Despite the disparity in acceptance rates, the admissions office has aimed to avoid a steep legacy bias in considering each application, Laskaris said.
"As our selectivity has increased, this increase has impacted all facets of the admissions process, and the process has become more competitive for all applicants," Laskaris said. "As Dartmouth does value the strength and importance of the inter-generational connection to the College, legacy status is one of the many considerations and priorities that are weighed and balanced during the selection process... For students who present strong and competitive applications, the legacy status can serve as a 'tip factor' in the decision to admit the student."
Few of the nation's highly selective colleges published their legacy acceptance rate this year. The institutions that made these statistics public reported numbers similar to or higher than those for the Dartmouth Class of 2012. Princeton's acceptance rate has remained more than four times higher for legacy students than regular applicants in the past decade, with an acceptance rate of approximately 40 percent for legacy applicants, ABC News reported on its web site last Saturday.
While the overall applicant pool for admission to the Class of 2012 grew by nearly 17 percent from last year, the number of legacy applicants grew by 19 percent, according to Laskaris. This growth in legacy applications correlates with the highest number of legacy acceptances in five years, with 164 legacies offered spots in the Class of 2012. From the Class of 2007 through the Class of 2011, the number of admitted legacies remained steady at 140-150 students.
When prompted, Laskaris denied that consideration of legacy status in the admissions process perpetuated a lack of racial or socioeconomic diversity.
"One of the interesting things I've seen during my time in the [admissions] office is the growing diversity of the legacy applicants themselves, mirroring the increased diversity of our student body in terms of gender, race and ethnicity, citizenship," she said.
Alumni support of the College, in the form of monetary donations and other contributions, is boosted by legacy acceptances, Laskaris said, adding that the College relies heavily on alumni donations. One in 12 dollars in the College's operating budget comes directly from alumni gifts, according to the Dartmouth College Fund web site. In 2007, 51 percent of alumni donated a total of $39.1 million to the college.
Other highly selective colleges saw decreased alumni donations when legacy admissions became more selective, according to ABC News. In 2007, two National Bureau of Economic Research economists tracked alumni donations at an unnamed selective university and found that money given by alumni dropped off dramatically when their children were rejected from the university.
