I didn’t care where they went as long as it wasn’t Nebraska.
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It is hard to accept financial limitations for our children, but we all have them to some degree. I too doubt that Gen Z will equal their parents’ standard of living and downward mobility, while common, is hard.
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I think we essentially agree…worrying about one’s kid is almost an inherent part of being a parent. The specific concerns may change over time, but the fact that there are concerns doesn’t.
For more serious concerns that people may face today, what about people who are worried that WW III may start and that their kids will be sent to the front lines to fight? Or that the U.S. might erupt in a civil war with many casualties? Or that American democracy will no longer exist? Those probably weren’t concerns of many parents 30 years ago, but it probably concerns a number of parents today.
In terms of other, more serious concerns what about parents whose child is the same color of a group that has extraordinarily higher maternal fatality rates than any other group? Or that their child is a color that is far more likely to be falsely accused and to face terrible violence?
People have all different types of experiences and backgrounds, and although some fears may seem less significant to some, they likely seem very significant to the people who are feeling them.
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And we get to the heart of the matter.
It is one thing if your child doesn’t prefer your school, or doesn’t meet the academic standards. It is entirely different if they do like it, have the grades and put in the work. I think that is what OP was getting at.
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I’ve seen several people say this but I just don’t think it makes sense.
Dropping legacy preference only means not providing a boost to legacy applicants. It does not mean colleges will treat it as a negative. They can simply not ask where the parents studied, to take that factor out of the equation.
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I think this can be hard, especially for parents who felt their elite school degree opened doors and opportunities to them and am sympathetic to the OP. It can also be hard when you have friends and classmates excited that their kids are now classmates and connecting at move-in, parents weekend, etc. and maybe even posting about it on your class FB page, etc.
With that said, kids from all different kinds of schools find their way and make their mark. With many resources available today, an enterprising kid can connect with people in a lot of different networks. Job recruiting no longer requires on campus visits. Every school has profs who are connected beyond their campuses. And kids make friends and communities wherever they land.
My kid didn’t end up at any of the 3 highly selective schools DH and I attended. I suspect the experience he had at the school he chose was better for him than the ones he would have had those where he had legacy status.
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I don’t think legacies should be disadvantaged, but having the grades and putting in the work can be said about most applicant to selective schools. S24 is interested in my alma mater and his academic profile is at the 75th percentile for the school - nonetheless, many kids with the same background have been rejected because it is very, very competitive.
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Some do feel it should disqualify them. I think the public at large suffers from uninformed group think. People find legacy admissions so offensive because they believe the standards are being lessened for them, which is simply not true.
I empathize with OP. A lot of the responses have been “my kid wanted to go somewhere else and I didn’t care.” I got the impression that was not what OP meant. No one said “my kid didn’t get into their top choice school and I didn’t care.” Caring does not mean you think it’s their due, and if that school happens to be the same one you loved, it squeezes your heart just a bit more.
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I can understand and sympathize with the OP. I think for many it is a shock when they realize how absurdly competitive some schools are these days. And then you couple that with the enormous cost.
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I took my S to visit my Alma mater (top 20 now) and at the end of the day he was honest and said that he did not like the rigor that they emphasized all day long. it was a 1 in 100 odds he would even get in. BUT it was nice to show him where I went to school. Where he did end up is where H would have gone if his parents could have afforded to send him to college. But back to my AM, in the 80’s I was able to get in as a female engineering major, but even myself, could not get in these days
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The group think is to think that nearly every applicant is “qualified” these days. The increase in the number of students alone can’t explain the “competitiveness” in elite college admissions today. Students today aren’t smarter than students of yesterday either. Academic standards have been gradually lowered to accommodate applicants with various hooks.
I do agree that an average legacy applicant is more “qualified” than an average non-legacy applicant. However, that means very little because legacy applicants aren’t uniform in their qualifications. In fact, they’re broadly distributed and some, but certainly not all, of them needed a boost from their legacy status to be admitted (i.e. they wouldn’t be in contention if the standards were higher).
In my experience doing alumni interviews/meeting, going back at least 10 years, legacy students who needed a boost academically were not getting accepted at my alma mater. Not even wait listed. Only exception I saw personally were kids with double hooks - legacy + athletic recruitment.
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No need to accept legacy students who are academically weak when there are so many who are academically strong
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Now I’m confused. Are some people saying they believe legacy status will be held against their child?
If this is your belief, just don’t list your child as a legacy. Unless your last name is very distinctive and you are very famous, nobody will know (which is in contrast to names that marked a student as a member of an ethnic/racial group which have been used to discriminate against applicants.)
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I don’t understand this statement. Aren’t all applicants “not uniform” in their qualifications?
There have been lots of articles in the various school papers, and there was one liking at how legacy stacks up at Princeton. Yes, legacy are more white and wealthier - is that what disqualifies them? Because in terms of quantifiable accomplishments the data indicates that they are not being held to a lower standard. Is Princeton unusual?
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Of course, they aren’t. However, unhooked applicants aren’t getting a boost so their broad distribution makes no difference, unlike applicants with hooks (include legacies).
And the athletic recruitment make the legacy piece 100% irrelevant.
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Legacy preference is the weakest among all hooks, so another hook would surely overwhelm it. However, legacy preference affects the largest number of applicants at elite colleges, so their impact overall is more significant.
Huh? The numbers really aren’t that large. Not to mention athletes are a much, much larger group.
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And athletes comprise a much larger percentage of the class
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