<p>where did you say you work in admissions, lookingforward?</p>
<p>Based on my personal experience I agree with Hunt and JHS.</p>
<p>My son who has legacy at Princeton and was accepted SCEA there is headed to Stanford next fall.</p>
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Frankly, I don’t think any school can possibly be totally need-blind. A student’s zipcode, the high school name, the ECs, and the essays all give some insight as to how needy (or not needy) many students are.</p>
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<p>That is not necessarily true. For example in NYC it is not unsual for the super or on-staff maintenace person to have an apartment in a high rent building. On paper, the super’s child could be living at a 5th avenue address and still be pell eligible. In addition with programs like ABC and high $$ prep schools that offer scholarships/need based aid to low income students, it could be very deceiving to first look at the school/address and assume that the family comes from money.*</p>
<p>Yes, that would be an exception. And, likely the essays or ECs and even the high school would suggest that this isn’t an affluent kid. The other kids living in that 5th Ave High Rise will be attending X Private Prep or doing pricey ECs. </p>
<p>It’s not hard to “smell out” money (or lack of it) when looking over college apps, essays, and ECs. It’s not going to be a perfect system, but it doesn’t have to be “perfect”. If a school accepts 200 students from known top preps, they probably already know that 5% might be very needy and on scholarship. If they accept 100 kids with typically pricey ECs, they may know that maybe 10% will not be affluent. They’ve been doing this for years.</p>
<p>I didn’t say, not supposed to say. I am a reader, have been for a while, not an adcom and it’s a single digit admit school. I don’t speak for the school, I speak for my own observations and experiences- and any misc, not-privileged info I may learn in conversations.<br>
And, ya know what? I don’t pretend to have the final magic formulas. It’s not a lottery, adcoms are not grinches (most of them and the finaid officers I know from other schools are great, the sort of people you’d love to invite over.) There are ways to enhance your chances (ie, not make the comon errors and appeal to your reviewers.) But that’s it. When people go on and on about some aspect, I do smack my head. :)</p>
<p>Lookingforward: What exactly is a reader?</p>
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<p>Not necessarily. My brother graduated Yale in 1980 and interviewed undergraduate admission candidates for many years. Recently he took personal interest in ensuring a brilliant student from a literally dirt-poor background (non-U.S.) was admitted and matriculated to Yale on a full scholarship. Soon after that, his own daughter who is fluent in five languages and had all the stats (international student also, they are expats) was rejected.</p>
<p>Not only is he not donating any more money to Yale, he told the admissions staff to find other interviewers in Asia. Of course Yale had perfect right to reject this student - but her father was quite well aware that she was qualified.</p>
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<p>COMPLETELY not true for me. I’m a student who’s very much in need. I come from a zipcode that’s a mix of urban, suburban and rural, I’m heavily involved in ECs, my high school is highly diverse and has students from all races and economic backgrounds, and I spent a lot of time making sure my essays were very well written, and none of them really addressed my poverty. I don’t really think any college realized that I was below the poverty line until they received my FAFSA. </p>
<p>While it’s true in many situations that they will be able to determine need from that information, using such information as an admission factor, if it was found that they were doing so, would constitute discrimination, would it not?</p>
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<p>Plenty of qualified students like your niece, legacy or not, are rejected. It even happens to very generous alumni kids since I read some statistic that over half of Yale legacy applicants are rejected from parents consistently giving in excess of $25,000 per year. It is unfortunate your brother holds this against the institution but that is his right. </p>
<p>My point is parents who interview are less likely to encourage their less than stellar children to apply since they know they will likely be rejected and that legacy status is not enough to get them into the admit pile. In contrast, there are too many non-legacy applicants (maybe 90th percentile class rank, 2150 SAT, upper middle class, unremarkable EC’s) who figure it really is just a lottery and they can’t get in if they don’t apply. These students drag down the non-legacy admit rate making the legacy hook appear more valuable than it really has become.</p>
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<p>Sure. But lots of qualified people are turned down at schools with these admit rates. It doesn’t mean it doesn’t sting, and that your brother isn’t fully within his right to say - hey, go find your donations and interviewers elsewhere. But the point is - should Yale have a policy that says “any legacy who is qualified (per hitting some minimum GPA and SAT, I suppose) should be admitted, without fail”? They can’t win for losing. It’s of note that all of the elite colleges that release their legacy admission rates - those rates are still 40% or below. Not sure things by any stretch of the imagination.</p>
<p>m2ck, just saw your post 496. I think Sue answered it quite nicely. Say a school is going to accept 1,000 kids. They take their top 850 with no regard to FA (need-blind), send that list over to the FA office and then see what FA dollars they’ve still got to work with. Those remaining 150 slots are filled with the remaining dollars in mind (need-aware). If the next kid on the list needs a lot of aid, then maybe they make sure kids 2, 3, and 4 are full-pays. That’s my understanding of how it works …</p>
<p>If legacy is irrelevant, why do they ask about it?</p>
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<p>No one says the donation is purely altruistic. Of course they were donating in hopes of sweetening the admissions pot. I’d be furious if my high stat child was denied after years of donating thousands of dollars. You have to understand that for years, this is how it was done. The rules have only recently changed.</p>
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<p>Well, I don’t know that I’d necessarily want to donate if my legacy kid got rejected. That’s different from believing he was “owed” admission due to being a legacy or that he was “done wrong” or unfairly screwed over if he had been rejected.</p>
<p>You all know 25k is small potatoes, right? In terms of swinging some weight with admissions. I have however seen adcoms want a kid because an alum parent was highly involved in alum activities, a name known to them and especially when it included fundraising.</p>
<p>We found Naviance helpful with stats/curves from our hs applicants. More datapoint sampling curves on mychances website were eyeopening. Lots of high stats kids rejected at the top schools.</p>
<p>Post 552, I have the same question.
If legacy carries no weight, why DO they ask about it?</p>
<p>My son’s only rejection (of 9) was to USC, where he would have been 4th generation. Lots of money donated by grandparents, great grandparents, uncles over the years. My H, S and I are fine with the rejection; we realize it was a reach and it would have meant serious monetary sacrifice had S gotten in. And S was really excited about the small school he found that offered him wonderful financial aid. So, it’s worked out for us. Grandma is very, very upset, however. And no, she won’t be sending USC any more checks.</p>
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<p>I should hope not or at least they were misguided if that was what they thought. Speaking with a close friend that does high level development work for a peer institution, I was told that you need to have your name on a building or give so much that your name is common knowledge to the adcoms without calling over to the development office. You could endow a 2 million dollar professorship without falling into that category.</p>
<p>No one is saying that legacy carries no weight. I think it was said very well earlier that the value it carries is intentionally vague because it suits the institution for alumni to think it is worth more than it does and for the general public to think it means less. Some have called it an “additional feather on the scale” to decide between otherwise matched applicants. I certainly think being a first generation college student means more as would URM status or a Wyoming address.</p>
<p>I think my D got the feather in being accepted to her Father’s alma mater. The school was a match to her stats, but certainly not the ideal of the 75 percentile. Let’s just say that with all the wait lists and rejections I’ve heard about, while I would love to think her application was just that above the rest, a feather (and full pay) makes a tad more sense. And to be clear, it’s not like H has given the school a ton of cash (even calls to the development office wouldn’t bring up his name!).</p>
<p>camomof3-- yeah you’re right, Stanford is restricted EA but it doesn’t matter now, my child was rejected/declined, we take it as not meant to be! no big deal! just my opinion!</p>
<p>Fwiw, we were minimal donors at S’s legacy school. We certainly gave no more than $1,000 total in the 20 years since H and I graduated, and I doubt it was even $500. We threw a check for $25 or $50 at them every couple of years. So any “legacy bump” surely wasn’t a function of previous big checks. And I’m not donating now, not when I am already giving them $50k a year (which I’m delighted to do, but that’s enough).</p>