Angry over the college admissions process

[Pizzagirl]

My son pays about the same for an elite school as he would for community college. I have no problem with a handful of lazy or unmotivated kids getting in because Daddy wrote a huge check, since those checks help subsidize an opportunity my son would never have had otherwise.

I agree with Lorem Ipsum.
I know someone who is on the board of trustees at Duke - she did her undergrad there, has been quite successful in her career. She has 2 children, boy and a girl. The boy went elsewhere - what I might charitably call a less impressive school -- and then transferred to Duke midway through. The girl went straight to Duke. Did their mother's influence help? Yeah, I'm sure. And how much fundraising and benefit did she give to Duke? I'm sure quite a lot. I don't have a problem if they put the finger on the scale for a trustee's child or someone else who has donated significant time and / or money, to be really honest. What the person has facilitated through their effort (e.g. enabling financial aid for a student like Lorem Ipsum's son) is worth it.

[mathmom]

It's always important to note that you can't tell what these numbers mean unless you can compare the stats of the legacy pool to the general pool of applicants. It would not be shocking if legacies of those schools might have better-than-average qualifications.

Exactly. My son had an 800 in CR, and 800s on 3 subject tests and was one off the top 1% of the class. The kid who was a legacy at Yale in his class also got into Harvard, and the kid who was a legacy in my younger son's class at Harvard also got into Yale. Most of the legacies at our high school have multiple admits like this.

[muckdogs07]

Pizzagirl,

From the same NYT article, re % of legacy students at Ivies:

"At most Ivy League schools, 10 percent to 15 percent of those who end up enrolling are the children of former students."

The same article mentions legacy admissions of about one in eight at Yale.

[JHS]

To mathmom's post #902, there have been posts from many people on CC who have heard Harvard admissions personnel say that the admission rate at Harvard for Yale and Princeton legacies is not meaningfully lower than the rate for Harvard's own legacies, notwithstanding that Harvard does not give any preference to Yale or Princeton legacies and at least claims to give a preference to Harvard legacies.

In my son's cohort, across a few schools, we knew three legacies who were accepted at Yale and nine or ten who weren't. All of the accepted legacies were accepted at every college to which they applied, and indeed one of them actually went to Harvard. Harvard also accepted several of the legacies rejected by Yale. In this unscientific small group, Harvard's admission rate for Yale legacies was almost twice that of Yale.

[rmldad]

Coach K (highly successful basketball coach at Duke) has three daughters, two of whom graduated from Duke. They all attended during the 90's when Coach K was offered multiple jobs coaching in the NBA for salaries far exceeding (by an order of magnitude or more) what Duke paid.

I know nothing about the academic qualifications of the daughters, but even if they were terrible students, I cannot imagine many Dukies begrudging their acceptances if it meant that Coach K stuck around the Duke basketball program. His impact on the school includes huge sums (hundreds of millions?) as well as creating a center of excellence that the entire school shares.

Coach K is a visible contributor to Duke but I would guess that there are dozens of others in comparable positions that merit special admissions consideration for their family. Without them, Duke would not be the institution that it is today.

[lookingforward]

The NCAA rules prohibit 9th grade recruting, btw. NCAA Rules: A Guide for Ivy Alumni and Friends of Athletics : The Ivy League

And, "While NCAA regulations prohibit collegiate athletic programs from contacting an athlete by telephone, in-person, or by off-campus visits prior to July 1 before the recruit's senior year, coaches are allowed to mail information about the school and the team before that date."

[Sue22]

To add to Xiggi's post, an explanation of the academic index used in Ivy League sports recruiting.

Calculating the Ivy League Academic Index

[Pizzagirl]

The same article mentions legacy admissions of about one in eight at Yale.

So call that a 12% acceptance rate, rounding off here. What's Yale's overall acceptance rate? Not interested in looking it up, but I'm guessing in the 6% range. Moving from a 6% to a 12% strikes me as a big yawn. People who want to act as though this is just the Great Unfair Shoo-In Travesty come across as silly when we're moving from a 6% to 12% - which, of course, means that 88% of legacy applicants -- who are likely a more qualified pool in the first place -- are denied. But, it's so much more fun to get all riled up at the Yale legacy across town whom you're convinced "stole" your kid's spot, eh?

[notrichenough]

Whoa. The first says that 33% of those offered a spot at Princeton - that is, 33% of the kids who received the proverbial thick envelope - are legacies. The second says that Harvard admits 30% of its legacy applicants. These are two entirely different things.

To me a more logical explanation is that it is just sloppily worded, and what it meant was 33% of the class at Princeton is legacies, 30% at Harvard is legacies, and 20-25% at Yale is legacies.

It makes no sense to compare a %age of the class and an admissions percentage in the same class.

And I could easily believe Harvard could fill 30% of the class with legacies at an admission rate that matches the same 6 or 8% admission rate as the regular class.

I can't find the link to the original article to read it for myself though.

[LoremIpsum]

But, it's so much more fun to get all riled up at the Yale legacy across town whom you're convinced "stole" your kid's spot, eh?

The outrage at not receiving a perceived "entitlement," it seems to me, is just a way of deflecting blame for poor strategic planning. Every student should apply to a laddered selection of schools with varying admission rates and should only pick schools he or she would be happy to attend.

My son would have been perfectly happy attending our state flagship, UIUC, which is well-known for its computer science program (his intended major); but, given its size (35,000 students) it would never have been an ideal choice for a kid more inclined to a small school or LAC. He feels lucky to have had multiple choices.

Why is it people don't feel the same sense of outraged entitlement when they interview for a job and don't get it? Or ask someone out on a date and get turned down?

[Sue22]

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/06/ed...anted=all&_r=0
(The original article with the sloppy stats)

2014 Ivy League Admissions Statistics | The Ivy Coach
2015 Ivy League Admissions Statistics | The Ivy Coach
(General stats for Ivy League admits)

Google's my friend.

[texaspg]

I have seen stats posted by Yale alums whose kids got in. Personally, I dont think they were good enough. They seem to have missed a couple of questions on their SATs.

xiggi - i am also disappointed that Stanford gets the director's cup without ice hockey. How is that even possible.

[xiggi]

^^

They must have mastered the art of skating on really thin ice!

[Hunt]

have seen stats posted by Yale alums whose kids got in. Personally, I dont think they were good enough. They seem to have missed a couple of questions on their SATs. :P

That's true. My daughter sleazed her way in with a 2360--superscored. My son did better, but his GPA was a litter weaker than hers.

But I'll tell you something--we were sweating bullets for both of them for fear they wouldn't get in, like 88% of legacies.

[Pizzagirl]

To me a more logical explanation is that it is just sloppily worded, and what it meant was 33% of the class at Princeton is legacies, 30% at Harvard is legacies, and 20-25% at Yale is legacies.

No. That has ZERO face validity, that 1 out of every 3 (H, P) or 1 out of every 4 (Y) students is a legacy. Based on what's been posted on CC before, the writer was attempting to say that the acceptance rates were 33%, 30% and 25%. ENTIRELY DIFFERENT from what % of the class is legacy.

Look, Harvard could have an acceptance rate of 100% for legacies, and that could be consistent with 5% of their entering class actually being legacies or 75% of their class actually being legacies. It would just depend on how thick their applicant pool was with legacies in the first place. Major differences in that stat from college to college impact what % of the ending class are legacies (again, my Notre Dame example of the "thick pool" - even if ND gave no preference for legacies at all, they'll always have a high % of the class being legacies simply because their pool is so thick).