Interesting thread. I wanted to share my experience with this process for my D, HS class of '16, who will be a freshman at my “single initial” alma mater in September (to borrow the term used by JHS).
D applied SCEA with toll-free/one-and-done SATs and SAT IIs, a 99 average at a school that historically sends ~20% of its graduating class to the Ivies, and some pretty in-depth/unusual ECs relating to community service and writing. She had been on what H and I jokingly call a “geek recruiting” visit the fall of her senior year for the Creative Arts & Humanities Symposium hosted by the university but had not submitted her SCEA app when she was selected for the symposium, so we don’t think the university knew she was an alumni child when she was offered the fly-in.
On and off I have been a very involved alum on a national volunteer level but definitely not someone who has ever given an amount that would put me in the development pool or even the reunions “special gifts” category of my class and my last big volunteer role concluded about 8 years ago. I would guess that my alumni profile is “coded” in some way to show that I’m active but I definitely don’t have a current relationship with any administrators at the university.
D was admitted and the college process was over by the end of the Christmas break. She withdrew the few other apps she had in, so we have no way of knowing if any of the other single initials or other tippy tops would have found her to be a desirable candidate. Perhaps so, perhaps not.
As a data point, a classmate and good friend of mine has a son in the same HS class at a different private school in my town. I am not privy to his grades/scores but by all accounts he was one of the top students at his school, and would have been a 3rd generation legacy had he gone to him mom’s/my alma mater. Both his mom and his grandfather donate at a high level (5 figures). He was deferred SCEA and then admitted in March. Interestingly, he was admitted regular decision with no hooks to Stanford and MIT, and chose MIT.
His mom and I agree it’s bewildering that he was deferred from our alma mater given that he must have had something appealing to have been accepted unhooked by both S and M. Perhaps his essays showed he wasn’t totally committed to his SCEA school, so it didn’t want to “waste” an SCEA slot on him? By contrast, when my D arrived home from the symposium, she hand-wrote letters to both to the admissions rep that handles her school and the dean of admission and told them how much she enjoyed the program and that she would definitely accept her offer if admitted.
I think the only takeaway for my own and my friend’s experience is that things might - or might not - look clear in retrospect. We might ** think ** we know why one legacy was admitted SCEA and the other wasn’t, but we really don’t. It also may be a congruence of a lot of little things.
My D had a great list of schools she would have been happy at, and we focused on what a good experience she would have at any of the schools on the list, and the importance of resilience and flexibility throughout the whole process. Reminding her of those things also helped me as an alum.
I’m the first to admit that as much as I tried to be objective about the process, it would have smarted (a lot) had my snowflake not been accepted.
Best of luck to others who find themselves in this situation in the future. @DHMchicago your D is obviously quite talented and will have an amazing experience at UCLA. I suspect you will be calmer throughout the process for your younger kids once you see how your D thrives at her school. Thanks for starting the thread.
“Harvard’s legacy admit rate is 30% and about 12-16% of its seats are filled by legacies. So legacies still have a very low chance of admission. But 30% vs. 6% is not nothing (even after adjusting for the expected stronger credentials and SES of the Harvard legacy pool). Princeton is 31% admit rate for legacies.” sounds pretty Yuge to me!