<p>It doesn’t make sense if you’re just applying common sense, but counselors have seen how brutal it is again and again.</p>
<p>I am the original poster of the above referenced thread. I find it very interesting that 2 posters who opined in the original thread that this issue of reverse legacy preferences is really just rumors, no big deal, probably doesn’t really happen much, are to be found frequently on the Harvard and Princeton forums, respectively (DwightEisenhower and Wildwood). Haven’t yet checked to see if the new posters enticed into entering this new thread are on the Yale boards - not going to bother. Perhaps I should stop swimming with ■■■■■■??? Why, Wildwood, was it necessary to move the original thread to a different location? Kind of like snubbing me at a party - I think I’ll just up and move this conversation elsewhere. If you want to continue the conversation, you’ll just have to come over here with the rest of us. </p>
<p>Asking rhetorical questions here, feeling tired by lack of transparency in these discussions, going to sign off for now, going to have a long and hard parent to child counseling conversation with D re: the pros and cons of elite institutions, before she hits the send button on her Common App. Sigh.</p>
<p>I am often on the Princeton forum because my daughter is attending (not a legacy). I’m sorry I did not mean to snub you. You raised an interesting question and I believed the parents’ forum would have a wider audience and greater feedback. I was interested on hearing more opinions on the subject. Sorry if this bothers you.</p>
<p>I don’t understand why it matters. What are you going to do, not apply? Then you have 100% chance of not getting in.</p>
<p>In today’s admissions climate, I don’t believe that schools have this sort of legacy disadvantage. The top schools know that being a legacy isn’t a guarantee of admission, since they all turn down 60-70 percent of legacy applicants. If they want to accept the student, they will. I know that at Brown, admissions takes the application at face value – if a student applies, that means they want to attend.</p>
<p>And Ms. Ladybug, I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I don’t hang out at the Yale, Princeton or Harvard forums. Just Brown.</p>
<p>Aniger, I would strongly, STRONGLY advise you to ignore the counselor’s opinion. No one shuold <em>just</em> apply to H. If he is a strong contender for H, he will be a strong contender for most schools in this country. He shouldn’t put all his eggs in one basket.</p>
<p>2collegewego, thanks. To be clear,they do advise my son to apply to many schools at different levels. They are discouraging him applying early action anywhere else, as most kids seem to, for fear of sending “he doesn’t want H all that much” message, which seems absurd to me…</p>
<p>Aniger, your counselor doesn’t know what they are talking about. Harvard could not care less about whether or not Harvard is the first choice. In fact back when they had single choice early action the Harvard interviewer asked my double legacy son why he hadn’t applied early. He told the interviewer it wasn’t his first choice and he had applied EA to Caltech and MIT instead. Harvard accepted him anyway. If Harvard wants your son they’ll accept him. And as 2collegewego says, the odds (even for legacies) are slim enough that it would be dumb to only apply to Harvard. Harvard especially has such a strong yield anyway that they don’t need to care how badly you want to come. They know that most of the kids they accept will attend. (Though my son did indeed choose to go to a techier institution.)</p>
<p>My son’s best friend is going to Yale although he’s a Harvard legacy. Harvard accepted him despite the fact that he applied to Yale. In fact at our high school from what I can recall most of the Harvard admits also get into Yale or Princeton. </p>
<p>My goodness Ladybug, kind of big chip on your shoulder. I rarely read posts outside the Parent’s Forum so I thought it was good to see the subject brought up here. I certainly don’t read the Yale boards since I’m not an alum and don’t have children there.</p>
<p>
The GC’s at DS high school told us that School A doesn’t know where else you have applied. Is that wrong? Would they really know that your son had applied early action to other places?</p>
<p>Well, I’m a Yale grad, with a legacy son at Yale, and I read the Yale boards, and I kind of think there may be a real issue here–but I don’t think those who think otherwise are ■■■■■■ or anything else.</p>
<p>But assume there there is some kind of “rival legacy disadvantage.” What can you do about it? It seems to me that if you are also applying to the school where you are a legacy, there’s not much you can do about this at the other schools, except do your best to show real interest in the other schools. Write good essays on why you want to go there; visit the school; have an interview, etc.
If you’re *not *applying to the legacy school, then the issue is whether to convey this fact to the other schools. I can’t see putting this in your application, but it might be something to mention in your interview. Perhaps you might ask your GC to mention it in his/her recommendation. If you are asked at the interview why you aren’t applying to the legacy school, respond that you think the other school is a better fit for you.</p>
<p>^I think dissing the legacy school is likely to come off poorly unless done carefully. Foisting the job off on the GC may be the best solution, but I think it’s completely unnecessary.</p>
<p>If you really don’t want to tell schools where else you are applying, just send out the applications early enough that you can convincingly say to the question “I am still formulating my list.”</p>
<p>It sounds awfully presumptive. What ever happened to taking people at face value? </p>
<p>If the kid applies, presumably he wants to go there (unless his essay includes the line “I really hate this place, but my parents are making me apply”). If the kid applies ED for schools that offer that option, well, then, he really wants to go there.</p>
<p>Why should the adcoms try to second guess? Do adcoms reviewing legacies second-guess whether the kid too loves Ye Old Alma Mater Praise Be Thine or whether the parents have strong-armed the kid into applying? This kind of second-guessing could go on forever.</p>
<p>Besides, who’s to say that the legacy at College A who is applying at both A and rival B would necessarily have loyalties towards A? Some kids want to keep it all in the family and love those traditions; other kids want to explore new grounds.</p>
<p>The adcom could also second-guess that since the school is the only rural school on the kid’s list, why admit him since he clearly likes urban areas; or, the school is the only midwest school on the list so why admit him, he clearly wants to be on the east coast … Enough is enough!</p>
<p>
Because they might care about yield. They may have observed that legacies at other schools with certain levels of achievement will almost always matriculate at the legacy school. I’m not saying that they *actually *do this–I’m just saying that there certainly is a potential motive.</p>
<p>I agree with PG. Adcoms can’t be in the business of making assumptions about an applicant’s preferences (let alone where else they might be accepted) based on something that’s out of the kid’s control, such as where the parents went to school. They may try and discern those preferences by looking at the effort that went into the supplement and through the interview, (and if a kid is lucky, through a good GC), but the whole game would probably look a lot different if they tried to carefully predict whether each applicant would accept an offer. They’d be wasting a lot of time on that rather than just picking the most desirable students. Again, I wonder how it would be possible for the children of alumni of selective schools to have multiple acceptances from top schools if this were happening.</p>
<p>“They are discouraging him applying early action anywhere else, as most kids seem to, for fear of sending “he doesn’t want H all that much” message, which seems absurd to me…”</p>
<p>Harvard won’t know that he applied EA somewhere else unless he tells them. Your counselor is wrong (wrong enough that I’d be skeptical about everything else s/he tells you).</p>
<p>I have a very hard time believing that admissions officers would focus on this or make any kind of assumption. Williams and Amherst have lots of cross admits, including kids who are legacy at one or the other.</p>
<p>The naivete here surprises me. CC parents typically get the games colleges play. If any of you know an ivy adcom, just ask…</p>
<p>To put this another way, many colleges say that level of interest is a factor, even an important factor, in admissions. Don’t you believe that they mean this?</p>
<p>Redroses, so why then does Williams admit Amherst legacy applicants and vice versa?</p>
<p>All I can say is having been a college counselor for many years at a super elite high school, where this was a cause for concern for a very significant part of our population, my team and I needed to go to bat for our candidates at schools where the question of yielding them was at issue.</p>