problems of Georgetown – such as coddled, privileged elites who think they’ve earned everything they have.
Articles like this make me embarrassed to go here. Of course you shouldn’t have to lie on your application – at the same time, why should you have a better chance of getting in just because your parents went here too? If you want people to respect you for your accomplishments, Morgan, maybe you should advocate for admissions reform. If you had the same chances as I did, sure, I’d respect your acceptance. But even you admit you did get a leg up just because of your parents’ accomplishments. Your success came easier to you than mine did to me, so why shouldn’t I be unimpressed?
I’d like to hear you explain how legacies bring positive “diversity” to the campus community. I don’t get why we should prize you just for coming from a privileged background.
Oh, and lastly, people who make you feel like shit for your accomplishments aren’t your friends . . . they’re just people you know. Who probably think you’re stuck up and don’t actually like you.
@Middle Class and Unimpressed
“I don’t get why we should prize you just for coming from a privileged background.”
Who says all legacies come from privileged backgrounds? Who says even the majority do? A Georgetown education is a very, very valuable thing and does provide us with the opportunity to make more money than most (if we work for it) but, as you may be able to tell from the endowment, it’s not like we’re churning out Mr. and Mrs. Moneybags with every AB and BS. So to presume privilege, beyond having educated parents which certainly is a privilege, isn’t exactly considerate.
Unless your parents donate enough money to pay for a wing of a building (or an entire building) chances are being a legacy won’t help very much at all.
What legacy students offer is a different (not better, mind you: different) understanding of what it means to be a Hoya, and likewise to participate in Jesuit education. It’s the same logic that governs Georgetown’s high acceptance rate for students coming from Jesuit high schools (say of that what you will). These people have a background in Jesuit education, whether from the tutelage they received at their parents knees or at their previous educational institutions, that makes them excellent candidates for study at Georgetown. An excellence that they demonstrated in their work and study before college and that was obvious in their applications. Unless your parents have a few extra hundred million to sweeten the deal, being a legacy just doesn’t matter that much. Aand i doubt, no offense Morgan, that the Brown family has that much money. If I’ve missed Brown Library for the Humanities somewhere behind Copley then please, by all means, let me know.)
Wouldn’t you think that the children of someone like a Dr. Dan Porterfield (COL’ 83 and current Bad Ass In Residence, whose wife also attended Georgetown) would make excellent Hoyas? Not because of their familial affiliation to the University but due to the quality of their character, molded from the get-go by parents who are themselves the products of Georgetown Jesuit values? (Not, necessarily, Catholic, but certainly Georgetown Jesuit.) Not to presume that you’ll choose to have children but if you did wouldn’t you raise those children with the kinds of values that would predispose them to success? Wouldn’t you try to instill in them the kinds of character traits that you have, that would make them excellent candidates for the Georgetown Class of 20_ _ ? Wouldn’t you do your darnedest to make sure that your children were the kinds of people Georgetown would be proud to have on campus? I would.
I think Morgan’s point is that legacy students who’ve worked hard to be where they are have just as much to offer the campus community as the incredibly hard working students who come from non-legacy families. Maybe they even have something different, something that is equally as valuable as everyone else’s somethings. Not all legacies are inherently valuable to Georgetown, but then no one individual is ever valuable to the campus community without working to be so once here. (And, let’s be real, a Jesuit would say that every human life is possessed of unique gifts and experiences that, when brought together here or anywhere, have the potential to enrich life for all of us.)
Morgan is taking the time to contribute her thoughts openly, without animosity or anonymity (which, on the anonymity point, is more than can be said of either you or me), to campus discourse. She’s advocating FOR a diversity of backgrounds on campus. She’s asking that people refrain from casting judgements on others because of where they come from. I thing we can all agree these calls are more than worthwhile.
You are, of course, entitled to your opinions. Your argument is valid, and your willingness to share is commendable. I mean no disrespect whatsoever, and i hope I’ve written nothing here that might offend you or anyone else. I only hope that, were you ever to meet Ms. Brown at a party or on Lau 2, you would speak with her openly and earnestly about the issues of campus diversity and admissions, that you might each listen to one another with open minds, and that in the end you would work together for what is our common goal: to learn from one-another and make Georgetown the best place it can be. I can only hope that this is what any good Hoya would do.
Sorry for my blatant idealism: kind of weirdly I was just reading about Mr. Rogers.
Best,
Hopeful Father of a Unique and Awesome Hoya, Class of 20??
Hopeful Dad –
You ask, “Who says all legacies come from privileged backgrounds? Who says even the majority do?” Well, everyone says that, because it’s a true fact. Half of Georgetown students are in the top 3% of world wealth, for goodness sakes. Regardless of the subsection of the population you’re looking at, the majority of Georgetown students are privileged.
You said that “to presume privilege, beyond having educated parents which certainly is a privilege, isn’t exactly considerate.” Of course, you’re correct in noting that not ever single legacy is spoiled rotten, but if half of all students are so incredibly well off, you’ve got to think that those whose parents came here are in that upper eschalon. And if we’re discussing the author specifically, who’s from one of the top 20 most affluent cities in the country and who went to a prep school (where it sounds like she was able to take APs and participate in student organizations), I’d say it would be almost impossible to argue against the fact that she comes from an incredibly privileged background.
You said, “Unless your parents donate enough money to pay for a wing of a building (or an entire building) chances are being a legacy won’t help very much at all” – Morgan herself said she got a leg up by being a legacy! We’ll never know how much, but that’s the point. If she wants to be taken seriously, she should be advocating for parents’ successes not to be a factor in their children’s admissions – not simply whining that not enough people congratulated her wholeheartedly.
You say kids from Jesuit high schools should be valued because they may know more about being Jesuit. Okay . . . so what exactly is so great about kids who are legacies? My legacy friends know little more about GU than I do. Their parents may have told them stories of what the school was like 30 years ago, but that doesn’t help them contribute to the classroom and campus atmosphere now.
I take very serious issue with your argument that Dan’s kids would be great Hoyas “due to the quality of their character, molded from the get-go by parents who are themselves the products of Georgetown Jesuit values.” Yes, Dan is a great guy, and I’m sure his kids were raised well, but COME ON – plenty of idiots and jerks go to this school (and even the nicest, smartest students often know nothing about the Jesuits!) Have you asked a current student about the Jesuits recently? I guarantee you they don’t know any of the founding Jesuits, the history of the sect or the principles beyond the slogans GU throws at us. I, like most if not all Georgetown students, will raise my kids on MY values, which Georgetown has done little to shape. I wouldn’t want my kids to have a better shot of getting in over other students just because I went here – especially if those other kids didn’t come from La Canada, CA, but came instead from a poor city, from a family of parents who didn’t go to college. My kids will be fine because I will be able to support them. Just because I’ve taught them the fight song shouldn’t give them any advantage in the competition for the opportunity to receive a GU education.
You said, “I think Morgan’s point is that legacy students who’ve worked hard to be where they are have just as much to offer the campus community as the incredibly hard working students who come from non-legacy families.” I disagree. We have plenty of rich kids from educated families. Have you seen our student body? We don’t need another polo wearing bro, I promise!
Morgan took the time to write a self-serving editorial piece, and I’m taking the time to critique it. I’d offer my name if I felt it mattered – any biographical information you think is relevant to our discussion, I’d be happy to provide. She’s not advocating for diversity of backgrounds, she’s asking us to pat her on the back for doing what we ourselves did with less advantages! And yes, she’s taking an “anti-judgment” standpoint, but come on. Judgment in and of itself isn’t unfair, it’s a way of assessing a situation with the knowledge at hand. Morgan tells me she got in and her parents went here (and she herself admits there’s a connection) – of course I’m less impressed with her admission than that of someone who had no SAT prep courses, whose high school didn’t offer a single AP course.
I appreciate your pleasantries and I hope you know that I share your sentiments even if I don’t repeat them. I do think you overestimate the diversity that supposedly exists at GU and the impartiality of Morgan’s piece. Ha, I promise I’d say everything I’m saying now to Morgan’s face! I just very, very seriously disagree with most of what she and you are saying.
Hey again Middle Class and Unimpressed,
Thank you again for saying what’s on your mind!
So this is my last try to change your mind just a little bit. Let me just start with, no: I don’t think people should get in JUST because their parents went here. But I do think Legacy students who deserve to go here, like Morgan, deserve to go here, and that they add something to the campus community.
Basically: not all legacy students are douchebags.
On privilege: I agree. We’re all privileged to go to Georgetown, and yes most people at Georgetown can be considered the most privileged of all privileged. That’s ALL of Georgetown, not just the legacies. Not by a long shot.
On legacy acceptance: I worked in admissions last summer. That doesn’t make me an expert but I do know a few things and I think you might find them interesting. If you’re a legacy you get a flag on your application, you also get a flag if you’re a varsity athlete, scored in a certain percentile of the SAT, got above a certain GPA, were president of your High School, etc., etc. It’s just one more thing, and probably the least noted of all the flags. It might help you get noticed, to stand out a tiny bit in the pile of 18,000 other applicants, but not much. Not unless that legacy is a major donor. Being a legacy won’t get you in unless you have the serious chops it takes to get in anyway: Georgetown has a smaller application pool than it’s peer institutions because it doesn’t use the common app. Dean Decan isn’t going to dilute his acceptance rate or, more importantly, his admissions stats, just to take some kids whose only merit is their parents went here in the 70’s. Not unless rejecting them would mean threatening a substantial revenue artery. Like, millions and millions of dollars. Hell, the older daughter of the Governator and Maria Schriver (COL’77) didn’t get in. Or so the rumor goes, at least. I’ve never spoken to him about this (or at all, actually) but that’s what I took away from my summer working in admissions. (I do know Dean Decan is seriously committed to finding ways to accept more students from economically disadvantaged backgrounds. He’s a legit guy from what I can tell.)
On experience with Jesuit Education as a plus: I think you misunderstood me a little. First, i wasn’t supporting Georgetown’s choice to accept lots of students from Jesuit High Schools, nor was I saying that students from Jesuit High Schools or with Alumni parents know anything about the Jesuits. I was saying that I think the logic in their acceptance is something like “students will flourish at a Jesuit college who have experience with the unique pedagogical methods employed, and values inculcated, at such institutions.” And I think that might be right. People who’ve been raised to believe and maybe (hopefully) to embody Jesuit values (Cura Personalis, AMDG, Community in Diversity, Men and Women for Others, etc.) are the kinds of people Georgetown would want walking around it’s campus. That makes sense to me. People brought up with those values, whether they know the names for them or not, and live those values day to day, make excellent students at Georgetown.
” I, like most if not all Georgetown students, will raise my kids on MY values, which Georgetown has done little to shape”
I’m sorry Georgetown wont have any part in shaping your values. Why do you go here, then, just to get a degree from a top 20 school? Or because there’s something here you believe in? Like educating the whole person, or working for the betterment of the world? No answer is wrong and I’m sorry if I sound judgmental, but I think it’s sad that Georgetown won’t have any impact on who you are as a person. College is a time of serious learning and self reflection. If you haven’t learned anything about YOUR values here then that’s too bad. I don’t mean you should follow every letter of the Jesuits word, or any of them if you don’t believe in them; but if you don’t think Georgetown is helping you to grow into the person you want to be, if you don’t think being on the Hilltop is helping you to define YOUR values, then why stay? Find a place that does helps you grow, a place that makes you into the kind of person you want to be– that you would want your son or daughter to be.
“I wouldn’t want my kids to have a better shot of getting in over other students just because I went here”
Thank you, this allows me to clarify. I don’t think legacy students get in “just because [their parents] went here” at least not all of the time. I think plenty if not most legacy students get in because their parents raised them to be good hard working people, and I think their parents were able to do so in part because of what they learned (IQ and EQ) at Georgetown.
“My kids will be fine because I will be able to support them.” So… you’re going to support your kids so they don’t have to go to college? …so they don’t have to support themselves? I’m sure that’s not what you meant to say, but it is what you wrote.
“Just because I’ve taught them the fight song shouldn’t give them any advantage in the competition for the opportunity to receive a GU education.” Did they ask you to sing the fight song in your interview? No. But they did ask you what you thought about service, about humanity, about the value of an education. Legacy students probably don’t get taught the fight song (I didn’t) but I bet they do get taught how valuable an education is, how important it is to be involved, how to whom much is given much is expected. And those things won’t only help them get into Georgetown, they’ll help them be good people for the rest of their lives.
Now before i get on to my last bit, I want to say I wasn’t trying to call you out on writing anonymously, (I mean, I was doing the same thing) and I’ve already said i think it’s a good thing you’re critiquing Morgan’s piece. I also don’t think I’m going to change your mind very much, but I do think your issue is more with the kinds of student at Georgetown who take their education for granted (a la the polo wearing bro of your example) than with legacy students. Yes there is definitely cross over, but not every legacy student is a polo wearing bro (by which I think you mean “douchebag”) and not every polo wearing bro is a drain on the campus community.
I was going to write a very long and detailed description of who I am, of my family, and use my existence and resume to prove that legacy students can be valuable to Georgetown’s campus community. But it’s not worth it. For me to post something like that would be total self justification, and it would more or less prove your underlying point that legacies are insecure about their status at school probably because they secretly know they don’t deserve it, or some equally bullshit thing like that.
This will be my last post on this subject. There’s no point in sitting here trying to prove to you that legacies can contribute. They do. Not all of them, but again not all non-legacies make positive contributions to the campus community either. Legacies do contribute in positive ways. It’s fact. Did you ever know Andrew Dolan? Case and point. What about Will and Tim Carey? Brian Kesten? (well, his mom is a professor, but i think that counts.) Mollie Schmitz? Allison Dale? All legacies, all people who made SIGNIFICANT contributions to the Georgetown Community, and they’re far from the only legacies to have done so. They gave their time and energy, passion, love, and talents, not because they had to but because that’s who they are, and I think being legacies, having been brought up by people who themselves loved and embodied Jesuit values, played a major part in that. Not only did they deserve to go to Georgetown, they made it a better place for having gone. I hope we can all find it in our selves to do the same. In the end, legacy, non-legacy, it doesn’t matter. All that counts is if you made a positive contribution. That’s all. I’m confident in my contributions. I hope you are, too!
Thanks for engaging in this discussion with me, Middle Class and Unimpressed! I really hope you stay neither.
Oh, you’ve misunderstood me. Let me clarify.
If legacy students can get in here without an added boost, then yes, they deserve to go here. Sure, not all of them are douchebag bros. Some of them work hard, do well on the SATs, volunteer – and they should get in for those good qualities.
But I don’t think that legacies should have an added bonus in admissions based on their parent’s accomplishments.
You wrote, “it’s just one more thing, and probably the least noted of all the flags. It might help you get noticed, to stand out a tiny bit in the pile of 18,000 other applicants, but not much”
So if Jane Hoya has one more flag, she’ll stand out, while someone who comes from another, perhaps a slightly less privileged background, will get looked over. How is that fair?
I love the Jesuit ideals. Georgetown does little to promote them (look at the Student Commission on Unity report, almost all GU students agree that they’re not embodied by Hoyas)
“if you don’t think Georgetown is helping you to grow into the person you want to be, if you don’t think being on the Hilltop is helping you to define YOUR values, then why stay? Find a place that does helps you grow, a place that makes you into the kind of person you want to be– that you would want your son or daughter to be.”
I love Georgetown for what it’s given me, which unfortunately does not include moral guidance and does include many, many headaches as I hear my peers describe their yachts and vacation homes
“’My kids will be fine because I will be able to support them.’ So… you’re going to support your kids so they don’t have to go to college? …so they don’t have to support themselves? I’m sure that’s not what you meant to say, but it is what you wrote.”
No, what I wrote is that my kids will be fine because I will be able to support them. What I MEANT by that is that my kids will have a world of opportunities, so if they don’t get into GU, it’ll be okay. For some kids, though, coming here is much more important than that. (I’m sure 98% of people who read this need further clarification – unfortunately I don’t have the time to elaborate on everything, although if you’d like me to explicate I can)
“Legacy students probably don’t get taught the fight song (I didn’t) but I bet they do get taught how valuable an education is, how important it is to be involved, how to whom much is given much is expected. And those things won’t only help them get into Georgetown, they’ll help them be good people for the rest of their lives.”
So if they’re great kids, yes, let them in. Because they’re great kids. Because they’ve committed themselves to service, because they ran clubs in high school and founded a non-profit of whatever. If they’re so great, why do they need an extra check? Again, why should they be privileged because of what their parents did?
I like to exaggerate, so I apologize if I gave the impression that I think most legacies are bros. You’re correct in stating that I’m much more concerned “with the kinds of student at Georgetown who take their education for granted … than with legacy students” – the problem is that when they get in off their parent’s accomplishments, even in part, if they get in for who they are instead of what they’ve actually done, those legacies become entitled. (Well, even more entitled.)
I’m not saying we shouldn’t admit any legacies! Good lord, you act like I’m advocating we round them up and kill them. Yes, I think most of them are obnoxious, but of course the correlation’s not 100%.
You say, “In the end, legacy, non-legacy, it doesn’t matter.” If only Admissions felt the same way.