“Relationships matter.” That’s the finding of Kroll Associates, an investigative firm brought in last August to delve into the admissions process after a member of the university’s Board of Regents raised concerns about favoritism and set off a political storm. The 104-page report found that those relationships “can often provide particular applicants a slight boost in the highly competitive environment of university admissions.”
eh, maybe. I have a colleague who’s “very well-connected” to the prez of a top 15 school…he was desperate to get his daughter into said school…he called the prez…his D was likely given a more in-depth look than many kids…but she was deferred…and ultimately denied…
I’ve wondered over the past year if she would haven’t gotten in had NO call been made…that is, it could have been a knee-jerk reaction to getting a call from the U prez.
After surviving boarding school admissions and our first cycle of college admissions, my take on legacy status and connections is that it can add an edge if your child is a very competitive applicant. Absent that, you are going to have to be someone pretty influential (financially or otherwise) for a top school to take an unqualified candidate in today’s admissions environment.
Boarding school admissions is rampant with this sort of approach. My observation is that in the obvious cases where the family was bringing a lot more to the table than just their child it was successful, but in most other cases it was not.
Ugh. My daughter is a legacy at an Ivy but didn’t check the box. Would be a terrible way to get in if it did influence things, but doubt it would anyway if not qualified.
Of course it can make a differnce. Depends upon the school, depends upon how strong that connection is and how influential the parent/student is.
Compmom, your daughter should have checked the box, as it would likely have put her is a different admissions pool where her chances likely would be at least slightly better most of the time. If she applied, she’s likely qualified to get admitted, but most qualified candidates do not get into the highly selective schools. One point in the accept column could be what makes a difference in admissions vs wait list.
There is no “box” to check regarding legacy status. There is a question on the applications which requires you to indicate what your parents level of education is, and where they attended. (Same for your siblings.) Unless you mislead the college by providing false information, theres no way to conceal your legacy status in any honest, passive way.
As far as the title subject, I’d be very surprised if every large state university didn’t have some procedure in place to handle application inquiries from people who have direct influence over it. I’ll also note that in several of the instances examined in the report, they indicate that “diversity” considerations came in to play in more than half of them.
Only 15% of legacy kids are admitted at Yale, which means that 85% do not get admitted. What being a legacy does it ensures that you get past the regional read to the full committee. If you are not up to snuff at that level, you will be denied like everyone else. I think people are confusing legacy with developmental admits. These are the kids of parents who have made mega donations. I am sure if the person who just donated $250 million toward the two new residential colleges at Yale had a kid who was applying, I am sure they would get in (disclaimer - I don’t even know who this person is or if they have kids). It would not bother me one bit to have this kid, however smart or talented they might be, sitting next to mine in class. There are 1,300 other kids in the class.
EDIT: I post on the wrong thread — sorry. It is hard to click on the correct spot on the screen of my smartphone.
I found I often need to wresle with my phone in order to post anything correctly.
The new University of Michigan football coach has a son who is a senior in high school. What are the chances UMich would admit him if he’s not qualified? I know nothing about this boy or where he wants to go. I just thought it was interesting.
At a very selective and affluent university, my understanding is that you need to give LOTS of money before it changes an admissions decision. In some cases, modest donations or alumni parents may just earn you a wait list spot instead of the denial you would have otherwise received. That is why some universities have HUGE wait lists.
One admissions officer said “The more famous or powerful a person is who recommends an applicant, the less they really know about the applicant.” That admissions officer said they would much rather receive a recommendation from a teacher who knows the student very well than from a powerful politician who knows very little about the student.
Remember what happened when Mrs. Soprano tried to get a recommendation for Georgetown for her daughter?
@sgopal2 - good point. I also wonder whether with today’s limited state budgets, state universities feel pressured to capitulate to demands by legislators who have influence over the school’s funding in order to avoid their budget being cut.
@ScholasticsFTW I believe the funding pressure was definitely felt at UT-Austin. But it also seems that pressure was placed on the admissions office from non-legislators too: namely prominent donors, alumni, etc. UT Austin probably felt more pressure than private schools.
But I guess that all schools to some extent or another, even the wealthy private ones, have a pressure for fund-raising. So getting a call from the President’s office about an important candidate is certainly something that the admissions office pays attention to.
It still seems like that the admissions office at UT Austin acted largely independently, except in the cases where a student from the hold list was provisionally rejected. Here it seems that influence from the President and/or Deans could make a difference in preventing an outright denial.
For a while, someone whom I consider a good friend was the president of an elite university, and my parents had several friends of long standing in that role, one at a super-elite university, one at an equivalent LAC, and one at a large public university where admissions was not so competitive. We also knew a smattering of people in high-influence positions at similar institutions.
Some of them I would not have called about my own child; it would have been a violation of our relationship and what I knew about them. (One, in fact, wouldn’t intervene for his own children, something that still rankles the children a bit 40 years later.) In some cases, there were internal politics to consider, and the president was unlikely to want to be known to be intervening in admissions. In some cases – generally less selective institutions – the president was happy to help, provided the applicant was committed to attending if accepted.
If a major gifting opportunity was involved, that would be a different story. But in most such cases, the president would not be dealing with the admissions office. That is part of what the development office does.
When my daughter applied, there was a direct question about legacy. She got in without checking the box and could feel that it was entirely deserved on her own merits. If she had not gotten in, that would have been fine too.