<p>How much can legacy status help at liberal arts colleges such as Swarthmore, Carlton, Pomona, Amhearst, Claremont McKenna, etc?</p>
<p>How are legacies treated in the Early Decision pool at these schools?</p>
<p>Check the Common Data Set for each school, section C7. For instance, Swarthmore <a href=“http://www.swarthmore.edu/Documents/administration/ir/cds2010.pdf[/url]”>http://www.swarthmore.edu/Documents/administration/ir/cds2010.pdf</a> only considers legacy (alumni relation). That’s a tip at best.</p>
<p>Brown’s not on your list, but I can tell you that they consider legacy status pretty late-on in the process. The way that they explain it is that if they’re given two students with “equal” stats (they’re equally interested in the students), they’d give some priority to the student with legacy status. Legacy status, at least at Brown, will not make up for anything. It’ll just give you an extra boost.</p>
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The same reason some/many do alumni interviews (even though they aren’t taken into account), ask for lists of ECs (at most schools not taken or are barely taken into account), etc. And its not just me telling you these often carry little or no weight; you can see many colleges check the “not considered” or the least important “considered” box for these on the Common Data Set and yet they are part of the application process. These schools usually say “very important” to grades, scores, and class rigor, so you can see what the basis really is for admission.</p>
<p>Applicants have come to expect certain things as part of the college application process, and its easier just to go with the flow and do them rather than constantly explain why you don’t. People want to tell the college about their relative that attended, to wow the adcoms with the hours they’ve spent volunteering at the local soup kitchen, etc. and feel their “chances” are hurt if they don’t. So the colleges let them.</p>
<p>Regarding my previous post, I’m sure the next thing someone will ask is “give an example where they ask for legacy status but the Common Data Set says they don’t use it”.</p>
<p>Go to the Rutgers application preview at [Application</a> Preview| University Undergraduate Admissions](<a href=“SRAR Preview| University Undergraduate Admissions”>SRAR Preview| University Undergraduate Admissions) and you can see they ask if a parent or grandparent is a Rutgers graduate.</p>
<p>Go to <a href=“http://oirap.rutgers.edu/instchar/Cds/NewBrunswickRegion10.pdf[/url]”>http://oirap.rutgers.edu/instchar/Cds/NewBrunswickRegion10.pdf</a> and you can see the New Brunswick campus had checked “not considered” in section C7</p>
<p>Even if they don’t use legacy status for admission now, it’s smart for them to collect the data so they can see how well legacies do relative to non-legacies. That way if they ever revisit the issue in the future, they’ll have some basis for a decision. There’s also some legacy-based marketing/recruitment that happens at some places, and having the data on legacy status helps them evaluate those efforts. Legacy relationships are also important to the school for fund-raising.</p>