There was a recent lawsuit in US filed on behalf of a group of rejected Asian-American students against Harvard University claiming the school's admissions process is biased and discriminates against Asian-Americans. While the lawsuit is kinda controversial, it did bring up an unrelated but interesting discovery when the judge compelled Harvard to share its past 6 years of admissions data, which was, until now, kept highly secretive - it was found that children of alumni were highly favored.
Between 2009 through 2015, 33.6% of legacy applicants (i.e. has at least one parent who graduated from Harvard or its sister school, Radcliffe) were accepted vs only 5.9% success rate for non-legacy applicants. Harvard claimed that legacy preference is necessary to maintain and cultivate a multi-generational relationship between alumni and school but the reality is this practice benefits mainly the affluent white students (only 7.6% of legacy applicants accepted last year were black, Hispanic or native American, compared with 17.8% of all successful applications) and hence is drawing fire from critics all around.
Sources: WSJ, NPR, Financial Samurai,
Closer back home, we have a similar issue for our own primary school admissions process. As every parent would attest to, the primary school registration phase is an extremely stressful exercise as the it is the official starting point of your entire education journey and a good school will give you the best start possible. While in the US, legacy status is just one of the consideration factors for admission, in Singapore, alumni status trumps all other factors except children who already has a sibling studying in that school of choice. And this has turned into such a ridiculous situation that a kid who stays next to a popular school might not get in as the parents are not alumni. Parents wanting only the best for their children will naturally exploit the holes in the system by paying hefty alumni membership fees, signing up for parent volunteering, church/clan affiliation or community work. In 2013, Nanyang Schools Alumni Association charges $1,000, Raffles Girls' Primary School and ACS Old boys charge $500 each. Much has been written and discussed about how this alumni privilege encourages further elitism in our society. Alumni kids whose parents studied in these prestigious schools are more likely than not, already steeped in privilege, probably drowning in their sea of enrichment classes from tuition to violin and golf lessons. In a study in 2016, it was found that children from higher socio-economic backgrounds are more likely to attend Integrated Programme (IP) secondary schools and their affiliated primary schools.
For all the hoo-ha over the CNA documentary hosted by Dr. Janil Puthucheary about the class divide in Singapore, wouldn't one of the easier solutions be to remove this alumni priority in our primary school admissions process and even allow the kids of the lower-income groups to have priority instead? Wouldn't the less privileged kids have much more to gain from studying in the supposedly "elite" schools that churn out the top PSLE students year in year out? Wouldn't this be a better social class equalizer rather than giving out GST rebates or one-off SG bonus to the lower income groups? Why are we allowing our primary schools to enhance the advantages of already privileged children and, at the same time, suppress the economic mobility of the lower class?
Read here, here and here for more.
So what is the government doing about this? Other than introducing in 2014 a puny 20 places reservation for kids with no affiliations, the government is pretty much turning a blind eye to this issue. In fact, the very same host of the regardless-of-class CNA documentary, Dr Janil Puthucheary, said in parliament last year while he was still in Ministry of Education as Senior Minister of State, that priority is given for proximity but balance needed for parents to have the opportunity to send their children to their alma mater. Is this for real? The current P1 admissions framework 100% prioritizes alumni status over proximity! He also claimed that out of all the successful alumni applicants in the past 3 years, less than 15% stay more than 8km away from their schools. Seriously, why the magic number 8km? Why not 7km, 6km or the standard 2km proximity benchmark? 8km is like the distance of Raffles Place to Bedok!
Reforming the current admission framework to eliminate alumni privileges as well as priorities given to parent volunteers, community leaders and church/clan affiliations will go a long way to reduce elitism and social inequality. Allowing less privileged kids of lower-income groups to have priority in choosing their school will give them better odds to move up the social and economic ladder and escape the multi-generational (low) wealth trap. No doubt this will cause a lot of unhappiness among the affected parents and schools who will see a collapse in alumni subscriptions and donations as well as a plunge in the number of volunteers, but in the long run, this will only serve the country well through a more equitable and inclusive society.
Unfortunately, I'm not hopeful at all at seeing any improvements in this aspect from the government. I guess one could speculate, but for reasons unknown, the government seems to prefer to keep the status quo as it is. When I was recruiting analysts previously, I first screen for the applicants with the top university scores. After that, one of my considerations was the address. Whether you're staying in a landed property or condominium vs those staying in HDB flats. People staying in HDB flats, more likely than not, tend to be hungrier and grittier than those staying in private properties. Yes, I do give you a discount if you come from a more privileged background. And I think it will be good to also discount those from elite primary schools. After all, I think the value of a 1st class honors graduate from a neighborhood primary school should weigh higher than another 1st class graduate from a prestigious primary school. If the government won't eliminate privilege, then perhaps it's up to the private sector to do the job for them.
If I come across as sour, that's because I probably am, coming from a shuttered no-name neighborhood school and growing up in a 3-room HDB. My kids won't be able to enjoy any alumni benefits and they would most likely go to the nearby neighborhood school with very limited resources compared to the elite schools with deep pockets, but that's okay because I'm really trying very hard to cut down on their privileged lifestyle and keep them humble and hungry.
And by the way, Oxford and Cambridge don't give legacy preference either.
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