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Comment by mahdi7d1 | Hacker News Reader

This legacy system in likes of Harvard boggles me. If someones parents went to Harvard it might be actually logical to be harder for him to get into not easier. His educated parenting is already a huge plus for him and if he is unable to get into the same university it's on him.

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What you need to know about Harvard is that they are a business. Their business is to amass donations from alumni and the likes. Their endowment fund is currently over $50 billions.

Rich and successful alumni means more donations, so it makes sense to take in the kids of rich and successful people.

Well if your parents went to Harvard then they had money to pay for Harvard. And they probably have money to pay for their children.

Harvard and similar universities are all about “donations” to the school, so yeah. It’s definitely an assumption of generational wealth.

You are making some assumptions about what Harvard is attempting to do when filling its classes. If its goal is to have a class full of people who did the most with what they had you have an argument. If their goal is to maximize alumni support (financial and otherwise) then maybe not

Harvard tries to be a pretty progressive organization - the way they justify legacy admissions is probably by arguing that the large endowments let them fund underprivileged students with needs-based programs.

They’re also in the literal business of prestige. They use mega-donors for mega-endowments which allows them to attract and fund mega-researchers. It’s also why it needs to be super exclusive (small class sizes).

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