<p>Does anyone know if Ivy legacy applicants are considered in a separate pool by admissions like athletes, etc? I know they take a certain percentage. If you are a legacy are you then stacked up against the other legacies?</p>
<p>momager</p>
<p>No, legacies are stacked up against the normal pool, just like everyone else. The difference is that if two otherwise equally qualified applicants are competing for one last spot in a class, and one is a legacy, the legacy will often get the tip in.</p>
<p>That is, unless we're talking a big legacy (major donations, fundraising or longtime association), in which case it can be more than a tip.</p>
<p>I think that this understates the advantage of being a legacy. Admissions decisions aren't made by pitting one applicant against another in a March Madness bracket. Each applicant is evaluated on an individual basis; to say that legacy status is used to differentiate between two equally qualified candidates is a misrepresentation of the admissions process. In years past, legacies have enjoyed an acceptance rate of between 30% and 40%. This is a sizable advantage.</p>
<p>ABC</a> News: Legacy #'s Strong, Admissions Down: Fair?
Admissions</a> should be blind to legacy status - The Daily Princetonian</p>
<p>However, also keep in mind that many legacy applicants are strong in their own right.</p>
<p>I take it that the young man who wrote that article is not planning on having children.....</p>
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I take it that the young man who wrote that article is not planning on having children.....
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<p>Or maybe he doesn't think that college admission should be based on parentage, maybe he believes in meritocratic principles.</p>
<p>On a separate (but related) note, it amazes me how Princeton boosters go around extolling the glories of Princeton, how it's a bastion of egalitarianism and class blindness. No one on CC boosts as hard as Princetonites do, and honestly, I find a lot of it disingenuous. </p>
<p>Yes, I'm trying to pick a fight a little, but I think people should be more honest in how they try to help people pick their schools. Each school has its plusses and minuses, and people who have actually attended a school know better than anyone those plusses and minuses. It's important to help prospective students with honest, candid advice.</p>
<p>
On a separate (but related) note, it amazes me how Princeton boosters go around extolling the glories of Princeton, how it's a bastion of egalitarianism and class blindness. No one on CC boosts as hard as Princetonites do, and honestly, I find a lot of it disingenuous.</p>
<p>Yes, I'm trying to pick a fight a little, but I think people should be more honest in how they try to help people pick their schools. Each school has its plusses and minuses, and people who have actually attended a school know better than anyone those plusses and minuses. It's important to help prospective students with honest, candid advice.
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<p>There is an enormous contradiction in this post. You point out, rightly, that the people best placed to know the pluses and minuses of a school are those who attend(ed) it. Yet you assume that our (Princeton parents, students and alumni) boosting of Princeton is disingenuous. Why? What, other than a personal feeling that Princeton can't be as great as everyone who attends it says it is, leads you to believe we are being disingenuous?</p>
<p>Is it so hard to accept that maybe, just maybe, in spite of the elite Ivy League image of the school, it actually is incredibly egalitarian and class-blind here? I have a lot of friends and acquaintances of widely differing socioeconomic backgrounds, and the wealth or lack of wealth of my friends' backgrounds plays into our interactions in no way.</p>
<p>Maybe you need to stop assuming that we must all be disingenuous, shed your pre-existing prejudices, and come have a visit and see just how true what has been said about Princeton really is.</p>
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I have a lot of friends and acquaintances of widely differing socioeconomic backgrounds, and the wealth or lack of wealth of my friends' backgrounds plays into our interactions in no way.
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<p>A statement like that is EXACTLY what I am talking about. Just so we know your perspective, what is your socioeconomic background?</p>
<p>My parents are doctors.</p>
<p>However, if you are insinuating that I only feel like it plays no role because I am of a certain socioeconomic background, you are utterly and completely wrong. I have heard sentiments similar to mine expressed in discussions by people from all parts of the socioeconomic spectrum, from people who are on full financial aid, to people whose parents donated buildings.</p>
<p>Again, if you were a student here you'd probably realize this. The fact that you think it's a lie or an exaggeration shows nothing but your ignorance of what Princeton is like.</p>
<p>Ken, as a future Princeton student from a lower economic background, I have to say I completely disagree with you. Neither of my parents went to college (they are both cleaners), and they hardly speak English. I do not attend any sort of magnet school: it's a simple public school with about 2/3 of students college-bound, and a bit under half the students speak a language other than English at home (overwhelmingly Spanish, like me, followed by Creole). I never attended any fancy summer programs, I don't have any sort of national awards, and I have taken fewer AP exams than other students I have seen, but I did everything I could given my environment and I have achieved as highly as one would expect someone in my situation to achieve. Princeton recognized this--as did other universities--and accepted me. There were clearly candidates with higher SAT scores, more rigorous courses, and more impressive extra-curriculars, but they chose to accept me because they examine applicants in the context of their background and surroundings, and place such a strong emphasis on the essay that what the applicants have to say and how they think greatly influences the process.</p>
<p>Imagine how it must be in other countries where it's completely based on "academic achievement," a factor more far more dependent on privileged background than the process used by Princeton. I would surely have been rejected in other countries from their elite universities, regardless of my individual talent or character, but not at Princeton.</p>
<p>The phenomenal financial aid only reaffirms that they aren't merely opening their doors to people like me, but completely embracing egalitarian principles. Do students with legacy status have a higher admissions rate? Of course, but I would love to see the acceptance rate of the children of Harvard graduates at Princeton: I doubt they'd be considerably lower. These parents achieved greatly, and it only makes sense that their children will as well. 40% in that frame of reference is actually surprisingly low--especially compared with several decades ago when I heard Ivies had 80%+. These schools are fantastic vehicles of social mobility, and they are doing what they can to make sure they function as that--and, in my opinion, succeeding quite admirably.</p>
<p>JoeTrumpet. Wonderful post. As a current student from an immigrant family and with a poor socioeconomic background, I can definitely attest to the statements you made. Is Princeton perfect? No, definitely not. In fact, I'm currently writing an article on working conditions at Princeton for low-wage workers and how they don't completely mesh with the Princeton ideal. However, there is no denying that Princeton is a great place for people from all socioeconomic levels to receive the same opportunities for academic growth and intellectual exploration. It's a place where many boundaries melt away.</p>
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However, there is no denying that Princeton is a great place for people from all socioeconomic levels to receive the same opportunities for academic growth and intellectual exploration
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<p>I'm sure this is true. But Princeton boosters make it seem like there are no class issues at Princeton, that Princeton doesn't have traditions of wealth and privilege that live on, strongly, to this day.</p>
<p>I will give another example, from something posted on CC. Someone's daughter was debating between Berkeley and Princeton. She had an interest in linguistics. She went to Princeton, and a grad student there had the temerity to bad-mouth Berkeley's world-renowned linguistics program. Princeton doesn't even offer a linguistics major! </p>
<p>Not that the student should have rejected Princeton for that reason. I strongly suggested that she disregard that issue, even though Berkeley clearly has a stronger linguistics program, since her interests might change and in any case you don't need to be a linguistics major to go on to do graduate work in linguistics. But there seems to be a reflexive Princeton-is-perfect-best-for-everything attitude that I find disconcerting.</p>
<p>Princeton may in fact be wonderful. But Princeton boosters go overboard. It is like there is a coordinated PR campaign to shed the best possible light, at all times and in all places, on Princeton, and all current, past, and future students are in on it. Part of that is to completely deny, in every way and at all costs, Princeton's obvious heritage as a bastion of wealth and privilege. To erase from everyone's mind "The Princeton Man". </p>
<p>It goes way beyond what I observe from other people from other colleges on CC.</p>
<p>Your example is completely unrelated to the point you are trying to make about wealth and class, and as a personal anecdote it is hardly convincing evidence of your larger point regarding Princeton boosters. You are correct that Princeton has a long history of being an incubator for the ruling class. Even today, as Princeton welcomes students of all backgrounds, a select group of the very wealthy continue to buy their children admission to Princeton. But this phenomenon is certainly not unique to Princeton. Ivy Club, widely considered the most elitist club at Princeton, is much more accessible than either the Porcellian Club or Skull & Bones, its counterparts at Harvard and Yale respectively. Princeton has just as much a right to boast of socioeconomic diversity as its peers. We are more vocal because we wish to dispel the lingering stereotypes that kenf1234 and others cling to.</p>
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I'm sure this is true. But Princeton boosters make it seem like there are no class issues at Princeton, that Princeton doesn't have traditions of wealth and privilege that live on, strongly, to this day.
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<p>I'm confused - are you a student or faculty member here that you're able to tell so well what issues this campus does or does not have? Or are you simple someone without a particularly large amount of firsthand exposure who assumes that because we used to be a bastion of privilege we must still be, and that anybody who says otherwise is being needlessly rosy-eyed?</p>
<p>As I've said before, your viewpoint reflects more on you than on Princeton.</p>
<p>Nobody denies that we have a heritage of privilege and exclusionary policies. But that has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not we have those same characteristics now.</p>
<p>So far, to substantiate your point that Princeton posters are overly enthusiastic, you have offered exactly one example that is clearly somebody going overboard. Give me a break. There's hundreds of people who regularly post on this board, and that's the best you can do?</p>
<p>Umm, because generally people who are super-elitist are overly enthusiastic? I never thought elitism and enthusiasm went together, actually. In my experience Princetonians are too dang earnest to be elitist....</p>
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Your example is completely unrelated to the point you are trying to make about wealth and class, and as a personal anecdote it is hardly convincing evidence of your larger point regarding Princeton boosters.
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<p>It's like you all went to the same debating club too! If you want "convincing evidence", go to the College Search and Selection board and read the threads about Princeton. Read the threads about college selection on the Prinecton board. Count up all the times a Princeton booster suggests that someone should ever do something other than attend Princeton. Count up the times they ever say ANYTHING negative about the place. Then compare it to each and every booster from each and every other college. Let me know the results! </p>
<p>All I can offer you is my gestalt impression with an example or two. My guess is that this impression will ring true with a few peole, and maybe they will think twice next time and be a little more balance in their boosterism.</p>
<p>Anyway, like I said, i think you all should worry a little less about "dispelling the lingering stereotypes." You all defend the place like it's on the verge of collapse! A bunker mentality at the richest (per student! as you all keep saying!) university on earth!</p>
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In my experience Princetonians are too dang earnest to be elitist....
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<p>That's funny! Yes, they seem very earnest don't they! It's amazing how you can get a feel for the character of a college and its students by reading CC. I love reading the Princeton board partly for that reason. </p>
<p>Let me be clear, I have no personal connection with Princeton, and frankly no real interest in the place beyond curiosity based on what I observe on CC. I hope you all get a wonderful education, I hope you all get rich and double the school's endowment and send your kids there too! Please enjoy!</p>
<p>Kenf, it's difficult to really take your opinion seriously for a couple of reasons. The slight sarcasm doesn't help: I suggest you post a little more professionally, if you wish for others to hear out your comments.</p>
<p>You comment on how clearly you can get a feel for a college's character through CC? These forums are by no means representative of any student body at any university. These forums are representative of the people most enthusiastic about the college experience, and of course people are going to love their school. Who doesn't love their school? Let's read the forums of some arbitrary "lower tier" university: I think you'll find students quite defensive there as well. It's no matter of elitism if people love their university and defend it to those who attack it, especially those who attack it quite unjustly. You cannot complain about students defending their university when you overtly attack it without any basis of evidence other than mere anecdotal evidence that seems to be held together quite weakly: your example of the linguistics department had nothing to do with privilege and wealth, as Weasel mentioned, nor is that instance any different than what you might find at another university. Again, I'm sure you could find students at a "lower tier" university defending the wonders of their program in x or department in y.</p>
<p>Obviously if you're spending time on the Princeton forums with negative intentions--for whatever reason--you're going to be running into more negative examples, while apparently neglecting or twisting any words of praise. When people praise Princeton, it's wrong and elitist, but when there's one example of a student's faults, this proves representative of Princeton's student body. If a student states how little class distinction exists at Princeton, you condemn this as falseful boasting: I'm not sure why, as there is a strong correlation with the future success of low-income students that attend "elite" universities, and nobody I met at Princeton or online seems to feel disgusted to be in the presence of a financial needer such as myself. Yet one negative example will indicate the elitism and privileged Old Blood mentality that ostensibly courses through the veins of Princeton. You need to approach this without bias.</p>
<p>Honestly, you give off the impression of someone who is, in one way or another, jealous. Perhaps you're trying to make yourself feel better about not going to Princeton. Maybe you couldn't get in. Maybe you could but you decided against it, and need to justify this to yourself. I'm not sure what it is, but you give off that vibe tremendously: why would you spend time criticizing a school--unjustly, no less--otherwise?</p>
<p>I am curious: are you as vindictive against HY as well? Or this is this primarily directed toward Princeton?</p>
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I suggest you post a little more professionally, if you wish for others to hear out your comments.
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<p>Thanks for the advice! I'll try to keep that in mind!</p>
<p>Case in point, I suppose.</p>
<p>Is there any reason you seem so hostile about Princeton and this discussion?</p>