<p>My grandfather went to Harvard College. I think he's a pretty active alum, if that counts for anything.</p>
<p>No, Harvard only counts parents directly.</p>
<p>That's not 100% true. It depends on what you mean by legacy. Will they count you in their 'legacy' statistics if you are accepted? No. But would it potentially help your application? Maybe.
It depends on how active an alum your family member is. If he's on their radar as an active alum then they may take that into account. If they're not aware of the connection, however, then it doesn't matter. If you want to make sure they're aware of the issue you could figure out a SUBTLE way to drop it into your interview (as part of the answer to 'why you want to go to Harvard' you could drop something about how you've been asking your grandpa about his time at Harvard and the extent to which he still loves and is involved with his alma mater made you want to forge your own connection with such a special institution).
Either way, it's not a black and white issue. I know kids who are legacies going back to the 1600s but didn't have a direct family member. Do you think the college really just said, "nope, not a parent, doesn't count."</p>
<p>Their admissions office was also quoted in the alum magazine as saying that they put a "featherweight on the scales" for siblings :) I'm sure it's a pretty light feather, given the number of siblings who are not legacies who are denied, but they did say that....</p>
<p>thanks guys :)</p>
<p>No, it doesn't count. As for mentioning it in your interview, it won't make a difference. The interviewers aren't rating you on that factor. If you're a legacy, Harvard already will have noted that from your application, and legacy=having a parent who attended Harvard as an undergrad.</p>
<p>Northstarmom, I'm not sure you understood what I was saying. You are correct that a 'legacy' by Harvard's strictest definition is indeed someone who has a parent who attended, just as a 'financial aid' student by Harvard's strictest definition includes everyone who has ever won a National Merit Scholarship and never recieved a dime from Harvard. Both of those are used to present a favorable image of Harvard to the public (over _% of students are on fin-aid, only _% of legacies get admitted).</p>
<p>However, in terms of whether or not ancestry can help your application, that's more of a grey area. First it's important to note that, in the words of one ad-officer, 'having family can help heal the sick, but it won't raise the dead.' You have to be in the right ballpark no matter what, it's just a question of how 'sick' your application can be and still have your family status help it. Having a parent is helpful, having two even moreso, having an entire family legacy is even better. It's debateable whether the OP's grandfather would help his application very much (IMHO it very much would depend on how active he is whether it's even taken into account) but to say that only parents matter is false. The admissions office will sometimes pull the file of a current student to see how they're doing if there are questions on a younger sibling's application. If you have a legacy back to 1693 (a specific example that I've discussed with an ad-officer) but no direct parents, that most certainly helps. And in terms of mentioning it to the interviewer, it definitely could make it in to the admissions office since the interview sheet is NOT just a series of numbers and if you word it correctly and make a big enough impression with it the interviewer might mention that in their report as an item of interest (or whatever the term is, I haven't seen a sheet in 3 years). If you really think it's important, you could also just list the applicable family members in your additional information section of your application.</p>