Why We Ended Legacy Admissions at Johns Hopkins
Eliminating an unfair tradition made our university more accessible to all talented students.
When I served as the dean of the Faculty of Law at the University of Toronto—Canada’s most selective law school—I would be asked every so often by one of our alumni what preference their children would enjoy when applying. The answer I gave was always the same: none whatsoever. When I became president of Johns Hopkins University 10 years ago, I found that one in eight newly admitted students benefited from preferences given to relatives of alumni. Today, it’s important that I’m able to
