<p>@The<em>B</em>Of_Living</p>
<p>Here’s my read on the situation:</p>
<p>As much as the admissions team would love to be 100% impartial in building their class, at the end of the day Brown is a private university and they must therefore take economic matters into consideration. Seeing how one of the biggest sources of money for institutions like Brown is through private donations, it is very important for them to maintain a strong alumni network – a group of people who are committed to supporting the school, financially and otherwise. Now, I don’t have any statistics to back me up here, but I can imagine that, due to a number of factors, big families with multiple generations of Brown graduates are a lot more likely to donate than your average isolated alumnus… So to make a long story short: legacies are not “hooked” because they inherently offer anything special to the student body, but because they keep the money coming in.</p>
<p>Someone correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m pretty sure that’s the deal…right?</p>