That’s not inconsistent with what I’m saying, @northwesty. One of my points is that the high-donor/involved H family donates to/volunteers at H because they went to H. They don’t donate to or volunteer at Y or P, and therefore don’t get any donor/volunteer-related advantage there, notwithstanding that their kid may be a good applicant to all three schools for all the other reasons. Hurwitz found that the H legacy had an advantage at H, but not Y or P - but he didn’t explain why. What I’m saying doesn’t contradict what he found.
Plenty of good applicants, some of whom are legacies, are denied. Some legacies have advantages in applying to their family’s alma mater but not at peer schools, as Hurwitz found - but, if I’m right, he doesn’t get to the root of the issue. High donations/involvement can be expected to provide an advantage at the place they’re made and nowhere else. Hurwitz didn’t get into that, as far as I know.
I think Hurwitz was interested as a (grad student) researcher, without the emotions associated with this in a CC-like discussion. And, all research is limited by the conclusions one ‘can’ draw. He proved what he ‘could,’ and to the extend he could. It makes his work food for thought, not absolute. Plus, of course, this is an ever-evolving situation, a moving target, of sorts.
“…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 totality goes beyond stats and superficial leadership, some writing the kid thinks is great. That’s something many kids miss. Unfortunately, since all adcoms can view is the app/supp, they’re trying to glean from that, all of it. One mis-step can be critical.
As for wealth, gobs of it, you miss that the alum who teaches high school or works her own small business is just as likely to give excellent focus to their kids’ educations. And to the thinking skills, as well as the formation of goals and the steps to pursue them. The real skills are not limited to the SES. And again, it has to show in the app/supp.
DeepBlue – I’m a deadbeat alumni at my school. The school says my kid still gets a break – they don’t care if I give, volunteer or attend reunions. Other schools would make me do some stuff to earn the break for my kid.
But I really doubt that I could earn a break for my kid by adopting Princeton as my volunteer/giving focus without stroking a 7 figure check.
From DeepBlue #440: “High donations/involvement can be expected to provide an advantage at the place they’re made and nowhere else. Hurwitz didn’t get into that, as far as I know.”
I’m not sure what you think Hurwitz didn’t get into: Do you mean that the study did not differentiate between a student’s simply being a legacy applicant, vs. being a legacy applicant whose family had made donations or been involved with the alumni association?
If only the legacy applicants whose families had made donations as well got the legacy boost, would that make things better, in your view?
“As for wealth, gobs of it, you miss that the alum who teaches high school or works her own small business is just as likely to give excellent focus to their kids’ educations.”
Sure – not every alumni is going to be a doctor/lawyer/banker, but many will be. And the pool will be tilted even by the kid of the HS teachers. After all, by definition the legacy pool includes zero first generation applicants.
@northwesty: I can’t speak for Princeton (or anywhere else, really), but I think if you’d gone there and had been volunteering and making steadily rising donations over the years since you’d graduated, and the university had reason to believe you ultimately might give a lot more a lot more, your kid would get a good look. No seven-figure check necessary right now, in my view. I don’t know how different the situation would be for someone who actually hadn’t gone there but was doing all the same stuff as above.
@QuantMech: yes, that’s exactly what I think the study didn’t differentiate between, and I don’t have a view as to what’s better, except that I think it’s for the university to determine. What I’m saying is that I think it’s misleading to generalize about legacies because of the correlation/causation issues I mentioned, and because I genuinely believe legacies from high-donor/involved families are looked at differently from other legacies.
@lookingforward: I don’t deny at all that anyone who gives excellent focus to their kids’ educations is going to improve their chance of admissions to elite universities. All I’m saying is that if you’re a high-SES parent and so inclined, you can provide not only that but also large donations, which I’m confident helps more than providing just the excellent focus.
I believe that students at East Coast boarding schools who are not legacies may be particularly adversely affected by the legacy preferences. PBS ran a documentary some years ago about college admissions (and probably other aspects of life) at an East Coast boarding school. When admissions decisions were announced at the “top” schools, all of the legacy students were admitted, and none of the non-legacy students were admitted. That was that school, that year, but it stands to reason that the demographic of “East Coast boarding school student” could be largely filled with legacies. Obviously, some non-legacy boarding school students are admitted to HYP. The PBS documentary might possibly have played a role in that.
Also, are East Coast boarding schools their own “state” for National Merit considerations? Or is that just American schools abroad?
From time to time, a family that has really sacrificed economically to send their child to an East Coast boarding school with excellent admission rates at HYP is profiled in the New York Times or Wall Street Journal, typically when the student is strong, but was not admitted to the schools of his/her choice. I feel sorry for those families.
I think that the pre-college education on offer at the East Coast boarding schools tends to be of very high quality. I hope that these days, the non-legacy families understand that they are paying for the educational quality and not for an admissions boost.
" I can’t speak for Princeton (or anywhere else, really), but I think if you’d gone there and had been volunteering and making steadily rising donations over the years since you’d graduated, and the university had reason to believe you ultimately might give a lot more a lot more, your kid would get a good look."
Blue – you seem to be saying that it isn’t the legacy status that matters but instead the volunteering and giving, etc. I didn’t go to Princeton. My point was that (short of a 7 figure check) no amount of involvement and volunteering by me at Princeton is going to give my kid a boost. For that to work, I have to be an alumni. So being a legacy/alumni is key.
The only difference is that schools differ in terms of who they’ll give the boost to. Harvard College only boosts kids of Harvard College grads. Penn boosts kids and grandkids of any Penn degree holder (including graduate and professional schools) so long as you apply early decision. My school (UVA) doesn’t track giving or volunteering – you get the boost if a parent has any type of UVA degree, but only if you are an out-of-state applicant. Stanford and Princeton require some modest giving plus volunteering plus attending reunions in order to get the boost. But you have to be an alumni of some definition in all cases.
Over the last 4 years, the only students accepted to HYPMS were recruited athletes with an additional hook (URM, legacy). For the rest of the Ivies - 50/50 athletes and top students.
East Coast BS have to meet the highest cutoff (generally NJ/DC cutoff).
@QuantMech - first, non-legacies get in to HYP from boarding schools every year. More importantly, though, I think those parents you’re talking about paid for and got a very real admissions boost, whatever they say. I hope they’re consoled by the fact that by sending their kids to a fancy East Coast boarding school they not only gave them access to a very high-quality education and a network of classmates and alumni that will stand them in good stead throughout their lives, but also guidance counselors and opportunities that made it highly likely that if the kids did well there they’d be admitted to multiple top-20 schools. Most kids who don’t go to fancy East Coast boarding schools have much less of a leg up in college admissions no matter how hard they and their parents work. If the parents you’re talking about are upset that there were too many HYP legacies and their pride and joy had to suffer the indignity of going to Penn, well, I’m playing one of the world’s smaller violins right now - their kid has a fantastic future and, if they work hard and do well, will probably have HYP graduates working for them one day.
One thing I’m sure about is that in about 25 years, when those parents become grandparents, and pride-and-joy’s kid is applying to Penn, the parents and grandparents will be only too happy to take advantage of any form of legacy preference there.
Not quite, @northwesty - what I’m saying is what I said upthread:
I’m not familiar with how it works at UVA, but legacy by itself generally means very little at most elites, I think. I believe you’re saying that by definition legacy means something because if you didn’t go to, say, Princeton, your gifts wouldn’t help your kid unless they were very large. I think that’s probably mostly true (although not entirely - I think a kid whose parent teaches at Princeton, for example, gets a boost, and I personally know of a case where a relative of a senior administrator may have got one) - but I’m not sure it matters. Again, I would guess that if you could disaggregate the high-donor/volunteer and other double-hooked legacies and somehow control for the correlation/causation issues - which, again, Hurwitz doesn’t seem to have done - you’d find that being a legacy alone and about $4 would get you a latte at the Starbucks on the campus of most of the elites.
Boosts could also go to an applicant whose alum parent had notable achievements which bring positive credit to the alma mater…such as a literary author who won national/international acclaim in lieu of making large donations.
This could also apply as a developmental case for a non-alum. For instance, I wouldn’t be surprised if J.K. Rowling had a child applying to the Ivies/peer elites that he/she would receive a substantial developmental boost even absent a large donation.
@lookingforward I completely agree. The issue with the Top 10% rule that we have for public universities in Texas is that it forces colleges to take more kids than they can handle. Take UT Austin, for example. They now have automatic acceptance for only the Top 7% due to how many students they were forced to take in. I also know plenty of children who got into the school and should not have been admitted. There are several kids who graduated before me whose parents would do their kids school work for them, would write their essays, etc. just to keep their child in the Top 10%. At almost every high school I have been to, this has resulted in a majority of the Top 10 kids cheating off of each other. It also doesn’t consider other activities that an otherwise talented student is involved in.
Take me for instance, I am only in the Top 20% at my school. However, I am in three AP classes, Academic Decathlon, Debate, Varsity Choir, am a choir officer, am in NHS, and work. I still maintain a 4.0, but because I am not in the Top 10%, I have no chance of getting into UT Austin. Meanwhile, a student who takes fewer AP classes–who CHEATS THEIR WAY THERE–and is involved in no extra-curricular activities will get in before I ever will. The Top 10% system is fundamentally flawed on several levels.
To be honest, all systems have their flaws. The Top 10 system was designed to maximize geographic and racial diversity without resorting to a quota system. For that purpose, it was worked.
Not sure how UT Austin fits here. Much as I love UVA, nor it. State schools have a different mandate and, in theory, population to satisfy.
And no, I don’t think tippy top admissions are fair, in any usual sense. It’s their game, their wants, their rules, love it or leave it. And most kids don’t realize those aren’t the same as in their high schools. So whatcha gonna do?
@spinthatrecord I agree with you 100%. The 10% rule never made sense since not all schools are alike, and students can take wildly different curricula. It’s a tragedy that someone like you wouldn’t be admitted just because of your class rank. I’d simply encourage you to apply elsewhere. There are many universities out there that would love to have you, and many that will offer you financial aid to make that possible. One sad thing about large public universities is that they are forced to use crude measures like class rank and SAT scores in making admissions decisions
@exlibris97 It’s not a top choice regardless, mostly due to its size and aid, but the principle has never ceased to amaze me. I 100% agree with your points as well, every school is vastly different and you can’t compare students based on that.
That being said, it’s also ridiculous to expect a university to take in every single top 10% kid they come across. That’s why it’s become so difficult for students ar UT and TAMU to get in unless they meet stellar testing scores if they don’t meet a certain rank. That’s why UT has received exceptions to change the auto acceptance requirement from students placing in the top 10%, to top 8%, to top 7% now. They can’t afford to take in thousands of kids, plus these schools actually have some of the least diverse student populations out there.
@blossom The definition of “enough” is a bit squishy. I think this thread has enough input, os I will just leave with this advice. If you are a legacy, and your kid wants to go to “an Ivy” so they can say they went to an Ivy, I would encourage them to apply to your Alma Mater ED/EA. I think evidence shows it will be more likely to help them than not.
But I would more encourage your kid to find a school the love, regardless of the athletic league it participates in…
“Not sure how UT Austin fits here. Much as I love UVA, nor it. State schools have a different mandate and, in theory, population to satisfy.”
I mention UVA because its legacy admissions only apply to the one-third of its enrollment set aside for out-of-state applicants, who would be charged the higher out-of-state tuition rates and who face significantly higher admissions selectivity. So it functions pretty much identical to how a private college does legacy admissions.
None of my kids applied to my alma mater- nor to H’s. Not our undergrad, not our grad. They politely tromped through the tour, and then built their own lists. So Calidad- not exactly sure what you are suggesting with your post. I have many classmates whose kids DID apply- with both acceptances and rejections.
But for sure, kids need to identify what they are looking for and go for it. Is that your point?