Do they exist? Are there really any legacy benefits now days?
Depends on the college.
@ucbalumnus is it too general to ask at a “selective university,” like a Vandy or Duke?
considering 25% of the admitted students in penn’s early decision pool were legacies, i say the benefits still exist.
You can look up what the colleges say on collegedata.com or section C7 of their common data sets.
Considered at Vanderbilt:
https://www.collegedata.com/cs/data/college/college_pg02_tmpl.jhtml?schoolId=1562
Considered at Duke:
https://www.collegedata.com/cs/data/college/college_pg02_tmpl.jhtml?schoolId=1026
Some schools don’t believe in legacy admissions (like Cal Tech) on principle and believes it goes against meritocracy. Some schools, like Penn, heavily factor in legacy.
It differs from school to school, but it will almost never make up for not having the stats. But it can help to get you selected once you have made the initial cut.
If your parent is a major donor and/or is involved (on the board, runs fundraising for his/her class), that is often more powerful than simply having graduated and sent $100 every year.
At many schools, the legacy boost only comes in the ED round. They aren’t going to give you an advantage if they aren’t your first choice.
To get a good answer, you would need to disclose the school and the details of your legacy.
Yes they do mean A LOT. There are several books out there detailing the little known percentages but Princeton, Harvard, Duke - a legacy child usually gets a 3x or more chance of getting in over another non-legacy. They just don’t publish it that much because they do not have to.
I would guess by your name that you are somehow affiliated with ND. That is one school where Admissions is very open about the benefit to being a legacy applicant. At ND, they have a target range for legacies in terms of composition of each class, and it hovers around 25%. That being said, a large number of these applicants would be admitted without the extra boost. For some, however, it was the tipping point that got them in. As someone in Admissions told me a few years ago, being a legacy can cure the sick, but it won’t raise the dead. Even with this benefit, the majority of legacy applicants to ND are denied.
But what people don’t consider is that being a legacy makes you more likely to apply to that school as well. For example, if you are an IVY caliber student choosing between Columbia, Brown and Penn and your parent went to one of those three, then you are more likely to want to go to the one your parent went to out of familiarity. We know a girl who turned down Stanford to go to Brown because she wanted to play her sport at the school her parents went to. Its not all about using legacy to game the system. Sometimes its about schools getting a student out of family tradition.
When they look at legacy, do they also consider how generous the parents have been with giving? For example, if you are legacy but the family never contributed, do you still count as a legacy?
I can only speak to ND but yes, you are still considered a legacy. If your parents are large contributors, you will get some bump for that, but for that to really be material, your parents (or grandparents) will have to be pretty substantial donors. Again, only speaking to ND. BTW, I agree with what @stemmmm said. Children of alumni often begin to think about following in their parents’ footsteps from a very early age and are aware of what it takes to be admitted, so a great percentage probably wouldn’t need the legacy bump, all else being equal.