Brown Legacy Admissions

<p>Just a matter of interest:</p>

<p>Is anyone familiar with Brown’s tendencies regarding legacy admissions? I know that certain schools have admitted up to 50% of their legacy applicants during certain years, and it would be interesting to know how Brown compares.</p>

<p>Anyone know anything about this? Thanks.</p>

<p>I found the following information on the [Brown</a> alumni webpage](<a href=“Benefits | Alumni & Friends | Brown University”>Benefits | Alumni & Friends | Brown University[/url) several months ago, but now it’s gone, and they just ask you to call them regarding legacy admissions information.</p>

<p>Brown Class of 2010 | 2009
Early Decision Acceptances: 23% | 28%
Total Acceptances: 13.8% | 15.1%</p>

<p>Early Decision Acceptances: 78 (39%) | 85 (46%)
Total Acceptances: 195 (33.5%) | 181 (36%)</p>

<p>Oops, forgot to include that the first two lines are overall acceptances and the last two lines are legacy acceptances.</p>

<p>Thanks! That’s really helpful.</p>

<p>Next topic of interest: do you think legacies tend to be accepted more easily because they tend to be academically stronger than the normal pool, or because they are more likely to donate money and more likely to enroll?</p>

<p>I’ve been told that just about every legacy applicant is qualified – very few are of the “oh what the heck I’ll send in an application and see what happens” type of application.</p>

<p>The statistics I’ve seen are that about 10% of each class is legacy. That is consistent enough that it can’t be accidental. It is one of the institutional goals of the university to have legacies on campus. There are many reasons why universities like to have legacies enroll – money is not the only one. </p>

<p>I’ve known many amazing legacy candidates – ones with high SATs and GPAs, impressive ECs or talents, ones whose parents were active volunteers and gave money regularly – who were not accepted. While it is true that about 35% of legacies are accepted, and that’s 3 times the regular acceptance rate – that still means that about 65% are NOT accepted. Some of those 65% are great kids. Just remember that being a legacy does not mean that Brown is a safety school (and I’ve seen that attitude, and seen some heartbroken kids and parents as a result).</p>