Do Ivy League Universities Favor Applicants From Elite Prep Schools?

The elite Ivy League universities of the U.S. power elite (like Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Columbia, etc.) have apparently historically favored, in an undemocratic way, applicants to admission to these universities who are graduates of the U.S. power elite's elite prep school system. As Richard Zweigenhaft and G. William Domhoff noted in their 1991 book Blacks in the White Establishment? A Study of Race and Class in America:

"...By the early 1980s, `only' 34 percent of the incoming freshmen at Harvard and 40 percent at Yale and Princeton were from prep schools...It remains...a distinct advantage for an applicant to an Ivy League school to attend an elite prep school. Two studies have shown that students from the...private secondary schools continue to have an advantage over public school graduates when it comes to admission to Harvard. In one of these studies, David Karen, a doctoral student in sociology at Harvard, noted that the Harvard admission staff places applications from certain boarding schools in special colored folders to set them apart from other applications. Karen found that applicants from these schools were more likely to be accepted for admission, even when he controlled for parental background, grades, SAT (Scholastic Aptitude Test) scores, and other characteristics...."

Are U.S. Prep Schools Still Excluding Working-Class Black Students?

In the 1980s, the percentage of Black students attending the U.S. power elite's prep schools whose family background was low-income and working-class apparently decreased. As G. William Domhoff and Richard Zweigenhaft's noted in their 1991 book Blacks in the White Establishment: A Study of Race and Class in America:

"The ABC [`A Better Chance'] program was founded in 1963 by 16 independent secondary schools, with assistance from Dartmouth College, the Merrill Foundation, and the Rockefeller Foundation...The changing role of ABC, and the increasing entry of middle-class blacks into private schools are reflected in the one survey we know of that provides a comprehensive look at the racial composition of elite prep schools in the 1980s. It indicates that the number of black students has leveled off and that more of them are from the middle class. In their study of 2,475 freshmen and senior students at twenty prep schools, Peter Cookson and Caroline Persell found that 106 were black (4 percent). Notably, the fathers of 70 percent of their black sample were professionals: 17 percent were doctors, 14 percent were lawyers, 6 percent were bankers, 8 percent were college teachers, and 25 percent were secondary school teachers. One-third of the black respondents indicated that their families earned more than $75,000 per year [equal to over $153,000 in 2018]..."

From G. William Domhoff's `Who Rules America?"--Part 4

In his classic book of U.S. power structure research, Who Rules America?, G.William Domhoff wrote the following in reference to institutional classism and the U.S. private school system:

"A person is considered to be a member of the upper class if he has attended any one of the private preparatory schools listed below:

Asheville (Asheville, N.C.)
Buckley (New York, N.Y.)
Choate (Wallingford, Conn.)
Cranbrook (Bloomfield Hills, Mich.)
Deerfield (Deerfield, Mass.)
Episcopal High (Alexandria, Va.)
Groton (Groton, Mass.)
Hill (Pottstown, Pa.)
Hotchkiss (Lakeville, Conn.)
Kent (Kent, Conn.)
Lake Forest (Lake Forest, Ill.)
Lawrenceville (Lawrenceville, N.J.)
Loomis (Windsor, Conn.)
Middlesex (Concord, Mass.)
Milton (Milton, Mass.)
Pomfret (Pomfret, Conn.)
Portsmouth Priory (Portsmouth, R.I.)
St. Andrew's (Middletown, Del.)
St. George's (Newport, R.I.)
St. Mark's (Southborough, Mass.)
St. Paul's (Concord, N.H.)
Shattuck (Faribault, Minn.)
Webb (Bell Buckle, Tenn.)
Woodberry Forest (Woodberry Forest, Va.)

"According to Baltzell, exclusive private schools are an even better index to upper-class status than the Social Register...

"...Exeter and Andover have been excluded from the list because of their large minority of scholarship students..."

From G.William Domhoff's `Who Rules America?"--Part 3

In his classic book of U.S. power structure research, Who Rules America?, G.William Domhoff wrote the following in reference to the political role that the U.S. private school system plays in U.S. society:

"The attainment of upper-class status is perhaps slightly less...self-conscious for the children of the newly-arrived rich. Most important, the child is sent to a private school. To be able to afford this is `proof,' so to speak, to the hereditary members of the upper class that the upstart has arrived financially, for private schooling is a very expensive proposition. Tuition is often only the beginning; travel expense, room and board, and, occasionally, sheltering a horse can raise the cost...Then, too, being admitted to a private school often `proves' that one is `well connected,' for it sometimes takes recommendations from alumni and friends of the school to be admitted. Attendance at one of the exclusive private schools automatically guarantees that the child will mingle with upper-class children. For one thing, his name is on the school's enrollment list, which will be circumspectly revealed to the nearby private schools for the opposite sex, as well as to social secretaries and dancing classes. This results in invitations to the schools' social functions, to dancing classes, and to...parties. At the school itself the child learns upper-class values, upper-class manners, and most of all upper-class speech, one of the most telltale signs of class and regional origin. From private school attendance it is but a short hop to the...social gatherings of school acquaintances; the result is usually intermarriage into the hereditary upper class...."

From G. William Domhoff's `Who Rules America?'--Part 2

In his classic book of U.S. power structure research, Who Rules America?, G.William Domhoff wrote the following in reference to the political role that the U.S. private school system plays in U.S. society:

"The most prestigious of the private schools...are probably Groton, St. Paul's, and St. Mark's, but Choate, Hotchkiss, and St. Andrew's are not far behind. Descendants of 65 of the 87 great American fortunes studied by Myers attended either Groton, St. Paul's, or St. Mark's between 1890 and 1949. The best known of the schools, however, are Phillips Exeter and Phillips Andover, which have a greater number of scholarship students and a sizable minority of rich Jewish students. Other leading schools...include St. George's, Kent, Taft, Middlesex, and Deerfield in New England; Lawrenceville in New Jersey; Hill in Pennsylvania; Shattuck in Minnesota; and Episcopal High and Woodberry Forest in Virginia.

"...A study by Kavaler based upon interviews with upper-class women from all over the country led to a list of 130 private schools for young men and young ladies of the upper class. While this list is not perfect, leaving off such important schools as Berkshire, Salisbury, and Scarborough, it is valuable...

"...A spokesman for an association of private schools claims that 99 per cent of the female graduates of such school now continue their education...The 1965 graduates of Lawrenceville went on to the following schools in large numbers: Harvard, 14; Princeton, 10; Yale, 8;...Brown, 5; Cornell, 5;...Columbia, 4;...Penn, 4; Stanford,4..."

From G. William Domhoff's `Who Rules America?'--Part 1

In his classic book of U.S. power structure research, Who Rules America?, G.William Domhoff wrote the following in reference to the political role that the U.S. private school system plays in U.S. society:

"Underlying the American upper class are a set of social institutions which are its backbone,--private schools, elite univesities...The private school is an excellent starting point, for its rise to importance was coincident with the late-ninetenth-century development of the national upper class. Baltzell emphasizes that at that time the proper school replaced the family as the chief socializing agent of the upper class: `The New England boarding school and the fashionable Eastern university became upper-class surrogate families on almost a national scale'. Educating the big-city rich from all over the country is only one of the functions of the private schools. They serve several other purposes as well. First, they are a proving ground where new-rich-old-rich antagonisms are smoothed over and the children of the new rich are gracefully assimilated. Then too, they are the main avenue by which upper-class children from smaller towns become acquainted with their counterparts from all over the country. Perhaps equally important is the fact that the schools assimilate...members of other classes, for such assimilation is important to social stability. Sweenzy calls the private schools `recruiters for the ruling class, sucking upwards...elements of the lower classes and performing the double function of infusing new brains into the ruling class and weakening the political leadership of the working class.' Indeed, many private schools employ persons to search out...members of the lower classes..."