Moving forward, we hope our work helps to inform the design of equitable college admissions policies.

States with a greater proportion of Asian American applicants tend to have lower estimated admission rates, suggesting that preferences for applicants from certain regions of the country may also disparately impact Asian American applicants.

We estimate that students with a parent who attended one of the schools we consider as an undergraduate are approximately twice as likely to be admitted than non-legacy students. However, Asian American applicants are between three and six times less likely than white applicants to be legacies.

We trace much of the observed disparities to two factors: legacy status and geography.

South Asian students are impacted more heavily than East and Southeast Asian students. South Asians have 49% lower estimated odds of admission than white students with similar test scores and extracurriculars, with 17% lower odds for East and Southeast Asians.

Using data from five application cycles, with the first in 2015–2016, we estimate that Asian American applicants are, on average, less likely to be admitted to any of these schools than white applicants with similar test scores. There is substantial heterogeneity across subgroups.