According to the book Affirmative Action for the Rich published by Century Foundation, alumni preferences provide an admissions advantage to the children of alumni。

　　The book have shown that being the child of an alumnus adds the equivalent of 160 SAT points to one's application and increases one's chances of admission by almost 20 percentage points。

　　Richard D. Kahlenberg, the author of the book, said: "an alumni preference is worth 160 SAT points. And as noted above, if two students score exactly the same on the SAT, the one without alumni parents might have a 30 percent chance of getting in, but the student with a legacy, and the same scores, has a 50 percent chance of getting in."

　　The book made Princeton University as an example, in 2009, the percentage of the alumni children enrolled in the university was 41.7 , 4.5 times the non-alumni counterpart. However, the ratio was only 2.8 times in 1992.

　　The book also found that the phenomenon is not only popular in the top universities, but also in religious universities. In the well-known University of Notre Dame in Indiana, for example, about a quarter students belong to children of alumni. By contrast, at the California Institute of Technology, which has no legacy preferences, only 1.5 percent of students are the children of alumni。

　　Triton Burg, former president of George Washington University, expressed that the university assess every applicant comprehensively because of the complex of admission procedure, and alumni status is not the only consideration。

　　世纪基金会出版新书《给富人的平权行动》，书中发现，大学偏好录取自己校友的孩子。

　　该书显示，一个校友的孩子在大学录取考试中，入学考试成绩会加160分，也就是说录取率会增加20%。

　　这本书的主编理查德D•卡兰伯格指出， “父母是校友能为学生的大学入学考试增加160分。也就是说，一个人根据他的成绩原来有30%的机会进入大学，如果他又是学校校友的孩子，那他现在就有50%的机会入校，即使是相同的成绩。”

　　这本书举普林斯顿大学为例，2009年，普林斯顿大学录取了41.7%校友的孩子，是非校友孩子的4.5倍。但在1992年，这个比例只有2.8倍。

　　书中发现，这种现象不仅在顶尖大学看得到，在宗教型大学也很普遍。像是印第安纳州知名的圣母大学，大约四分之一学生的父母都是校友。与此形成强烈对比的是加州理工学院，父母为校友的学生只占全部学生的1.5%。

　　前乔治华盛顿大学校长崔顿伯格则表示，申请入学的过程复杂，大学是综合评估每个申请人的，父母的校友身份不会是大学的唯一考量。