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This isn't a suprise to anyone who knows university and law school admissions.  We often hear loud complaints about race-based affirmative action policies and their impact on members of majority groups.  But there are several ways in which non-minorities benefit from affirmative action.  The most obvious are political pressure (whether from legislators, donors or trustees) and legacy status.  

Yesterday I blogged about how admissions committees must work through cases where applicants have criminal convictions.   The challenges are slightly different - but still vexing - for these VIP applicants.   A state school, for example, must take seriously its funding stream.  We might like to believe that a pure school wouldn't bow to such pressure.  But if a given applicant is at least as strong as the weakest accepted student, is it entirely unreasonable for the committee to reserve a few spots to insure strong legislative support?  And while many people might think it distasteful for a private school to allow a large donor or trustee to help a friend, admissions veritae suggests that allocating a few slots to VIP applicants makes a ton of practical sense.

The university application process is complex.  The first order of business is assembling a class fully qualified for the task at hand.  After that, however, each school will have its own priorities.  For now, at least, it seems that the University of Illinois School of Law - unlike the law schools at Michigan and Virginia - really wants to be the state's own law school.  The legislature will write checks to the law school and expect a little service in return.  The sausage factory is never very pretty.  But we do love our sausage!