How much do alumni relations really help?

Applying to College
1

<p>I have a friend who’s going into his second year of college (ucsd) and he’s saying he is going to go to MIT for grad school as an engineer major. He’s not doing much for his major other than going to class and he gets ok grades (around 2.7 GPA), but his dad attended MIT in his time. Because of this, my friend is making it seem like he’ll just waltz into MIT and that his alumni relation with his dad will pretty much anchor his admission. </p>

<p>In fact, he was saying that he should have applied to MIT right after high school and that he would’ve had a solid chance, even though his GPA was around 3.5 (weighted) and had around 1700 sat and a few APs.</p>

<p>Do alumni relations really make that big of an impact in undergraduate and grad school admissions?</p>

2

<p>Alumni/legacy relations can only help to a marginal degree. You still have to be within a feasible range of the normal applicants to have any chance. MIT would be a reach for your friend, alumni relations or not, due to his GPA.</p>

3

<p>MIT does not count legacy.</p>

4

<p>That’s what I was thinking, but he’s banking everything on legacy</p>

<p>@Redroses: source?</p>

5

<p>Your friend is seriously delusional and misinformed. Just be polite and smile at his assertions and let it go.</p>

6

<p>unless his family has its name on a building, legacy doesn’t count for that much.</p>

<p>certainly not enough to help that application.</p>