<p>H and I both have masters degrees from the same Ivy. (We would have had no chance of being accepted as undergrads, but graduate school admission is a completely different beast.) </p>
<p>Would our kids be considered legacies and given an advantage for undergrad admission? I previously thought the answer was no, but do see a place for parents' graduate school on the Common App.</p>
<p>No it won’t help. Parental level of education is on the application to supposedly provide insight into the environment in which the applicant was reared.</p>
<p>It varies by college. The whole legacy thing is basically a marketing device anyway. I know Penn at least says that it will treat the children of graduate-degree holders as legacies. Especially in the case of Law School and Wharton grads, a fine, lucrative bunch of legacies they are, too. If you were running Penn, you would definitely want them applying ED (the only stage at which Penn gives a preference to legacies).</p>
<p>I think the defintion and benefits of being a legacy vary with each institution - at the public institituion where I am employed, my spouse graduated from law school. Our daughter applied as an undergraduate and was considered a legacy and was awarded a scholarship for legacies. Also, if she had been out of state, she would have been granted in-state tuition. </p>
<p>At my alma mater, the University of Virginia, I inquired to see if my undergraduate degree would benefit my daughter. They said no in-state tuition but she would be considered for admission with the in-state applicants instead of the out-of-state applicants.</p>
<p>I also inquired at Ohio State University - my father-in-law received both undergraduate and graduate degrees there. They evidently don’t have any designation or benefits for legacies.</p>
<p>Often on the institution-specific supplement to the Common App they will ask if any close relatives work/attended the institution and allow you to identify them.</p>
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<p>Very true. At ivies it’s serious business though–all accept legacies at more than double the rate of other applicants and at Princeton I believe it’s more than triple the rate.</p>
<p>The concept of a legacy scholarship is one I never heard of before, the private colleges seem to be looking for the wealthy legacies rather than to help any financially.</p>
<p>But to answer your question, some ivies might consider your child a legacy. Stanford considers grad school grad’s children legacies though they accept fewer than ivies. Check on your specific school’s website.</p>
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I’ve checked the admissions website and can’t find any mention of legacies at all. I sent an email asking the question several months ago and got no response.</p>
<p>Very few colleges are as open about their legacy policies as Penn and UVA. You will probably never know how the college in question really deals with legacies, including children of graduate school alumni.</p>
<p>To my knowledge, all of the Ivy League schools pretend to give special consideration to legacies. Only Penn explicitly says that it will only give that consideration to legacies who apply ED, but others are suspected of having similar practices (not H or P, though, of course). I know grad school kids are legacies at Penn. I am pretty sure I remember reading that Harvard limits it to college grads. I don’t know what anyone else’s policies are.</p>
<p>If you really want to know, call your personal development officer at the relevant university’s school you attended. You don’t give enough to have a personal development officer assigned to you? Then I wouldn’t worry too much about this legacy thing . . . .</p>
<p>DH’s alma mater gives “alumni scholarships” to all accepted students who are kiddos of alums. I guess that would be considered a “legacy scholarship”.</p>
<p>I got my master’s degree at a college at which something like 25% of the students are legacies, and they told us that our son qualifies as well as the child of a former undergraduate. So I guess it varies.</p>
<p>This is off topic but I will ask anyway. Does legacy status for your children depend on the extent and frequency of donations you make to a school?</p>
<p>I think the consensus is that really, really big donations can help, but small or no donations generally don’t hurt.</p>
<p>Yes it varies by school, but the OP specifically asked about ivies, and ivies do not treat the off spring of masters graduates as legacies for undergraduate admissions purposes.</p>
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<p>By failing to address the issue on their website and ignoring your query they are answering your question, albeit rudely.</p>
<p>At Yale they do.</p>
<p>I’m not sure if anyone here has read “The Price of Admission” (good book) and the author mentions a study that was done in 2004-05 regarding legacy admissions at Ivies. The researcher found that a legacy advantage was virtually non-existent unless the alumni happened to be wealthy.</p>
<p>^That’s not the message I’ve gotten.
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<p>from [A</a> Thumb on the Scale | Harvard Magazine May-June 2005](<a href=“http://harvardmagazine.com/2005/05/a-thumb-on-the-scale.html]A”>http://harvardmagazine.com/2005/05/a-thumb-on-the-scale.html)</p>
<p>Not at all what my take is either. Bottom line is the legacy needs to be qualified stats wise but doesn’t seem to need the over the top ECs. Really helps if family has been involved both in giving money and school activities. And it matters much more at some (Princeton) than others (Stanford’s the worst–yes, yes, not an ivy but you get the point.</p>
<p>I think most ivies just sticker (literally) children of undergad parents, but I know there are exceptions.</p>