In general admitted kids in groups that receive admission preference average worse qualifications than the overall class at highly selective colleges. There are certainly many individual hooked kids who are outstanding students and more well qualified that typical admits, but the average admitted hooked kid is generally a weaker student than the average for the full calss.
This doesn’t necessarily mean admitted hooked kids average lower test scores. For example, the Harvard lawsuit found that legacies received a strong boost in chance of admission; yet the Harvard freshman survey found that matriculating legacies averaged similar or higher test scores than non-legacies. Test scores were typically a strong point for legacy applicants, not a weak point. Instead their weak point was compared other admitted students were more likely to be other areas of the application besides scores, including but not limited to GPA. This relates to why legacies and others hooked kids that are typically in higher SES groups are usually overrepresented among test submitters.
Harvard’s expert in the lawsuit did a simulation that reviewed what portion of hooked kids would still have been admitted if Harvard removed all hook preferences and instead increased preference for lower SES kids. Results are summarized below for ALDC hooks.
Change in Class with No Hook Preferences + Increased Lower SES Preference
Recruited athletes decrease by 93%
Double legacies decrease by 74%
Legacies decrease by 70%
“Special Interest” kids decreases by 69%
Children of faculty/staff decrease by 28%
With a 93% decrease in recruited athletes, it seems that extremely few recruited athletes would have been admitted without their hook. Other lawsuit analyses go in to more detail. Among applicants with a 4-5 (bad) academic rating, the admit rates were as follows. All admitted kids across a multi-year sample with a 4-5 (bad) academic rating had ALDC or URM hooks, usually athletes.
Admit Rate for Academic 4-5 Rating (below average applicant)
Athletes – 83% admit rate
LDC Hook – 3% admit rate
Black Non-ALDC – ~0.03% admit rate
Hispanic Non-ALDC – 0% admit rate
Non-URM + ALDC – 0% admit rate
Among the academic rating = 3 kids (typical applicant, worse than typical admit) academic rating applicants, the approximate admit rates were as follows. This group is also dominated by hooked kids. This is the most common rating among admitted athletes, but very uncommon for admitted unhooked kids. Academic rating is well correlated with stats, so it is safe to assume that the admitted kids with notably lower stats compared to the overall class are primarily hooked kids, even though there are a large number of individual hooked kids with stats comparable or higher than the overall class average, particularly among non-athletes.
Admit Rate for Academic 3 Rating (typical applicant)
Athletes – 87% admit rate
LDC Hook – 18% admit rate
Black Non-ALDC – ~12% admit rate
Hispanic Non-ALDC – ~5% admit rate
Non-URM + Non=-ALDC – <1% admit rate