GEOFF BENNETT: The U.S. Supreme Court's decision last summer to limit the use of race in admissions was a game-changer for colleges.
While the ruling's biggest impact is on the most selective schools, a pre-pandemic survey found nearly a quarter of all colleges considered race to some degree.
As part of our Rethinking College series, special correspondent Hari Sreenivasan looks at how some schools are looks at how some schools are rethinking admissions.
HARI SREENIVASAN: The Supreme Court's decision left burden on the schools.
And many have been cautious, revealing what they may or may not do since the court issued its opinion.
But Wesleyan University President Michael Roth has used it as an opportunity to end the practice of letting students in because of their family connections.
What went into the decision to do away with legacy admissions?
MICHAEL ROTH, President, Wesleyan University: So this is something I have been thinking about for, I'd say, five or six years.
And then, this summer, when I read the Supreme Court opinions that were so self-righteous about not using affiliation with broader groups to judge an individual's case, and we can't use affiliation with a racial group, I thought to myself, how could we continue this practice?
How could we give an advantage just because of who your parents were?
HARI SREENIVASAN: Wesleyan joins a small group, including Johns Hopkins and Amherst, which both ended legacy admissions before the court overturned affirmative action.
A few weeks after the Supreme Court's decision, Roth took the idea to the board.
MICHAEL ROTH: Their first reaction wasn't enthusiastic, but -- and I wondered, OK, could I continue as president, actually, if I don't believe in the policies?
Well, you see something that's unfair, you ought to correct it.
The next day, they called me and said, we see the point.
We should do this.
HARI SREENIVASAN: What about the argument that alumni and legacies and generational affiliation with the university helps create community, a benefit over time that says, you know what, this is what the alumni network gets me is access to people who succeeded from Wesleyan?
MICHAEL ROTH: Yes, one of the reasons people choose to go to a highly selective school is because of the network it makes available to you, all the more reason not to let families hoard the wealth.
You benefit from the system, you want your children to benefit from the system.
It's a natural thing for a mother and father to want.
It's not necessary that an institution, especially a wealthy institution, give the preference to people who already have the benefits of the opportunities you have given them.
I also received some messages from alumni who said: "Bravo.My daughter wouldn't have applied -- didn't apply to Wesleyan because she didn't want to be a legacy.
And I told her she'd get in anyway.
She said: 'I don't want to be associated with that.'"
HARI SREENIVASAN: The university says Wesleyan's rate of acceptance for children of alumni has always been under 10 percent.
But other analyses have found some elite schools have much wider gaps between legacy applicants and other applicants.
A civil complaint that was filed against Harvard claimed legacy applicants were nearly six times more likely to be admitted compared to non-legacy applicants.
And, this summer, a new analysis of several elite schools found children of alumni were nearly four times as likely to be admitted as applicants with the same test scores.
What is the kind of general or status quo thinking about legacies in the first place today, if it's not about giving your offspring a leg up?
MICHAEL ROTH: I do think there's the crass version and then there's the cultural version.
The crass version is, people are much more likely to donate if their children get in.
Many children get in because they're the children of alumni.
HARI SREENIVASAN: The end of affirmative action has made the application process even more intense for many students.
But because, in his opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote, universities can still consider an applicant's discussion of how race affected his or her life, be it through discrimination, inspiration, or otherwise, the college essay is how many students are hoping to distinguish themselves and highlight diversity in their backgrounds.
Sarah Lawrence College in Yonkers, New York is addressing Roberts' statement directly.
The college's president, Cristle Collins Judd, and its head admissions officer, Kevin McKenna, believe this encourages applicants to think about how the ruling affects them.
You made the decision to almost cut and paste the decision of the Supreme Court as one of the essay prompts.
Why?
CRISTLE COLLINS JUDD, President, Sarah Lawrence College: Well, as the decision came out, and we read the decision and the syllabus that accompanied it, there was very specific language that was guiding us about how we could continue to both explore that question, but also something we knew our students and our prospective students would really engage in.
What do you think this decision means for you?
HARI SREENIVASAN: As one of three possible prompts and a supplement to the common application essay, the college quotes Roberts' opinion and continues: "Drawing upon examples from your life, quality of your character and/or a unique ability you possess, describe how you believe your goals for a college education might be impacted, influenced, or affected by the court's decision."
Is this a way to circumvent the spirit of what the Supreme Court decision tried to prescribe?
KEVIN MCKENNA, Head Admissions Officer, Sarah Lawrence College: It is absolutely not an attempt to try to get students to disclose racial identity.
HARI SREENIVASAN: So, Kevin, what was the conversation like with your legal counsel when you said, this is kind of what I want to do?
KEVIN MCKENNA: I think the internal conversations that we had covered a lot of territory, and this wasn't just from a sense of legal obligation, but also ethical within the admissions office.
Is this something that we want to put out there, given the risk that some students might feel like they have to relive past injustices or traumas?
HARI SREENIVASAN: As schools and kids grapple with the changes brought about by the court's ruling, students like Molly Sannoo say the adjustment Sarah Lawrence has made might have helped her when she was applying to college.
MOLLY SANNOO, College Student: I'm a first-year student here, and I had a lot of trouble applying to schools and everything like that.
And my essay questions were kind of like very hard for me.
And having this new essay question, I mean, it brings out a whole other part of people and finding out where they're from and having sort of a sense of, like, their community.
HARI SREENIVASAN: Both Sarah Lawrence and Wesleyan are highly selective small schools with fewer than 5,000 students each.
But how will other universities handle changing admissions criteria?
Undersecretary of Education James Kvaal says it is a challenging time for the entire higher education system.
JAMES KVAAL, U.S.
Undersecretary of Education: One of the things that we saw in some of the states that banned the use of recent admissions was a change in who's applying to all types of colleges, not just the most selective colleges.
So it's important for students to continue to aspire, because even our most selective campuses, all types of students belong there.
And it's important for all types of colleges and universities to have a plan for how they're going to react to the changing landscape.
HARI SREENIVASAN: He's noticed leaders in higher education are being proactive.
JAMES KVAAL: Well, I have seen a renewed sense of urgency about trying to build an inclusive higher education system.
And there isn't going to be a single silver bullet.
There's a lot of work to do across the board.
HARI SREENIVASAN: It's work universities and colleges will have to embrace in order to navigate the changing landscape.
For the "PBS NewsHour," I'm Hari Sreenivasan in Middletown, Connecticut.
ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7sa7SZ6arn1%2BrtqWxzmipnqyYnrustc2gZJqcnZ7AtLXOp6pmaWZuhXKElW9nbWc%3D