How You Can Do Better Than the Ivy League
Legacy admissions are a tradition at elite schools, but has anyone noticed whom that policy is truly hurting?
Many top U.S. universities, including the one where I teach, have a policy of admitting the children of alumni, donors, and other well-connected individuals. Such so-called “legacy” admissions programs started in the early 1900s, a time when society accepted that the privileged were entitled to spots at Ivy League schools — and that others, such as new immigrants, were not.
Quite shockingly, these elitist, racist policies continue today. According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, most Ivy League schools fill 10 to 15 percent of their freshman classes with legacies. Even some taxpayer-funded state schools, such as the University of Virginia, have a legacy system.
Some legacy admits are just as qualified as other applicants, but that’s not always the case. A 2004 Department of Education report concluded that the typical Harvard University legacy student is “significantly less qualified” than the average non-legacy student in every realm but sports.
Legacy admissions illustrate the common failure to notice unethical behavior when it is not in our best interest to do so. Universities face clear incentives to turn a blind eye to the unfairness of their legacy admission policies. After all, accepting the children of wealthy alumni is likely to generate more donations than a policy of accepting only qualified candidates.
We strive hard to cultivate the ability to focus intensely. Close focus brings heightened productivity and other benefits, but it also carries significant costs.
Most notably, close focus prevents us from noticing critical information beyond our field of vision. In particular, an overly narrow focus prevents us from noticing what did not happen — information we would need to make better decisions.
Little attention has been paid to the unfairness of legacy admissions because we lack a key piece of information: Who is being harmed? The qualified applicants who are rejected in favor of marginally qualified or unqualified legacy admits remain unknown. They don’t know why they were rejected, and we don’t know who they are.
But what if universities had to inform the students who were rejected in favor of less-qualified legacy admits? We would hear from the rejected students, the media would take up the cause, and the system would change for the better.
The enduring unfairness of legacy admissions is just one example of the common failure to notice information that would help us make better decisions on behalf of our organizations.
Can you think of any policies or practices in your organization or industry that could be harming unknown individuals or groups (or known ones, for that matter)? What can you do to bring attention to any unfair practices that exist?
Max H. Bazerman is the Jesse Isidor Straus Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School and the Co-Director of the Center for Public Leadership at the Harvard Kennedy School. His new book, The Power of Noticing: What the Best Leaders See, has just been published by Simon & Schuster. You can connect with Max on Twitter and Facebook.
