Agree with all that, @northwesty, and would note further that current-use gifts (correctly described above as coming predominantly from alumni, some of whom certainly are donating in the belief that it might make a difference for their children/grandchildren) totaled $421m and accounted for ~9% of the university’s operating budget in the most recent fiscal year. Some of those current-use gifts, by the way, represent the early stages of giving from alumni who can be expected to build up to larger gifts and possibly very substantial ones if they continue to feel a close relationship with their alma mater.
I think your last paragraph is exactly right. No one gets admitted just because they’re a legacy - generally, they’ve got an otherwise strong application and the legacy tip puts them over the top (contra @cobrat, they absolutely need the legacy tip because it’s what differentiates them from thousands of kids who also have strong apps). If they’re manifestly less qualified than some notional “appropriate” standard (and, as has been repeated many, many times, only the admissions office has the information to be able to define such a standard and determine who matches or doesn’t match it), there’s some other attribute they have that the university wants - they’re not just getting in because Mom and/or Dad graduated from there.
I thought you would say something like that, which is why I asked the question. You have a very precise idea, based only on stats (and, seemingly, just GPA, since you don’t mention test scores) as to who will be admitted, not only to Princeton, but to a whole lot of other schools - in fact who should even apply there. It sounds almost like you think anyone with a GPA significantly above 92 is owed admission by Princeton and its peers.
If you’re right, then Princeton and all those other schools were/are wasting an unconscionable amount of their own time and that of their applicants and the applicants’ teachers and guidance counselors by having them fill out applications, write essays and submit recommendations, because all of that really doesn’t make any difference if the applicant doesn’t have a 92 cumulative GPA (apparently it doesn’t make any difference in what courses they earned that GPA, either). Test scores also don’t seem to matter much - as long as the applicant has a 92 GPA. As for the ways someone spends their spare time - all the violin, model UN, soccer practice and everything else - forget about it, because if they don’t have that 92, they’re sunk. What they do, and who they are, aren’t relevant. The university’s institutional needs don’t exist, or don’t matter
Oh, wait - they do exist, and they do matter, because all of the above only applies if someone’s a “non-hooked applicant”. If they’ve got a hook, all these schools will move heaven and earth to take them and will shove all the deserving 92+s to the back of the line.
Why do you assume all this to be true? Maybe there were Naviance scatterplots, which your guidance counselor annotated (bear in mind, too, that guidance counselors have a natural incentive to lower their students’ expectations). I doubt you heard it from the schools themselves, though - I’ll be very surprised if you can find anything written from any of them stipulating some kind of GPA cutoff, for your school or anywhere else - and certainly not spelling out what constitutes a hook, or how much power it has.
And the reason this isn’t written down is because, as I and others have said before, once you pass the school’s actual academic cut-off (which I am confident is lower than the equivalent of a 92 GPA from your high school), your stats really don’t matter very much unless you’re earmarked for that minority of the class that’s admitted because they’re brainiacs. Which means that unless you’re straight-up brilliant in that school’s competition - not just a high-stats kid who’s trying to paint an application by the numbers - to be admitted, you’ll have to bring some other things to the party that the school wants.
The hard truth that a lot of high-stats kids can’t accept is that they didn’t make the brainiac cut - the university had more than enough applications to fill the brainiac bucket with kids who were academically stronger - and what the high-stats kids who were denied had to offer, academically and otherwise, was less valuable to the school than thousands of other kids with different mixes of attributes. They don’t accept this, and want the school to make an exception for them.
Obviously, I’m overstating for effect here. Of course stats are useful as guidelines for schools an applicant should target. The truth is, though - particularly at the elites - stats have only two limited uses: (i) as a proxy for the school to begin to judge how well you’ll do academically there - that you’ll blow the doors off and be a Rhodes Scholar, or that you’ll just scrape by, and everything in between; and (ii) in the aggregate for the class, to the extent that they’re published and affect public perception and third-party rankings. If the school judges from your stats that you can’t do the work, you’ll be denied. If it looks from your stats like you’re a candidate for the brainiac bucket, the school will read your application with that in mind, admit you on that basis if you qualify and deny you if you don’t make the cut and don’t have any other compensating attributes. Everyone else, i.e., those who are qualified but aren’t candidates for the brainiac bucket, will be judged on the totality of what they offer the school.
And this takes me all the way back to the question that you didn’t answer: whom should Princeton have taken instead of that kid who was admitted, according to your guidance counselor, for “legacy/developmental considerations”? You said you thought he could finish with “good/great” standing in four years, so he was obviously well within the mainstream at Princeton. What’s he doing today? Is he a productive member of society? Has he been generous to Princeton and valuable to them in other ways? Is there any reason you’re aware of why Princeton wouldn’t be happy that he’s a graduate? Where I’m going with this is, of course, can you say today that Princeton made a mistake?
Any of the thousands of kids Princeton denied that year could have been offered his spot instead. Many no doubt weren’t qualified, so were never in contention. Others were qualified but perhaps the university thought they were unlikely to matriculate, so they weren’t given offers. Many others would have been perfectly reasonable choices - medium-to-high stats kids with nice ECs, essays, recommendations, etc. - but overall didn’t have anything that Princeton considered more valuable than what this kid was offering, when viewed in the context of the ~1,900 other kids admitted that year (more than a few of whom, I would speculate, had lower GPAs than this kid).
Maybe you know someone else in the same year at your high school with a 92+ GPA who was denied by Princeton and its peers, went to a different school and did fabulously there and afterward, such that you believe Princeton really should have admitted him/her instead of the legacy. If you know such a person, and the legacy crashed and burned at Princeton or afterward, maybe you could assert (with the benefit of hindsight, of course) that Princeton made a mistake. If the legacy did well there (where he was probably a full payer, by the way) and afterward, though, I think Princeton probably made a good decision, certainly based on the information it had at the time.
There’s a bit of context I also need to add from that period. This was in a period when Princeton’s admissions policies were still much more weighed in favor of boarding/private school graduates…especially athletes and legacy/developmental admits.
One manifestation of this was how Princeton was commonly joked among my public HS alums from my era and older as "hating kids from public magnet/public schools) because whereas it tended to admit an average of ~5 students from each graduating class…and heavily weighed towards legacy/developmental admits.
In contrast, Harvard, Yale, MIT, and some other peer elites tended to admit an average of 20-30 from each graduating class with the vast majority being unhooked applicants from lower-middle class or lower income families, especially children of immigrants.
I’ve mentioned it before so apologies to the old timers.
At my last Brown reunion, as the parents of either HS kids, college kids, or post college kids ruminated on admissions and legacies, and whatnot- we sorta/kinda realized that legacy- pure vanilla legacy, of a typical high stats kid was close to meaningless for admissions.
No, Brown is not Harvard. But absent “something else”- parent who is a US Senator, parent who has won a Tony and an Oscar, kid has written a concerto which had its premiere at Carnegie Hall- just having a high GPA and high SAT scores and a great tennis game and oodles of hours volunteering at a homeless shelter- it’s not getting you in to Brown. Especially if you grew up in Winnetka or Atherton or Belmont, since high stats kids (some from first Gen college families) from Illinois, California, and Massachusetts, respectively are hardly in short supply in the applicant pool. And if an adcom has a choice between a high stats kid who happens to be a legacy, but doesn’t check any other boxes, and a high stats kid WITH another box – merely being a legacy is sort of a “thanks for telling us, here’s your rejection letter”.
I’m going to guess that there are many other colleges where this is the case.
@blossom Of course “just” having a high GPA and high SAT and great tennis game and oodles of hours of volunteering at a homeless shelter and being a legacy is going to get some kids into Brown.
I mean, Brown does accept 2500 kids a year. There aren’t THAT many Senators, Oscar/Tony winners or Carnegie hall concertos. The Ivies over all accept 20,000+ undergrads a year. Of course there is a decent amount of overlap, but it’s probably 10k? 7k? unique apps. There just aren’t that many 17 year old published authors, professional mimes and world class squash players. Some are just good students who impress and get in. I actually know some. Some of this “specialness” mystique is just that - mystique. I meet over 50 + Ivy applicants every year and over a dozen of them get in to Ivies, and a few are “special” talent - sports or music or - most of them are just good students with interesting outlooks on life who “connect” with a school or program (and often have really good guidance counselors.) Once you hit minimum standards (which are high, of course) and absent a clear “hook” - such as athletics, or Senator Mom - it’s a crap shoot, but some kids do come up 7s, especially with the help of legacy.
Cali- the question on the table is not “will it get some kids into Brown”. The question is - does the legacy advantage provide enough of a tip when combined with plain vanilla high GPA/SAT/Great tennis game etc.
My experience (and that of my classmates) suggests no. The statistics on legacy across the ivy league suggests no. The fact that Penn says outright that if you don’t apply early, they will not consider legacy suggests no.
But sure. Some will get in. I believe it’s on the basis of “some other thing” and NOT the genetic lottery of having a mom who went to Brown or a dad who went to Dartmouth.
The celebrity/developmental hook aren’t limited to those three…they could also include prominent scholars/scientists*, notable literary authors like the family friend whose son was admitted to an Ivy solely due to his father’s fame in the Chinese literary world back in the '70s, philanthropists, prominent journalists, etc.
There’s many more of such folks not only in the US nationally, but moreso if one considers the Ivies/peer elites have also accepted plenty of international students…especially since the 'mid-late '60s onward.
I’m generally with @blossom here. As far as I can tell, at the elites, legacy in isolation does nothing except give the college some comfort that if offered, the student will probably matriculate, thus marginally boosting yield. Of course, if the student applies ED, they have to matriculate if offered anyway, so legacy alone really adds nothing in that case (which is one reason why the elites reject substantial majorities of their legacy applicants). It seems to me that legacy plus non-monetary involvement is likely to be a little better, legacy plus a more-than-modest giving history better still, legacy with big donations much more meaningful, legacy plus celebrity connections and/or real development potential a big boost.
There are two related correlation-causation issues here, though:
First, the legacy applicant’s family is involved and gives because they have ties to the college - they would be much less inclined to do so otherwise (if you went to Brown, you’re a lot more likely to volunteer for and donate to Brown than, say, Dartmouth). Big donations are good in themselves, and also generally come with a full-paying applicant. I would suggest that the involvement/financial aspect is more important than the fact of the legacy itself, but the involvement/donations probably wouldn’t be there if the parent hadn’t attended the school and therefore the applicant weren’t a legacy.
Second, as noted upthread, legacies skew higher-SES, which means their families are more likely to have given their kids the tools to produce competitive applications (as well as make big donations as noted above). Similarly to the issue in the previous paragraph, this was probably more helpful to the applicant than the fact of the legacy itself, but was more likely to be present in the first place because the applicant was a legacy.
The legacy boost is real and quite powerful statistically. But you have to put it in context.
In order to explain, let’s take a look at the #1 unabashed legacy school going – which is Notre Dame. 25% of their incoming class each year are legacy kids. That’s about double the number of spots that you will see at the Ivies. The legacy program is a big part of the ND’s Catholic/family/community culture which is extremely strong. Probably rivaled only by the culture of the service academies.
Even at a YUGE legacy school like ND, two-thirds of the legacy applicants get denied. But that means legacies have a 33% acceptance rate – almost double the overall admit rate of 18%.
Despite having such a big legacy admit program, ND still has extremely high stats. Their middle 50% ACT range is 33-35, which I think is higher than all the Ivies and perhaps only behind Cal Tech or MIT. So here’s how the legacy boost operates in today’s super-selective admissions environment.
So let’s say a legacy applies with a 35 ACT and otherwise has a good/normal application package on the other stuff (GPA, ECs, rec letters, etc.). At ND, that kid is probably a lock to get in. The kid is no dummy and obviously qualified. But the legacy “tip” means that ND (despite an overall 18% accept rate) is basically a safety school for this kid.
Same as above, but now the applicant has a 34 ACT. The 34 legacy kid probably is still better than a 50% chance of getting in. Mr. 34 Legacy is going to beat out a LOT of non-legacy 34s (of which ND has thousands). Holding a tie-breaker in a game that has a lot of ties is very helpful. Also may beat out a good number of non-legacy 35s. I’d guess that this category is where most of ND’s admitted legacies come from. Again, the legacy admit is well-qualified with median/average stats.
So you could say it is “just” a tie-breaker or “just” a feather on the scale (hey – two thirds still get rejected!!). Or you could say the legacy tip double or triples or quadruples your chance of acceptance. And both would be right.
You can just scale this based on how much of its class another school allocates to legacy. If Brown only sets aside 10% of its class for legacies, you’d see an even higher percentage of legacy kids getting rejected. Even though the power of the legacy tip would still be extremely strong. You could triple your chances of admission into Brown but still be well below a 50% chance – again BOTH would be right.
Have you read the Hurwitz study? There’s a significant advantage to being a legacy, beyond anything the applicant brings to the table. However, deepBlue86 may be right the legacy advantage goes to those whose alumni parents give time, money, or both to the university.
If deepBlue86 is right then Hurwitz’s legacy advantage claim is misleading. The following may be an extreme scenario. H: That group of people are rich. d: A billionaire surrounded by panhandlers. But extreme is rare.
Some schools claim they don’t consider legacy. That means they don’t give out legacy stats I assume.
There’s no clear inconsistency between Hurwitz’s data and what @DeepBlue86 is saying. @northwesty has been trying to say this, too.
Let’s say you have a group of 100 applicants who come within a set of narrow parameters the university considers desirable. Twenty of the 100 are legacy applicants. The admissions department will offer admission to 30 of the 100. It takes 10 of the legacies and 20 of the non-legacies. That’s a huge legacy advantage – twice the admission rate vs. comparable non-legacies. Yet the legacies aren’t any less (or more) qualified than the non-legacies, and in terms of statistical measures the class will look the same whether 25%, 50%, or 100% of the legacy applicants in that group are admitted.
Selective universities are rejecting desirable, qualified applicants all the time. If they reject somewhat fewer of the desirable, qualified legacies compared to desirable, qualified non-legacies, that’s a very real legacy advantage without being anything like admitting less- or un-qualified applicants. All of the undesirable or unqualified applicants will be rejected, legacies and non-legacies.
Also note that if the hypothetical university abandoned legacy preferences altogether, it would have taken 6-7 of the legacy applicants in that group of 100 anyway. If you happen to know a few of those kids, you would say, “There was no legacy advantage working there. They were fabulous candidates, as good or better than anyone else applying. And anyway, I saw legacy applicants just as good rejected.” And you would be absolutely right, except that there was still a legacy advantage.
Thank you, @JHS. I’ll try to take your scenario a step further.
Let’s assume that of those 20 legacy applicants, ten were children of significant volunteers/donors and likely to be full payers (“Group A”) while the other ten’s parents were token donors or not significantly involved (“Group B”). Then let’s assume that of the ten legacies accepted, seven came from Group A and three came from Group B.
In that case, Group A legacies would have a 70% chance of being accepted, while Group B legacies would have a 30% chance of being accepted, as compared to the 25% acceptance rate (20 out of 80) for non-legacies.
Something not a million miles from this, I think, is what Hurwitz would have discovered if he’d been able to control for family involvement/donations among the legacies he studied.
Here’s a quote/paraphrase from the Dean of Admissions at Duke:
"One question from the audience: does Duke offer legacy advantage as an institutional priority, or because Duke alumni are able to offer better opportunities for their children and hence are better qualified than the regular pool? ANSWER: we have made this a priority based upon institutional desire to admit more alumni children. "
I agree, @JHS - I don’t think Hurwitz cared, and, consequently, I think he in some ways confused the matter. The real advantages, in my view, are those of rich families and parents who give exceptional focus to the education of their children. Legacies are likely to be overrepresented in both groups relative to their overall numbers. It’s not about being a legacy, per se - it’s about the advantages that are likely to accrue to children of parents who attended elite universities.
“However, deepBlue86 may be right the legacy advantage goes to those whose alumni parents give time, money, or both to the university.”
Schools have different policies on this.
Some only care about whether the parent is an alumni for admissions purposes. That’s how my school is. They don’t keep track of volunteering or giving. Others do keep track and only give the boost to kids whose parents have been good alumni citizens.
“The real advantages, in my view, are those of rich families and parents who give exceptional focus to the education of their children. Legacies are likely to be overrepresented in both groups relative to their overall numbers. It’s not about being a legacy, per se - it’s about the advantages that are likely to accrue to children of parents who attended elite universities.”
Nope. Hurwitz’s data contradicts this. Hurwitz found that H legacies did better at H than they do at Y and P. Being a kid of a higher SES family focused on education would help equally at all of H, Y and P.
But you are correct that coming from a higher SES family does greatly increase the odds that a kid will be a competitive applicant at highly selective schools. But legacy status is in addition to that. Meaning the legacy tip most often gives an advantage to an alumni kid from a high SES family over another high SES applicant from a non-alumni family. Suburban ACT 34 legacy applicant gets into Notre Dame over suburban non-legacy ACT 34/35 applicant.