Legacy Admissions Illinois Board of Higher Ed
| Submitted | Dec. 21, 2019 |
| Est. Completion | None |
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Communications
From: Leo Ji
To Whom It May Concern:
Pursuant to the Illinois Freedom of Information Act., I hereby request the following records:
Email correspondence from Board members and staff dated on or after January 1, 2015; which mention or otherwise contain the phrase "legacy admissions"
The requested documents will be made available to the general public, and this request is not being made for commercial purposes.
In the event that there are fees, I would be grateful if you would inform me of the total charges in advance of fulfilling my request. I would prefer the request filled electronically, by e-mail attachment if available or CD-ROM if not.
Thank you in advance for your anticipated cooperation in this matter. I look forward to receiving your response to this request within 5 business days, as the statute requires.
Sincerely,
Leo Ji
From: Illinois Board Of Higher Education
Leo Ji,
The Board of Higher Education has received your request for records and I would like to point out that we received a similar request from MuckRock in November. Shown below is the request and our response.
PRIOR REQUEST: Pursuant to the Illinois Freedom of Information Act., I hereby request the following records: 1) Copies of all complaints received by Illinois Board Of Higher Education regarding any undergraduate college admissions program under the agency's jurisdiction. 2) Copies of internal memoranda or formal guidance that address the practice of colleges under the jurisdiction of Illinois Board Of Higher Education who give preference to applicants whose parents graduated from or donated money to those same colleges. To assist in conducting your search, please be sure to search for the following keywords: "Legacy" "Legacies" "Donor" "Donation" "Development admit" "Development case" Please limit this search to correspondence dated between January 1, 2014 and October 31, 2019.
RESPONSE: IBHE has no statutory authority to provide guidance to universities and colleges regarding "preference to applicants whose parents graduated from or donated money to those colleges." The institutions make this determination independently of IBHE. The Illinois Board of Higher Education searched through the complaints filed between January 1, 2014 and October 31, 2019 and used the suggested search terms (i.e., "Legacy", "Legacies", "Donor", "Donation", "Development admit", and "Development case". No records matched your records request.
We consider your request completed.
Best regards,
Karen Helland
FOIA Officer
Illinois Board of Higher Education
From: Leo Ji
Hi Karen,
Thank you so much for the information provided. While relevant, it is not equivalent to my request, which seeks emails and electronic correspondence about the legacy admissions matter.
I would be greatly appreciative if you could process my request for such records.
Best,
Leo
From: Illinois Board Of Higher Education
Leo,
Thank you for sending a response. Email and electronic correspondence were included in the search conducted by IBHE for correspondence which, by general definition, includes electronic. No records were found.
Best regards,
Karen Helland
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