<p>In light of a recent thread here:
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/1066891-do-legacy-preferences-count-more-than-race.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/1066891-do-legacy-preferences-count-more-than-race.html</a>
I started thinking if someone who does not have a legacy status /is URM is really doomed for an admission to HYPS? What characteristics, achievements, how much better scores are needed for a student who is in direct “competition” (for lack of a better word) with legacies/double legacies/URM that are also applying - from the same HS - to give them an equal shot? Is it possible at all or are we locking out some students from the game at the start?</p>
<p>I think it depends. In my older son’s class he was #8 and accepted (double legacy), I’m sure the legacy helped him, but he was a very viable candidate. In our Naviance data about half the kids with his stats were accepted. One other student from his class was accepted - the val who was not a legacy and one was waitlisted. While there are plenty of all round students who get accepted at Harvard, I actually think the kids who have the best chance are the ones like my son with an extremely high level of expertise in one area.</p>
<p>I also think it varies a bit by college. Harvard and Yale seem “know” our school, but no one has ever gotten into Stanford who didn’t have at least two “ins” out of URM, recruited athlete, legacy. No one.</p>
<p>No…not doomed for admission. HYPMS will not fill their classes with only legacy, athletes and URM’s. There are some HYPSM parents on this site who are not alums…and claim their kids were "average’ high performers.</p>
<p>NY Times also had an analysis of the study:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/09/education/09legacies.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=legacy%20admission&st=cse[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/09/education/09legacies.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=legacy%20admission&st=cse</a></p>
<p>This study did NOT account for development admits as a factor:
Could have had some impact on the research, since they add an additional dimension to “legacy.”</p>
<p>Additional factors impacting data:
</p>
<p>I’m not sure there is “an equal shot” against the athlete, URM, legacy or development admit. If the school needs an outside-middle hitter and you don’t play vball, you are not in competition for that seat. If the orchestra needs a first-chair basson and you don’t play, you are not in competion for that seat. If a school (like Vassar) is working hard to maintain gender parity and you are female, you are not really competing with the male applicants. If someone’s father/mother can fund (or has funded) a chair in physics, you are not in competition with that student.</p>
<p>But we are not talking about a feeder school here. We are talking about a fairly good public, but in a flyover state. We are closer to Stanford, so yes, S does take more kids from our school. But for HYP? There are other schools in the state…
Interesting, I thought that they were after natural leaders…</p>
<p>You really are NOT competing against legacies and URMs from the same high school for HYPS. None of these schools has a quota for individual high schools. It just doesn’t work that way. </p>
<p>I know one case in which a high school in New Jersey had never gotten more than 2 kids a year into Princeton. Everyone assumed there was a quota for that high school. Then one year, there were 4 very strong candidates, all of whom had P’ton as top choice. All four got in. </p>
<p>So, really, don’t worry about it. It’s certainly true that being a legacy or URM helps; I’m not denying that. However, it really does NOT matter whether the legacy or URM attends the same high school as you do.</p>
<p>In our experience it’s very tough to compete with legacies. Year after year we have seen considerably weaker legacies ( yet certainly qualified) get in over what many saw as better candidates. If the legacy has the stats, they seem to not have to have the super human EC.</p>
<p>My guess would be in a fly over state the legacy would have even more of a boost. Stanford doesn’t need yet another legacy from CA or NY to keep regional alumni happy and active.</p>
<p>We heard the admissions director from Stanford speak a few years ago. He was asked about legacy and commented that legacy had no additional value in admissions. Stanford gets inundated with legacy candidates, many of whom perfectly match the admission standards. So while many are accepted, he said this is not due to their family’s past affiliation.</p>
<p>When asked if development applicants were treated differently he paused. He said that if a family had a <em>history</em> of significant giving, the candidate was likely to receive a “second look”. He further explained that by history, he meant many years of uninterrupted giving which is meant to eliminate the notion that a one-time donation can buy a wealthy family’s student a seat. He also said that at the ivies and Stanford, gifts in the low 7-figures would not be significant to admissions. High 7-figures might take it out of his hands.</p>
<p>!!!</p>
<p>Anyway, not including the above deep pockets alums, I took his message to be–legacy status does boost admissions decisions for kids that are, in fact, legacies. They were admitted on the basis of their own application credentials. Perhaps this is just the party line, but there is logic to it. Unless a denial would threaten to halt a very lucrative gift stream, there is no real need for these elite universities to reward legacy. Enough people want to attend these schools.</p>
<p>^Each school has a different policy so it sounds like it doesnt help at Stanford, but certainly the article that has come out looking at a wide swath of top schools points, very definitively, to a different story.</p>
<p>They are after leaders too. It’s just harder at 18 to prove you have the makings of a future leader, but for HYP having future leaders is the big payoff.
</p>
<p>I read somewhere in a Harvard Magazine that they choose a bunch of academic superstars, a bunch of artistic superstars, a bunch of athletes and the rest are more or less all round good students possible future leaders etc. Can’t remember the exact numbers. </p>
<p>What I meant by it’s easier to get accepted as a kid with expertise in one area, is that it’s easy to sell. My son had letters from professors and business people basically saying that he was doing projects for them that they normally would hire college grads for, and he was doing them better and faster. </p>
<p>I agree btw that being in a flyover state is probably somewhat of an advantage at HYPS. It’s hard to believe this is true, but I’m pretty sure one year the New York Times Magazine had a chart showing an astronomical acceptance rate at Harvard from students from Wyoming. </p>
<p>Here’s an older Harvard Mag article about how much difference legacy makes: [A</a> Thumb on the Scale | Harvard Magazine May-Jun 2005](<a href=“http://harvardmagazine.com/2005/05/a-thumb-on-the-scale.html]A”>http://harvardmagazine.com/2005/05/a-thumb-on-the-scale.html)</p>
<p>Madbean, party line indeed. I have seen more qualified legacies get rejected from Stanford than from other top schools, so I believe it may not be as big of a factor as it is at say Princeton which accepts legacies at four times the rate of other applicants.</p>
<p>But I have witnessed, personally, several families buy a child’s way into ivies and Stanford for low seven figures. And in The Price Of Admission the WSJ saw this too. They figure the cool million is just the beginning of a long giving relationship.</p>
<p>There are plenty of white and Asian kids at HYPSM who are not legacies, not “development” admits, and not Olympic medalists. With admission rates <10% the odds are against you. You can blame URMs, legacies, athletes or just bad luck. Whatever makes you feel better is fine.</p>
<p>Stanford accepts a higher percentage of legacies than Harvard, Yale, or Princeton does. ( The stas are released each year and you can google as well as I can. )</p>
<p>OOPS!!–I’m wrong. Stanford doesn’t release the percentage of legacy applicants who are admitted. It DOES release the percentage of each class who are legacies and it is THAT number which is higher at S than at H, Y or P. </p>
<p>3 different top college alumni mags come to my household. Every year, there are several letters to the editor from outraged alums who refuse to give a penny after their “well qualified” child or grandchild is rejected. Some of them have been class reps or alumni assocation officers, etc. for years and years. </p>
<p>Again, I’m not claiming legacy doesn’t help. It does. It just doesn’t help as much as alums with kids and grandkids think it should. </p>
<p>Heck, there are several alum posters on this site who have admitted in past threads that they stopped donating when their kids were rejected.</p>
<p>This is NOT at the HYP level and I fully get that, but at my kids’ school, 3 kids applied ED to Northwestern - my son (double legacy), a girl (single legacy, URM) and another girl. The first two got in and the other one didn’t. Now, I have no way of knowing the qualifications of the other two girls vis-a-vis my son, but I am sure that the non-legacy girl feels (rightfully or not) that she was up against two legacies and couldn’t compete. </p>
<p>OTOH, well, let’s just say there are no 7 figure, 6 figure, 5 figure or even 4 figure donations happening from this household, LOL.</p>
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<p>Based on my limited experience I’d say Yes. A couple of years ago our high school had two co-vals. Normally they name only one, but these two had the exact same GPA out to the last decimal. I don’t have all the details, but so far as I know they also had similar SATs and ECs. Both vals applied to Stanford but one of them was a legacy. The non-legacy val was accepted to Stanford and the legacy val was not. </p>
<p>So, for Stanford at least, legacy is probably worth something but not a whole lot. It’s not a compelling game-changer.</p>
<p>Pizzagirl, to the extend that there are limited number of seats, your S and the two girls are competing against each other. But, for example, to the extend that N’western want a racially diverse, the URM girl was in a different pool and competing against other URM students, not the other two non-URM students form her school (and vice versa).</p>
<p>Not sure the non-legacy girl saw (or sees) it that way, but that’s the way it is.</p>