<p>While I realize that individual schools differ regarding their treatment of legacy applicants, I have heard on numerous occasions that Penn has a stronger bias than most towards legacy candidates. Is this purely speculation and rumor or is the idea of Penn’s legacy bias accurate? Further, how much will a fairly obscure and under-represented location bolster ones chances for admission? (in my case, extreme upstate new york aka the north country)</p>
<p>Penn does seem to give legacies a degree of preference, whether or not that’s stronger than some other schools is difficult gauge and nearly impossible to prove. Regarding your location, Penn only really cares about getting all the states represented as far as geographic diversity is concerned, meaning you’ll get a big leg up if you’re from north dakota, but nothing if you’re from new york, where there is an overabundance of applicants on a statewide basis.</p>
<p>I’ve heard that legacies only get preference in the ED round.</p>
<p>Legacies get the most preference for ED, but get some tiny amount for RD. Penn just didn’t like how in the past most legacies applied RD, and many who got in RD didn’t matriculate. To counter this, they wanted to give the most boost to legacies who demonstrated that they were very serious about matriculating.</p>
<p>I don’t know for sure that Penn considers all of NY to be one “state” for admissions purposes. For example, they assign different RDs to da Bronx & Manhattan, Rockland/Westchester, Longuyland, and everything else. If nothing else, different people will be looking at your file. I think they realize a HS in the north country is a different place than Bronx Science and that a person from upstate will bring a different perspective than a kid from Great Neck. Someone who grows up in the n. country has a lot more in common with a kid from rural Vermont or N.H. than he does with his “fellow NYers” from the Upper East Side.</p>
<p>they like bronx science students? this wud really help me a lot.</p>
<p>When I spoke with the legacy admissions office, they said that in general, being a legacy is always an advantage–it’s just more of an advantage ED. Certainly doesn’t hurt RD, though. <em>shrug</em></p>
<p>They do like Bronx Sci but they get an awful lot of apps from that place - more from that one school than from whole counties upstate. So it sort of cuts both ways - , they know it’s a very strong school and they take quite a few, but they get so many that if you are an “average” BS applicant (who might be a top applicant elsewhere) you might get overlooked in favor of someone who is even stronger.</p>
<p>tnaks for he advice.hoepfully i wil get in. i have a 92 average but a beginning to study like crazy and think i will be able to pull of a 97 both this term and first term of seniro year. Does this improvement help a lot? will it be duly noted?</p>
<p>Penn rejected my son’s friend because he had a C+ in freshman year. I don’t think they have any mercy on anyone who does not have straight A’s all through high school. They care more about GPA than rigor of curriculum or SATs or EC’s, letters of recommendation, or essays. This is my observation based on the stats on Penn admissions from a lot of high schools around here.</p>