<p>I have often considered riding on a spaceship.</p>
<p>The fact is that less than 2% of Caltech students have relatives that attended Caltech, while other elite U’s commonly exceed 10% legacy admits.</p>
<p>Ah, but NASA will not consider you for their spaceship, while Caltech will consider legacy status in admissions. :D</p>
<p>Not NASA, the private consortium selling seats for several hundred K. Or perhaps that group has been dissolved, in which case I can only dream…</p>
<p>My understanding is that Caltech does ask the question about “legacy status”, but it really does not factor into admissions, except possibly as a tie breaker (as pointed out by Vonlost). Faculty and undergraduate students are involved in the admission process and hence I would assume that legacy has no real weight.</p>
<p>At a school that admits only 13% of applicants, I would think there are plenty of tiebreakers at the “bottom” where the numeric scores get close. We hear that some Ivies could admit three classes of fully qualified applicants without lowering standards, that they craft the non-numeric features of the class they want.</p>