I am a jr and weighing where to apply early next yr. Here is my situation. My father and uncle went to Harvard College. My g’father is a professor at the med school (and has multiple chairs endowed in his name, he is a famous researcher and clinician). Same g’father is also an alum of D’mouth. My uw GPA is 3.99, ACTs 34, and will rank somewhere in the top ten students (98-99%ile) in my sr class of ~700 students. I will have taken 8 aps by the time i graduate and have extra curricular that are fine but I didn’t cure cancer or anything, i didnt do a passion project, i just worked my ass off and tried to keep sane. I love both schools. Here are my questions:
-Do I try ERA for Harvard with its 7.6% (and plunging) admit rate for class of 2027 or do I do ED at Dartmouth which accepted ~16% ED this year?
-And if I apply ED to D’mouth and get rejected or deferred will Harvard hold not applying early against me?
tysm
No. And the reverse is also true.
Every college defined legacy as it sees fit, and decides what boost, if any, it gives.
Harvard defines legacy as having a parent who attended as an undergrad. Grad school doesn’t count. Other relatives don’t count.
Dartmouth defines legacy as a parent attended Dartmouth, although they don’t specify that it needs be as an undergrad. Other relatives don’t count.
So Harvard seems to be the better option from a legacy standpoint, although plenty of legacies still get rejected.
Why these two ? So different. Dartmouth just admitted 6% of applicants. Harvard 3.41%.
If your just looking for an in, that might be more impactful then legacy which seems to be worth less and less each year.
But find the environment that’s best for you.
Is your grandfather the funder for the endowments? Or were they funded by someone else and just named after him?
If so then ask granddad if he has a contact in the Development office. Big donors will have someone assigned to them. The development contact would be able to give you a better sense.
Which school would you prefer to attend?
Dartmouth legacies are parents who received their AB from the college
Thanks for the clarification
If your grandfather is a professor at the medical school attached to Harvard, that me be a stronger hook. As an example I heard that Princeton has not turned away a professor’s kid in some 15 years or so. Of course here it is a grandkid situation. And of course the example is from a different school…
A tenured faculty member for a parent at Harvard College is a definite hook. A grandparent who’s primary appointment is HMS will be less of a hook, and a grandparent who is HMS-affiliated faculty even less.
If the family has a history of major contributions, then the development office will be involved.
I would think your legacy hook is much stronger at harvard. You can still apply to dartmouth RD. But yes, ask grandpa to pull strings. Meanwhile, i suspect that if Supreme Court bans racial preferences in admissions, that will be the end of legacy preferences, too. Wealthy donor preferences will stay, surely.
I know several children of faculty who were denied at Princeton- where did you hear that?
My son it heard it from a friend who is a faculty kid. Maybe the kid doesn’t know.
In general, faculty do not encourage their kids to apply if they aren’t “kinda sorta” Princeton material. But it’s not a perfect system, and there are delusional faculty (just like parents everywhere!).
That brings to mind a quote from SpongeBob, “Why, once I met this guy who knew this guy who knew this guy who knew this guy who knew this guy who knew this guy who knew this guy who knew this guy who knew this guy who knew this guy who knew this guy who knew this guy who knew this guy who knew this guy who knew this guy who knew this guy who knew this guy’s cousin…”
Or, from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off;: “My best friend’s sister’s boyfriend’s brother’s girlfriend heard from this guy who knows this kid who’s going with the girl who saw Ferris pass out at 31 Flavors last night. I guess it’s pretty serious.”
Or, from REO Speedwagon’s “Take It On The Run:” “Heard it from a friend who / Heard it from a friend who / Heard it from another you been messin’ around”
Just because you heard something fourth-hand does not make it true. 
I have seen very weak legacy kids get in. Compared to that faculty kids would be a shoo in. And the university even tries hard to accommodate faculty spouses for jobs, which is a more permanent situation. Compared to that accommodating a kid for 4 years out of a 1350 sized class is nothing. Incidentally if the kid went somewhere else they’d pay the 350k tuition to the other university. This way the money is just an accounting transaction. And this is the way they attract faculty. In fact they tell young faculty that the kids will get very favorable consideration to draw them in. Incidentally faculty kids also tend to be very strong.
Many things are something someone heard third or fourth hand communicated here in good faith. If we have to give advice based only on first hand information, there will be no advice to give here, and this board will quickly shut down. It is up to the responder to also qualify their answer as to where they have the information from, and up to the person taking the advice to handicap it sufficiently. Being a faculty kid is one of the stronger hooks at many places.
I think your chances are best if you apply early decision to Harvard.
The following article showed that pre-pandemic, legacies had about a 33% acceptance rate at Harvard. Since then, a New York Times article shows that number is about 14%, but doesn’t break it out to show what percent are accepted early:
I disagree with @skieurope . You need to apply early as a legacy to Harvard. If you don’t, admissions will assume that you applied REA to Stanford, Yale, etc. Some schools like Penn are really harsh about very rarely accepting legacies who didn’t apply ED. I don’t know that Harvard is as stringent, but but you will definitely dilute the legacy tag by not applying early.
Applying RD to Dartmouth won’t be held against you as you aren’t considered a legacy there under their definitions.
Good luck!
I agree with that and I’d even say that they’re significantly stronger than legacies on average. It’s probably the reason why being a child of a faculty member may appear to be a stronger hook than it really is. OTOH, I’d like to think that this hook is stronger than the legacy hook in a tie-breaker, simply because there are far fewer applicants with such hooks than legacies, and those few would get more special attention, for schools that consider such hooks.
I love a beach vacation, but I also love a trip to the mountains. it’s totally conceivable for a kid to like two colleges even though they are different.
Just a reminder that legacy preference may not survive to the next round of applications.