Should I not apply to colleges where I am a legacy? My parents both attended Ivy League schools, schools which I may or may not want to apply to (I haven’t really started researching schools yet). However, I feel that if I were accepted to and attended one of these schools, I would struggle with imposter syndrome, and foresee feeling uncomfortable with being a legacy. I am a strong and unique student, so if I were accepted, I don’t think being a legacy would be the defining reason. Yet I would worry that my peers would just see me as a legacy, a student who benefited from privilege and took a spot from a more deserving student…
I think you should find schools that fit you well and that’s where you should apply, regardless of your parents.
Legacy is unlikely to get you into a school. It won’t get you in if you aren’t qualified.
And you said that yourself - it would not be defining - and likely wouldn’t be at all.
Your peers wouldn’t know or care where your parents went to school - and some of them might be legacy too.
This is your life - not your parents.
Consider schools that interest you and don’t worry about who went where prior.
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How will they know unless you tell them?
You are putting the cart before the horse. Are you interested in actually attending a college your parent attended? If so, apply. If you get accepted and what to attend, cross the other bridges when you get to them. right now, you are speculating about a non-existent problem.
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I’m legacy at Cornell. I worried abt this a lot only for me to get waitlisted lmao
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You are overthinking this and also overestimating the legacy impact on admissions. Thousands of Ivy League legacies - who are also excellent students - get deferred, waitlisted, and/or rejected from these institutions every year.
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Most schools have disavowed legacy admissions. Unless your family name is on a building there, I would not expect many to think that was the cause of your admittance.
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If you get in, your peers will have zero idea why you got in. Nor, for that matter, will you.
From experience, I can guarantee you that nobody will think you took a spot from someone; the vast majority are happy they got in that they aren’t thinking about those that didn’t.o
And to reiterate — legacy is a feather on the scale; they’re not admitting unqualified legacies
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I wouldn’t worry about it.
When I was in university, I had no idea why any other particular student at the same university got accepted. It never occurred to me to care why these students got accepted and others did not. Mostly we were all just too busy keeping up with our class work.
Look for schools that are a good fit for you. Make sure that you apply to safeties. Keep your budget in mind. Try not to worry about the other stuff.
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If you are a strong applicant, you may stop worrying about the legacy thing.
Legacy is real, and it does tilt the scale. If not, the Chang me/Match me thread would not ask for any hook including legacy.
That does not prevent others from making assumptions that may not necessarily be correct. Recruited athletes and URMs (even after the Supreme Court decision) are most likely to get those kinds of assumptions. Legacy status is usually invisible unless you tell someone, so legacies are less likely to be on the receiving end of such assumptions.
While potentially true, it’s not applicable to the original poster. In my desire to focus on a freaked out student, I opted against mentioning info irrelevant to their situation.
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In my circles (which include a lot of parents who went to a variety of now-very-selective colleges), the consensus on legacy at the most selective colleges is it went from a significant hook, to maybe it will help if you are otherwise highly qualified academically, to now you will get a nice letter explaining why you shouldn’t take it badly that your kid was rejected.
I can’t swear it never helps at all, but I think even the degree of help that was observed during the Harvard litigation study period is probably no longer valid.
And that is good, or at least that is my opinion.
Anyway, at this point, I truly would not worry about this. Of course first you have to decide it makes sense to apply, which combines being competitive academically and actually thinking these would be good colleges for you (they are not for everyone). Then they are definitely not going to admit you unless they are very sure you are as well-prepared as their non-legacy admits, if not even more so. And then if you decide to enroll, as others said, your peers won’t know unless you tell them, and even then I think they will mostly be savvy enough to realize it just doesn’t mean anything significant these days.
As a final thought, there are all sorts of OTHER advantages in selective private college admissions associated with privilege that remain highly relevant. So relevant that most of your peers at such colleges–and not just the Ivies but many others as well–will in fact be privileged in one or more of those ways.
So not to be cynical about it, but there is basically a sort of Mutually Assured Destruction situation going on at these colleges when it comes to arguing that privileged kids don’t deserve to be there–if that sort of war really started in earnest, it would wipe out most of the college.
But again, savvy kids sooner or later realize these colleges are not really in the business of giving kids what they deserve in some broad moral sense. They are schools, and in the end they want students who will thrive at their schools. And if most of the applicants they think will thrive at their schools had some sort of privilege helping them become such students, well, they can’t fix all that, so they just accept that will be the nature of their student body.
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My daughter, who went to an Ivy, felt like this. In the application she simply didn’t check that she was a legacy. I believe you can avoid revealing your legacy status and still apply.
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The Common App asks for parents’ education. I believe, but am not checking, that it’s a required field.
The college may have specific questions asking if any family attended, which may be optional. Harvard, as an example, has no such question; they get they info from the main part of the CA
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And unless you are applying ED to the school where you are a legacy, it’s unlikely to help at all. Some schools will directly share that information if asked.
IMO, apply where you want and don’t give being a legacy a second thought. You will be accepted on your own merits unless your family has donated enough money to have a building named for them!
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@skieurope it has been a long time so my memory is foggy. I think Harvard, for example, wanted to know the level of education of parents but not the schools. There was a specific question on whether you are a legacy- yes or no ( and it was explained this applied only to undergrad attendance and only parents, maybe siblings?). It may have changed of course.
I can confirm that the Common App requires the name of the college for each parent you indicated as having graduated from college. As Ski mentioned, Harvard does not need to ask this question separately, as they can access this information from the common section of the CA.
Anyway, it looks like OP’s questions have been answered, so hopefully that makes them more comfortable about applying to the schools where they have legacy status.
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Thanks for clarifying. It might have changed since my kids went quite awhile ago. So I always try to qualify whatever I post!
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The OP said he was a legacy at an Ivy League college. Unless something has changed since I last reviewed, all Ivy League colleges still consider legacy in admissions, and several reviews at Ivy League colleges have found that legacy is a strong hook. The Harvard lawsuit analysis found that the strength of the legacy hook has been growing over time, and was one of strongest non-athlete hooks at time of review. The regression analysis found an average of 10x (odds ratio) increased chance of admission for being a single parent legacy and 30x for dual parent legacy, with full controls. This does not mean they are admitting unqualified legacies. At time of analysis, nearly 2/3 of legacy applicants were rejected – the vast majority. The matriculating legacy students had higher average SAT scores than non-legacies.
However, I agree that few other students would think the OP was admitted because he/she is a legacy. As other posters have mentioned, few students have any idea who is a legacy and who is not. One cannot tell who is a legacy by appearance, nor are legacies separated or treated differently as students. I certainly had no idea which students were legacies when I was in college.
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At many schools, legacy is of significantly more value if it has come with significant donations to the school. For a handful, meaningful engagement by the parents may also matter (i.e., advisory board, reunion organizers, etc.) Your parent’s degree and history of four-figure gifts will likely not move the needle. My point here is that you may be overestimating legacy’s value to your application. Fwiw, a friend’s kid was turned down by the HYP where both parents had graduated. That same kid is finishing up a degree at another HYP where there was no family history. Iow, qualified applicant, legacy didn’t help.
If that “privileged special situation” pertains to you AND you are fundamentally qualified, your legacy simply moves you to the front of a line filled with other equally qualified applicants. Just like being the much-needed bassoon player would. Or the exceptional runner. No need to feel that you are an imposter for this. You’re just lucky for your lineage.
Otoh, if you are a mouth-breathing dud whose lips get tired when reading and whose parents have given so very much that the school feels obligated to admit you, you and your classmates will probably recognize that you don’t belong there and will also recognize your legacy status as your surname will be on a notable building. That might not be great. Only you know where you fall in all of this.
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