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<p>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.</p>
<p>Something that should be mentioned…the kids getting in to elite schools with the help of a legacy or a healthy contribution are not C students with a total of 1500 on all 3 parts of the SAT. They might be the A-/B+ student with a score of only 2000, who has still done a lot on their ECs etc. In other words, they are not horrible, undeserving, unredeemable people, they are more likely good students by any other definition of the term.</p>
<p>I think that even if an elite school were to set some sort of clearcut standard, and all applications that met that standard were put in a big barrel, and whatever number of applications were chosen from that barrel to fill the class, people would still complain about how unfair the system was.</p>
<p>People would say that the standard should have specified a higher GPA, so as to reduce the size or the pool, or that class rank should have been weighted more heavily in the standard, or that the verbal or the math score on the SAT should be given more weight, or test scores should weigh heavier than grades, or grades should weigh heavier than scores—the point being that whatever the system, applicants will find a reason to be unhappy about it.</p>
<p>Personally, I think that if an applicant doesn’t like how a certain school considers applications, there is always the option to choose not to apply to that school.</p>
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<p>As the parent of an Amherst grad, yes, the issues are heart wrenching. I think people forget that there are privacy issues that prevent Amherst from talking about any specifics. If I had another child, I would have no hesitation sending him or her to Amherst right now. </p>
<p>I find it odd how obsessive some parents can become about their perceived “fairness” in admissions to private schools. There are always publics if you don’t like it.</p>
<p>GA2012mom, I so agree with you on the “fairness” complaints of so many parents…in all arenas. Like I said, if someone doesn’t like how a school considers applications–how they weight legacies, or athletic recruits, or redheads as superior to brunettes, or test scores as more important than GPA, or vice versa–then don’t apply to that school. </p>
<p>And with respect to being unhappy with the private school that your student might be in…no one made your student attend that school. Find another school more in line with your values. </p>
<p>I have a friend who doesn’t like a lot of the rules at her children’s parochial school–and the fact that students who don’t follow those rules face defined consequences. Her kids have suffered a lot of “consequences.” and their transcripts are going to show a slew of in-school suspensions. Why would she voluntarily keep her children at a school where she does not like the culture? She should move her children to a school more in line with her thinking, or else have her children follow the rules while she works to maybe change those rules from the inside/ change the culture.</p>
<p>medavinci is painting with a very wide brush here. His kid went to one private school which didn’t work out too well for her, and he is on the band wager of saying the only reason kids from his D’s private school got into top tier college is because they are wealthy and therefore get special treatment.</p>
<p>Both of our kids went to a top private secondary school. We were not big contributors, just regular people paying our share of tuitions. My kids were treated fairly by the administrator. My older kid’s best friend was on FA at the school. My kid’s friend got a lot of attention when she was applying to colleges. There were other kids on FA at our kids’ school, but frankly I didn’t know who they were because the school didn’t make a point of letting people know. </p>
<p>Contrary to what medavinci likes to believe, those top tier schools can’t afford to just admit wealthy students if they want keep up their reputation. Medavinci said this is what he knows from his personal experience, but he was so readily to agree with another poster about siblings are legacies at MIT and Brown without even doing any research. I am just wondering if all he knows are hearsay.</p>
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<p>I knew a double legacy at Harvard who got rejected, and conservatively he was probably one of the top 100 people in the country in the math/science area. So it is obviously not automatically a huge boost. I doubt all legacies whose donations are below 7 figures are lumped in the same category, but I really don’t know.</p>
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<p>Well, maybe they prefer the other facets of the private school experience. Or more precisely, since most of the elite schools are private, maybe they like other parts of the experience.</p>
<p>Holy Cow, medavinci, you don’t know. You don’t know.</p>
<p>Oldfort – I’ve been an alumni interviewer for Brown for 25+ years and have had numerous conversations with admissions. Unless something changed this year that I’m not aware of, siblings of current Brown students are most definitely given the same boost as legacies. I know for a fact that was the case last year. I know the website does not mention siblings, and it’s possible Brown never advertised this outright, but that is the situation. </p>
<p>And since I’m typing here already … I have one friend whose kid went to a prestigious private school on scholarship and was very upset over admissions (I know, first-world problems). The kids who got into the Ivies were the heirs of huge fortunes. This nugget was not reflected in Naviance or the PR info on college admissions offered by the school. And I have another friend whose kid goes to an even more prestigious private school who talked my ear off at lunch the other day complaining about the same thing. The mom complained that private schools are no longer feeders to Ivies and in fact, if you’re not wealthy or URM, going to a private school is a disadvantage in college admissions. </p>
<p>Two anecdotes do not make a fact, I know.</p>
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Would this be Will Reeves?</p>
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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. Also, another reason that there are are so many legacies at top schools is that the legacies specifically WANT to go to those schools. My kids, for example, applied early to the legacy school and withdrew all their other apps when they got in.</p>
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I don’t think anyone would dispute that. It has been the case since beginning of holistic admission.
I would hope people are sending their kids to private schools because of excellent quality of education.
We’ve had the same experience, and I have not disputed that in any of my posts on this thread. I was not in agreement with what medavinci has posted.
Does Brown’s supplement allow an applicant to put down siblings attending (attended) the school? I know Cornell didn’t, which I took it as they didn’t consider siblings as legacy.</p>
<p>The little thing about legacies and siblings is they tend to know the college well- have a much fuller idea of the experiences available, challenges and framework. This comes through in their apps. It’s wacky to suggest a top college will take all legacies “just because.” They must be viable candidates. The number of borderline exceptions is minute; you might as well argue about athletes and faculty kids.
For a borderline exception, btw, we are talking far more than a million dollar contribution to the college. </p>
<p>The issue with top private hs, those very most elites, is the efforts of the hs to get kids into prestigous colleges is often quite transparent.</p>
<p>“I am ONLY talking about information I know to be facts.”</p>
<p>You can’t possibly know why a child didn’t get into Harvard. You may know that they didn’t get in, but you don’t and cannot know why. Based on what you’re saying, you don’t even have enough information to make an informed guess as to why (an informed guess would involve reading the essays, seeing the transcript, talking to the recommenders about what they wrote, etc. – things an interviewer or counselor might have access to, but not parents of classmates).</p>
<p>Both of my kids did well in the admissions game because each chose a school s/he loved and was practically a poster child for what that school was looking for. At one school my D matched all the others at her school to a T; at the other my S really had a completely different profile than most kids and the school needed diversity.</p>
<p>People may have been shocked at these admissions, but the kids chose well. They were rejected by schools “lower on the totem pole” where they were not as good fits.</p>
<p>My point? To affirm what others have said – that no one from the outside can judge admissions.</p>
<p>That is not to say that of course, development kids will always get boosts, legacies or not.</p>
<p>Kids “in the lower quartile” are not getting a boost in life if they can’t do the work involved and don’t progress as thinkers and competent people. A college is not merely a resume line.</p>
<p>Once we get over Ivy fever, the stakes become much different. Finding a school where a student can thrive and learn ensures future success more than the name on the diploma. Then we can leave behind bitterness.</p>
<p>Both of mine attended LAC’s where the name of the school is less of an issue. Ivies were on the table, but neither were uni type kids, one in particular. </p>
<p>If fit is the goal of admissions I think the process feels much fairer in the end.</p>
<p>Does that mean that your kid would be the perfect Harvard student and it’s the perfect fit so s/he will get in? Obviously no, but these lottery schools are just that. There should be no bitterness.</p>
<p>Hey, I think I am the perfect lottery recipient. I have bought the occasion ticket. But no luck. I’d be perfect. Really. (Just a bit of levity here.)</p>
<p>I don’t understand what all the fuss is about. It is common knowledge that many universities give some preference to legacy applicants. So do many private K - 12 schools. I personally do not have a problem with it - that simply is the way it works. It makes little sense to be angry over things beyond one’s control. The system is what the system is. I would not agree with the notion that the tippy top schools admit many legacy applicants with really sub-standard credentials. They have little to gain by doing so. I think legacy will help quite a bit if you are in the general range of their admittance standards.</p>
<p>I do have a problem with the notion of being able to “contribute your way in” without regard to qualifications. I think that really erodes the whole idea of higher education being a meritocracy. It also opens the door to really egregious cases like the recent Chow affair.<br>
While I certainly understand that economic considerations do come onto play with most things in life, I feel those considerations should be applied to college admissions only in very rare cases, and with the pre-requisite that the applicant has the qualifications.</p>
<p>If so many elite schools are letting in so many woefully underqualified applicants, why are their rentention and grad rates still so high?</p>
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<p>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. One is what % of the incoming class are legacies (to which the relevant comparison is - what % of the applicant class were legacies). The other is what % of legacy applicants are accepted (to which the relevant comparison is - what % of non-legacy applicants are admitted). A high % of a freshman class being legacies does not necessarily mean a higher-than-average legacy admittance rate. In fact, it could even mean a lower-than-average legacy admittance rate - but the applicant pool is very “thick” with legacies. Conversely, a low % of a freshman class being legacies could signify either a high or a low legacy admittance rate. We need to have both of these pieces before evaluating.</p>
<p>The piece that never gets answered is:
What % of the applicant class at (Harvard, Yale, whoever) are legacies?
Does that differ significantly by school? (which may speak to - how well parents loved the school - Notre Dame being my favorite example of a school where the applicant pool is thick with legacies)</p>
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<p>You’re still not getting that the vast majority of legacies are STILL turned away at elite colleges. If legacy bumps took kids to, say, 60% - 70% acceptance rates, then it would be a big deal. A bump from (say) 10% to 20% is, IMO, no big deal at all, it’s basically a feather on the scale when 80% will be turned away eventually. </p>
<p>Anyway, it’s out of your control - why worry about it? My kids weren’t athletes but I didn’t sit there and fret about athletes getting in (and S’s college gives athletic scholarships). These are not places you are obligated to apply to, nor are they necessary for a successful life in any way, shape or form. Don’t like their criteria for admissions? Don’t apply. Problem solved.</p>
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<p>You might very well be talking about information you know to be facts, but the above does not appear to be informational nor … factual. </p>
<p>Most everyone around here has been subjected to a lot of “shared” information and anecdotes to which it is best to answer with a smile, and in our neck of the woods with a additional “Bless your heart.” Many of the most egregious stories are about athletic scholarsips and guaranteed admissions. </p>
<p>Since you seem interested in facts, you might note that Stanford does not field an Ice Hockey squad beyond the club level. In addition to the doubts cast by talking about the recruiting of freshmen, one ought to wonder about the need to recruit people with sticks and pucks in Palo Alto. </p>
<p>Perhaps it would be helpful to pick stories that are … plausible. Or train your ears to be more selective when the BS starts airing. Just saying!</p>
<p>Here ya go for the next story about Stanford’s athletic recruiting:
<a href=“http://www.gostanford.com/sports/varsity-sports.html[/url]”>http://www.gostanford.com/sports/varsity-sports.html</a></p>