This may sound weird, but my mom just found out I have two close family members that went to Cornell, Chicago, UMich. I am wondering if I can add this somehow to my application.
Before you jump through hoops, find out what Cornell considers a legacy. Uncle? Grandparent? Cousin? Many schools only consider parents and siblings, some consider grandparents, some only consider the undergrad school and not grad school, med or law.
From what I can tell, most schools don’t explicitly define how they categorize “legacies”. Someone at Cornell said in 2013 that it was from parents to great great parents. That was 7 years ago though and everything else online is just people like us speculating. Also, colleges probably want this kind of information when making extremely close decisions. Therefore, I would like to play it safe and find a way to add it to my application.
If you didn’t send your Loci yet you could mention it. Call admissions and ask but don’t think it would really matter. But find out.
When my son applied we had multiple family members that have gone there. The only one that really counted was his mother.
Contact the admissions office at the schools and ask what counts as a legacy and how to add it to your file. Cornell’s website says legacies are parents, grandparents, great grandparents, etc., so it doesn’t sound like cousins or aunts would count, but you can ask.
I do think schools have a clear definition of what they consider a legacy. It may not be easy for people to find, but I don’t think the administration leaves their adcoms guessing. You can check the Common Data Set of each school to find out how much legacy matters to them.
Yeah, I might just slip a little into my LOCI. Not sure how much of a difference it will make but it could help.
If you just found out, then the family member is probably not a close enough degree of separation to be meaningful. Regardless, you could always include on an update, and each college has a method to provide updates. The process to provide updates may vary by college, but they all allow updates. So you really did not need to ask the same question on 3 different forums, so I merged them all.
It couldn’t hurt. Quick one liner. “My family is dedicated to the University of Michigan with 2 cousins that have attended there”
It’s January 8th… Just a reminder it needs to be in prior to February 1st. FYI…
Don’t worry, I’m working on my LOCI right now. I think I’ll just slip a sentence like that in.
Thanks for the merge. I’m currently looking for a way to update my applications. Not sure if you mean by the uploaded documents or not, but that’s all I see.
In general, you cannot update the application itself once it has been submitted. Instead you would send an update document (and/or a LOCI if deferred) via the portal (or however the college tells you to update).
Also be aware that this new legacy information will likely have little impact. Generally speaking, but definitely at Cornell, the legacy boost is only given for binding ED.
Update
Cornell recommends that I upload a document with the information in the portal.