<p>For any college the application itself is usually indicative of how interested a school is in legacies and what constitutes a legacy for that school. In this case, since Yale uses the Common App, look also at the Yale supplement. Yale’s supplement asks detailed questions about Yale relationships, including about non-parent relatives who attended Yale. Harvard’s supplement, in contrast, asks for nothing beyond what is asked about parents in the Common App.</p>
<p>For those schools that participate in the Common Data Set (Yale, in this case, but not Harvard, for example), question C7 asks colleges to rank the relative importance of various factors in their admissions decisions for freshmen, including what is called “Alumni/ae relation” or the legacy relationship. This is also a good guide as to whether legacy is considered and if so, how important it is in admissions decisions.</p>
<p>Question C7 also asks about the “Level of applicant’s interest” or what is sometimes called “expressed interest”. If a school says “interest” matters in its admissions decisions, this question can be important if the school offers early decision or, in Yale’s case, single choice early action. Yale legacies who opt to apply early elsewhere are not expressing as much interest as legacies who choose to apply early to Yale. Yale says it does care about the applicant’s level of interest.</p>