Three years later, Yale's board of admissions voted that any limit on enrollment “shall not operate to exclude any son of a Yale graduate who has satisfied all the requirements for admission”—spurring a rapid increase in the proportion of Yale legacies to 21.4 percent in the class of 1931 and 29.6 percent in the class of 1936. Alumni children needed a 60 average on entrance examinations, compared with a 70 average for other candidates. The new preference for alumni children helped roll back Jewish en-rollment at Yale from 13.3 percent in the class of 1927 to 8.2 percent in the class of 1934. Similarly, at Harvard, Jewish enrollment declined from more than 20 percent to between 10 and 16 percent in the late 1920s and 1930s.

  Policies favoring legacies soon sprang up nationwide at both private and public universities and have prevailed ever since, withstanding occasional challenges from reformers. In the mid-1960s, Yale admissions dean R. Inslee Clark slashed legacy preference and turned down the son of Yale's largest donor. But a counterattack by alumni, led by conservative columnist William E Buckley, forced Yale to backpedal by the early 1970s. “The only preference by inheritance which seems to deserve recognition is the Yale son,” conceded Yale president Kingman Brewster.

  Mindful of the Yale debacle, no other elite private university has sought since to roll back legacy preference. Yet the open door for alumni children has become harder to justify as elite universities lock out nearly everyone else. Harvard, America's oldest university, admitted 63 percent of its applicants in 1952. Half a century later, it admitted just 11 percent of applicants overall—but 40 percent of legacy candidates.

  A 1990 review of Harvard admissions by the federal Office for Civil Rights, examining why Harvard was more likely to accept white students than Asian Americans with similar academic records, found that legacy status frequently determined an applicant's fate. Among comments written by admissions staff reviewing applicant files were: “Dad's … connections signify lineage of more than usual weight.” Plus: “Two legacy legs to stand on.” “Without lineage, there would be little case. With it, we will keep looking.” “Not a great profile, but just strong enough numbers and grades to get the tip from lineage.” Federal investigators concluded that preference for legacies, a “predominantly white” group, “can work to the advantage of an applicant by offsetting weaker credentials … There is also some evidence to suggest that certain alumni parents” status may be weighed more heavily than others.”

  UNLIKE THEIR blue-blooded counterparts at Harvard or Yale, most legacies at Notre Dame represent relatively new money. Their impoverished great-grandparents or grandparents emigrated to the United States in the last century and worked their way up, eventually saving enough to open shops or businesses and send a child to Notre Dame. Aided by legacy preference, the next generations then consolidate the family's prominence in business or the professions. A university-commissioned study of more than seven thousand alumni in 2004 found that slightly more than half had annual household incomes in excess of $100,000, including 18 percent above $200,000. Their most common work positions: manager, attorney, director, and vice president.

  Legacies benefit from the Notre Dame name, which carries unmatched clout in the Catholic business community, particularly in the Midwest, and from one of the country's most active, tight-knit alumni networks. Of Notre Dame's 107,000 graduates, 70 percent belong to 214 Notre Dame clubs in the United States—plus 60 overseas. Clubs provide scholarships, religious services, and football “game watches,” but their primary function is career advancement. They run panels on such topics as mentoring and sponsor golf outings to which legacies and other graduates bring clients and make contacts.

  “If you come out here from Notre Dame and you don't have a job, somebody will find you a job,” said James Ciapciak, an attorney and past president of the Notre Dame Club of Boston, after playing eighteen holes at a club-sponsored golf tournament. “If you've lost a job, we'll help you get back on your feet.”

  The Desmonds are a typical Notre Dame success story: Kevin's great-grandparents on his father's side were Italian immigrants. His paternal grandfather, Albert J. Desmond, founder of the funeral home business, didn't graduate from Notre Dame. But he was one of the “subway alums” devoted to Notre Dame, and his fondest hope was that his sons would study there. They fulfilled his dream, and now Kevin is carrying on the family tradition.

  After Matthew Desmond, one of Kevin's older brothers and a 1991 alumnus, was hired as a trust manager at Fifth Third Bank, a midwestern bank, his supervisor told him that bank executives had been impressed by his Notre Dame degree. “I'm sure they were Catholic and grew up with a fondness for Notre Dame,” Matthew said. “It did help open the door.”

  NOTRE DAME officials say that its abundance of alumni children is a product of self-selection—in other words, a large legacy applicant pool. Judging from the large membership in its alumni clubs, most Notre Dame graduates remember their college years fondly and pass on their affection for the university to their children by taking them to football games, class reunions, and other events. Imbued with the Fighting Irish mystique, some high-achieving alumni children do choose Notre Dame over the Ivy League. Of the legacies whom Notre Dame admits, 74 percent matriculate there, a substantially higher yield than the school's overall 57 percent rate. The higher alumni child yield probably reflects both the loyalty of excellent legacy applicants and the lack of other desirable options for some lesser lights.

  Still, Notre Dame relaxes its standards for many legacies. The admission of Kevin Desmond over John Simmons is the rule rather than the exception. The university accepts half of its legacy applicants compared with one-fifth of applicants without any preferences. Although they are stronger academically than the minorities or athletes Notre Dame admits, legacy admits still average 80 points less on the SAT than students without preferences, most of whom are working-class and middle-class whites. At the same time, Notre Dame turns down 250 valedictorians a year, usually because their SAT scores, like John Simmons's, don't reach the elevated threshold for students without hooks. Daniel Saracino, assistant provost for admissions, told the Chicago Tribune in 2003 that half of the alumni children enrolled at Notre Dame would not have been admitted without special consideration.

  Financially, legacy preference has paid off big-time for Notre Dame. In part because the Catholic school applies strict guidelines to corporate donors—for instance, it won't take money from manufacturers of contraceptives—it relies more than most universities on alumni giving. Their loyalty cemented by the admission of their children and grandchildren, grateful alumni have propelled Notre Dame's endowment from a modest $9 million in 1945 to $3.7 billion in 2005—the eighteenth largest endowment in the country, ahead of Ivy League schools Dartmouth and Brown, and biggest by far among Catholic colleges. Among major universities, Notre Dame consistently ranks in the top three in the proportion of alumni who donate. The theme of the university's 1994-2000 fund-raising campaign was “Generations”—a veiled reference to legacy preference. An astonishing 74 percent of alumni gave to that campaign, donating slightly more than half of the $1.06 billion it raised.

  Notre Dame administrators defend legacy preference by pointing out that alumni donations underwrite financial aid for needy students and other worthy causes. They also cite a less tangible but real value to admitting students already familiar with the university's traditions, from lighting prayer candles at the Grotto to gyrating at Friday night pep rallies, and its distinctively old-fashioned rules: all dorms are same-sex, and people of the opposite gender may not stay overnight. Without so many legacies, they argue, the student body would chafe at such policies.

  “I don't think anything but good comes out of giving alumni children a slight edge,” said Saracino, a Notre Dame graduate whose three children attended the university.

  A policy protecting the already advantaged does induce some moral qualms at Notre Dame, which prides itself on its social conscience. Saracino said 98 percent of alumni children at Notre Dame are white and that legacies from wealthy families with a record of substantial gifts to the university are given a particularly large edge. Even Notre Dame's head of fund-raising, Louis Nanni, expressed misgivings at the socioeconomic implications of favoring alumni children. “I would have a real problem” with legacy preference, said Nanni, who used to run a homeless center in South Bend, if the university were not also increasing minority enrollment.

  Notre Dame's commitment to alumni children is also at odds with its academic aspirations. Widely considered one of the nation's top 25 universities, Notre Dame accepts only 29 percent of its applicants. As the univer-sity steadily increases standards for unconnected students, alumni children must improve as well. If they don't, either lagging legacies will drag down the university's overall stature or the university will have to admit fewer of them. Thomas Kane, a Notre Dame graduate and professor of public policy at the University of California at Los Angeles, said this is a huge issue for his alma mater. “It's hard to reconcile selectivity with alumni preference. Yet, if you don't recognize legacies, it's hard to sustain endowment. The alumni are a huge part of what they do. Given that, the trade-offs for Notre Dame have to be much more pressing—particularly given the rapid increase in selectivity over time.”

  Saracino said it was easy in the 1970s or 1980s to maintain legacy enrollment. But as Notre Dame has become more competitive, it's become harder to accommodate alumni. Every year, he said, “I deal with hundreds of alumni whose children have been denied. They run a gamut of emotions—hurt, angry, confused. If this is what the Notre Dame family means, what good is it?”

  Such emotions ran high in the Desmond family when Notre Dame turned down Kevin's cousin Alison. Her father, Terry's younger brother John, is a 1967 alumnus and past president of the Notre Dame Club of Detroit. Although Alison Desmond was active in high school student government and captain of the swim team, John said, “even with legacy, her grades wouldn't get her in.” Her rebuff, he added, “did diminish my affinity for Notre Dame a bit. Notre Dame lives by the creed of the Notre Dame family. They preach the family for their advantage—the loyalty of the alumni.” John believes that “the legacy program should be expanded: the university should take care of its own first before it looks elsewhere for students.”

  In his autobiography, the late businessman and 1938 alumnus Edmond R. Haggar obliquely alluded to the conflict between academic goals and alumni interests. Haggar, a Notre Dame trustee and chairman of the university's fund-raising arm, was followed there by his son, nephew, and grandson, among other descendants. When he served on the university's Alumni Board, he recalled, “the raising of admission standards was discussed across the boardroom table time and again…. ‘Let's be sure we don't get a bunch of eggheads who have no personality and can't get along with other people,” I told the board.”

  Like Haggar, vigilant alumni use their clout to maintain Notre Dame's legacy quotient. A slight decline in legacies from 23 percent of the freshman class in 2003 to 22 percent in 2004 triggered a “lot of concern” among alumni, says Mike Cottingham, class of ‘63. His father, also a graduate, helped raise money to build the Hesburgh Library on campus. “I know people who have given a lot to Notre Dame and their kids didn't get in.”

  One such complaint from an alumnus reached the university's Board of Fellows, a select group of trustees. In October 2004, Saracino received a late-night phone call asking him to appear the next day before the board and explain the slippage in legacies and in Catholics (from 84 percent to 82 percent of the student body). “I wore a nice dark funeral suit,” said Saracino, who reassured the board that the year-to-year variations in alumni child enrollment were within the 21 to 24 percent range that Notre Dame had long maintained.

  FOUNDED IN 1842, Notre Dame admitted every Catholic high school graduate who could afford tuition until the end of World War II. As it became selective after the war, it introduced legacy preference. Reverend Theodore Hesburgh, president from 1952 to 1987, says a policy evolved in the 1960s that alumni children should make up one-quarter of the student body. That target remains, although the proportion of legacies usually falls slightly short. In 1972, Notre Dame opened its doors to women, doubling the potential pool of legacy applicants and increasing pressure from alumni to maintain the numbers.

  “We have always accepted a higher percentage of alumni children than most universities,” Father Hesburgh said in an October 2004 interview in the university library that bears his name. “It's a family thing. They're at home an hour after they get here.” He acknowledged that “it's going to be difficult to sustain” the 25 percent target as the university con-tinues to raise standards, “but it's my judgment it's a core of our student body we have to pay special concern to.”

  That “special concern” starts with a college admissions video featured in the “Alumni” section of Notre Dame's website. On the DVD, Saracino explains that alumni children still have to meet stiff admission standards, and proffers advice on improving academic performance: turn off the TV, learn a second language, and the like. All legacy applicants receive a letter from Saracino informing them of the “special consideration” Notre Dame gives alumni children. “We hope that the daughters and sons of our graduates will constitute a quarter of the entering class,” the letter reads. “To make our hope become a reality, we will admit the children of Notre Dame families at a rate significantly higher than the rate of admission for other applicants. In fact, we expect to admit at least half of the alumni children who apply.” The letter continues with Saracino's pledge to review the applicant's admission folder personally, assuring “the most careful consideration our office can provide.”

  Once enrolled at Notre Dame, legacies are treated like everybody else—almost. Most housing assignments are random, but each dormitory rector does have discretion to choose a small number of residents. Alumni Hall, where Kevin Desmond lives, is a Gothic Revival-style dorm built in 1931, characterized by wide corridors and cramped double-occupancy rooms with transoms and bunk beds. Father George Rozum, the rector, said he gives priority to three groups: relatives of priests, sons of alumni who lived in the dorm, and siblings of current students there. (Kevin said he asked for Alumni Hall because a friend from home was living there, and his request was granted.)

  Having received special treatment in admissions, legacies and their parents often expect the same favoritism when it comes to campus rules. In one instance, the late shopping mall magnate Edward DeBartolo, one of Notre Dame's richest alumni, sought to pressure Notre Dame to withdraw disciplinary sanctions against his son—and then retaliated financially when the university refused to bend.

  After graduating from a parochial high school in Youngstown, Ohio, with what he described as “good but not great” grades, Edward “Eddie” Debartolo Jr. enrolled in the early 1960s at Notre Dame, where his father was a trustee. Then he was caught driving onto the inner quadrangle of the campus—a grassy area closed to automobiles—and pilfering a book from the campus bookstore. The university president, Reverend Hesburgh, who had recently issued a directive warning of severe consequences for stealing, promptly expelled him for a semester. “As close as we were to Father Hesburgh, it was cut-and-dried,” Eddie said. “Rules are rules. I was wrong.” His father was so upset that he flew to campus the next morning and, according to two people familiar with the matter, threatened not to donate to Notre Dame unless Father Hesburgh relented. The president firmly replied that the university was not for sale, and Eddie spent a semester in exile at the University of Dayton. It was not until 1989, twenty-one years after Eddie's Notre Dame graduation and two years after Father Hesburgh retired, that the senior DeBartolo gave $33 million for a new performing arts center on campus. He died in 1994, a decade before the center opened in September 2004.

  By then, Eddie had gained renown as owner of the San Francisco 49ers, five-time Super Bowl champions—and then lost the team to his sister after pleading guilty in 1998 to a felony charge of failing to notify authorities of an extortion scheme for a casino license in Louisiana. While none of his three daughters attended Notre Dame, Eddie says he remains devoted to his alma mater. Eddie, who was among the 2005 Forbes 400 with a fortune valued at $1.4 billion, attended the opening of the performing arts center and is negotiating a further family gift to Notre Dame. On a recent campus visit, he said, he bought Notre Dame garb for his one-year-old grandson at the university bookstore.

  AT OTHER universities, fraternities, sororities, and social clubs such as Yale's Skull and Bones give membership preference to their own legacies, who by definition are alumni children. Notre Dame does not have a Greek system or exclusive clubs, but legacies there still gravitate to certain traditional rites.

  Crisp and cloudless, October 9, 2004, was a perfect day for Notre Dame football, and for the pregame gathering of the clans that have attended and supported the university for generations. John Desmond had not let disappointment over his daughter's rejection interfere with this cherished family ritual. At 7 a.m., he parked his brand-new silver Cadillac SRX in a choice, oak-shaded spot at the corner of the library lot nearest the football stadium, under the encouraging gaze of “Touchdown Jesus.”

  Until this season, the Desmond family had occupied even more desirable pregame real estate. For thirty years, ever since a close friend in the administration had granted them a pass, they had tailgated in Aero Field, just steps from the stadium. They had never missed a game. But this season, the construction on Aero Field of a science building—donated and built by another Desmond family friend and fellow alumnus—had exiled them to the library lot, where John worried that people would have trouble finding him. Thus the Caddy's rear tire anchored the pole of a blue-and-white flag emblazoned with an Old English D, a distinguishing landmark in what soon became a sea of green Notre Dame flags.