From Jay Mathews’s Class Struggle blog over at the Washington Post:

I am reading an interesting new book from Princeton University Press: “Taming the River: Negotiating the Academic, Financial, and Social Currents in Selective Colleges and Universities” by four careful scholars.

It is about the barriers to selective college admission for poor and minority applicants. I may have other things to say about the book later, but one recommendation struck me as interesting. Their surveys found that minority students who were likely beneficiaries of affirmative action were less satisfied with college than others. The authors suggest college officials might be inadvertently creating a stigma that attaches to those students, that they had not deserved their acceptance letters. The authors recommended that “administrators at selective colleges and universities should take a cue from the other two affirmative action programs they currently run–for the children of alumni and for people with athletic talent–and present minority affirmative action in an equally positive and affirmative light.”

My reaction is this: many of the legacy admits I have known do NOT see their legacy status in a positive light. I know some who have tried to hide it, even though their applications were very strong, because they felt that people would assume they were admitted undeservedly.

What is your reaction? Share it on Admissions 101.