Stanford to continue legacy admissions and withdraw from Cal Grants

Elite Admissions as Legalized Bribery & Class Reproduction

• Many see Stanford’s stance as continuous with a long tradition: big “legal” donations buy access, while only small, direct bribes send people to jail.
• Several argue this is structurally indistinguishable from a country club: power, money and status circulate among the same strata; universities are “finishing schools for the elite.”
• Legacy and donor admissions are framed as modern hereditary nobility that preserves past discrimination (who was allowed in generations ago).

Defenses of Legacy & Donor Preference

• Defenders claim legacies at top schools are usually academically strong and often better-prepared than average applicants.
• Legacy preference is portrayed as a tie‑breaker among many near-identical high achievers, helping build multigenerational alumni networks and boosting donations.
• Donor admits are justified by some as “whales” whose full freight and gifts subsidize financial aid for many non‑rich students and maintain institutional strength.
• Others argue mixing wealthy, connected students with “smart but less privileged” peers can create powerful networks and opportunities.

Merit, Tests, and “Holistic” Admissions

• There is broad skepticism about holistic review: historically used to restrict Jews, now seen by some as a tool to cap Asians and engineer a desired class and racial mix.
• Debate over metrics:
  • Standardized tests praised as the least gameable, especially in a fragmented US K‑12 system.
  • Others note top scores cluster so tightly that tests alone can’t rank within the elite pool; GPA and tests both imperfect but predictive.
  • High school grades are seen as heavily gameable and distorted by grade inflation and unequal school quality.
• Some propose much harder national exams or university‑run entrance exams; others suggest admitting widely and “weeding out” via very difficult intro courses.

Public Funding, Cal Grants, and Fairness

• Many support California tying aid to nondiscriminatory admissions and applaud the state for not subsidizing an elite, status‑conferring institution.
• Others note the immediate losers are low‑income Stanford admits losing Cal Grants; Stanford’s applicant pool and finances will barely notice.
• A recurring principle: as long as a university takes public money or tax advantages, it should not use legacy, donor, or opaque “holistic” preferences.

Purpose and Value of Elite Universities

• Several commenters say undergrad academics at “T10” schools aren’t dramatically better than good state schools; the real value is status and connections.
• Others counter with experiences of much higher rigor and better teaching at top programs, especially in specific departments.
• Some argue truly egalitarian policy would be to abolish Harvard‑style elite universities altogether; others accept an elite tier but want it genuinely merit‑based.

Broader Class, Politics, and Hypocrisy

• Thread repeatedly notes that DEI and legacy are both challenges to “pure” academic merit, but one is framed as social justice and the other as naked class privilege.
• Long side debates question whether US academics are actually “left,” pointing to their tolerance of legacy admissions as evidence of liberal, not egalitarian, politics.
• Several see the entire system—legacy, DEI fights, Cal Grants tug‑of‑war—as surface struggle over a deeper reality: wealth and connections dominate outcomes regardless.