DS is a current soph at Brown, and DD is a high school junior who has already said that Brown is her first choice. The problem is that DD and DS are very different people; DS is not as good a student as her brother but she has done better on standardized tests, so it’s hard to gauge how she looks to an Adcom.
I know it’s early, but what do you think her chances are? How much do her chances improve if she applies ED? Looking especially for people who have experience with sibling admissions.
DD has a GPA of 3.9UW/4.0W (vs. 4.25W for DS)
DD is probably top 10% of her class (vs. top 5 students for DS)
DD has an SAT I of 2370 in one sitting, 800M 800CR 770W (vs. 2340 for DS)
DD has an ACT of 35 (vs. 34 for DS)
DD has so-so ECs, mostly artistic awards, music and science activities (DS had science honors, music, varsity sports)
DD is more eclectic, artistic, and a good writer, while DS is more focused, science-oriented, accomplished
Asian American, $200k+ income; we’ve made modest four-figure donations to the Brown parents fund.
To provide some context, from my DD’s school (Small, Private, West of the Mississippi), her stats would be typical of someone who would be a match for USC, Wesleyan, Bowdoin, Tufts, Georgetown, Pomona, WUSTL, and places like that, but reach for an Ivy like Brown. As a parent, I want her to be realistic about what her chances are, and to have her decide whether it’s worth it to apply ED to Brown.
Totally worth it to apply ED to Brown - especially since a bunch of others on your list have ED 2 option (so you won’t feel like you wasted your ED shot). No one here can tell you her chances, but she is clearly in the range, ED and sibling will help, and its her first choice. The worst thing that happens is they say no. Happens all the time. There are no guarrantees in applying to college.
Thanks for the info/link Fenway, but I could have done without the condescension. I find it hard to believe what Miller says in the excerpt. Anyone who has been on Brown’s campus for parents weekend could not help but notice how many students have parents or siblings that are Brown alums. If it were the slight or negligible advantage that Miller states, I don’t see how you could end up with so many legacies on campus.
Then why did you ask the forum the question? (And why did I go to the trouble of responding to a question the poster already knew the answer to?)
As far as condescension goes, maybe you felt it, I did not intend it. So let’s try again.
A sincere question: Why do you think it is relevant to your dear daughter’s chances for acceptance to let us know that you have made modest four figure donations to the Brown Parents’ Fund?
No condescension intended about modest four figures, that is very generous, and the entire Brown community should be very grateful, I think. It is the other part of the question I hope you will focus on.
I know Wesleyan has ED II and maybe Tufts too so maybe it would make sense to apply to Brown ED, knowing it is a reach and then apply to Wesleyan or Tufts ED 2. I do think that legacy or at least legacy plus big donations does matter at Brown. We know several kids who are legacies (parents plus $$) and they do not have the grades or test scores of either of your kids.
I don’t think I know the answer. I was just honestly expressing my skepticism of the answer that the Dean of Admissions gave to the newspaper, especially because it was in response to a poll showing that 50% of students were opposed to legacy admissions. It would seem to me that it would only be natural to respond in a way that would minimize the effect. Be that as it may, I do find it surprising and revealing that he doesn’t think much about siblings. That’s news to me.
As for the other issue, I think it’s not necessarily ridiculous to consider finances, either as a tuition payor or as a donor, in determining what a student’s admissions chances are, especially when I’m asking about legacy admissions. Obviously, I know that zero or modest donations to the school have no impact whatsoever, so I was just making clear that we do not come from the kind of means to have our children considered as as “development admits”. And as to your raised eyebrow and question about why you think it is relevant, I’ll direct to to Miller’s own response to this issue:
Yes, children of Brown alumni–legacies–have a “tip”, according to Dean Miller.
According to Dean Miller, if an applicant has a sibling at Brown, that fact is accorded “almost no weight”.
Without intending condescension, where do you get the information that “$$” is a factor…unless we are talking about development cases in the eight figure range…and in that case legacy would most likely be irrelevant.
Should readers be taking away the impression that donations to Brown, other than the mega-development cases, have an impact on admissions?
@uesmomof2 I was just mentioning those schools as examples of where DD would fall as non-legacy student from her school, NOT that she was necessarily interested in them. But of those, I think she does like Wesleyan so ED2 is a good idea to think about.
In consecutive posts you have called Dean Miller’s veracity into question and then quoted him as authority… I agree with you 50% of the time, anyway.
Yes, Brown and its peers depend on the kindness of others. And yes, legacy status helps build a sense of community. I agree with Dean Miller wholeheartedly on these points.
I disagree that a four figure contribution or two will affect anyone’s acceptance to Brown, but I can’t prove it, so that is why I am wondering what leads you to mention this and possibly lend the notion some credence in the minds of some readers.
The point is that Brown does not consider siblings to be legacies, and Brown accords almost no weight to the fact that an applicant has a sibling at Brown… according to Dean Miller, and you have already told us you have a hard time believing him on this point.
This is the question you raised. I do not know how much more I can help you with your question, but I will try if I can if you have any follow-ups.
If it is not too off-topic, let me ask you a question. You said,
How can you tell how many Brown students have siblings who are alums (or are legacies)? And how many legacies do you think there are at Brown? Less than 12%? 20%? More? This is not rhetorical, it is sincere.
I do not think there are more legacies (children of alums at Brown) than there are at peer schools, and I will go check if need be
@fenwaypark, I’m not trying to pick a fight with you–or with Miller! I sincerely appreciate the information about sibling legacy and Miller’s view of it, because, as I said, it’s revealing to me. I thought it was more important, and certainly I would have thought it was more important than grandparent legacy but that appears not to be the case.
As for my observations on campus, my son is living in a suite with seven classmates. Three of them have one or more parents as alums, two of whom have a sibling on campus. One other has a sibling on campus and no other alumni connection. Four, including my son, are non-legacy. I know that that is a tiny sample size so I can’t draw any larger conclusion from it, and I don’t have recent experience on another campus to know whether this is unusual or not. I see that Miller says that 10 to 12 percent of an incoming class are legacies, and I don’t have any reason to doubt that but it certainly is visible on campus to me. Maybe it’s that my son for some reason gravitates to legacies (his friends are predominantly New Yorkers) or maybe alums show up in greater numbers to family weekend than other parents.
My other data point is the accepted student gatherings that we have attended locally. Another small sample size but there seems to be about 20-25 percent legacies among the accepted students, but again, that might just be a function of people in urban areas being where the Brown alums reside or that a higher percentage of legacies attend these events.
I also saw an earlier thread from 2009 where people were citing Brown stats that legacies were admitted ED at a 40% rate, and 35% overall. I’m wondering if there are more recent updates to this information. I’m sure it’s lower now, but by how much I can only speculate.
Let me clarify again this point since I think we’re talking past one another. I completely agree that a four figure donation to Brown has no impact whatsoever on Brown admission. Period. I just mentioned what we give (and I probably shouldn’t have in the first place) to make sure that no one might mistaken us as big donors. We are not.
@denverdoughboy , if nothing else, I think a sibling legacy might get a slight blip on the regional rep’s radar screen. After all, if it’s the same rep who has spent some time getting to know and like the older sibling, it seems human nature he or she would be curious about the younger sibling.
My son’s only a sophomore in high school, but when the Brown rep visited this fall, he chatted with my son quite a bit about his sister at Brown. IF my son were to apply, I think the Brown regional rep would at least be able to match a real live person with his application, and perhaps the sibling connection would trigger some positive association. Certainly not enough to overcame a deficient application, but maybe enough for the rep to consider the application a few moments longer than he might otherwise do.
Anecdotally, a few friends’ kids have applied ED to Brown and ED 2 to Wesleyan and/or EA to Chicago which might be another school for your daughter to consider.
Brown: 10-12% according to Dean of Admission James Miller
PS: Looking through some of these sources, most Ivies treat sibling relationships the same as Brown does for the purpose of admissions—which was the original question here
Just want to say it is probably better to focus on where your daughter would like to see herself, and I would ,not assume acceptance at some of he colleges you mentioned in your original post as “matches.” My kid got into Brown, Wesleyan, Dartmouth, some other LACs, but was waitlisted at WUSTL. At the time, talk was that WUSTL was waitlisting top candidates because they doubted they would matriculate, but I don’t know if this is actually true. All these colleges are very competitive. Due to this fact, however, if she really likes WUSTL (or any other college), it may be to her advantage to apply ED so they will know she is serious about her interest there.
Thanks for the research @fenwaypark , I would have guessed some different legacy numbers based on what the perception is, e.g., I would have thought Princeton was very high on the legacy percentage, and Dartmouth as well, while Harvard turns out to be the highest of them all.
It looks like sibling legacy is less of a factor than I hoped. Fortunately, I think my daughter is in the ballpark, she just needs get her grades up. Her writing is imaginative and interesting, so I don’t doubt that she’ll come across well in her essays. It’ll just be a tough slog as it is with all applications.
@watchingthemsoar, I don’t take any of the other schools for granted. I was just trying to provide some context of where similarly situated students from my D’s school ended up in college. In fact, I didn’t personally like many of those schools when we visited them for my S, especially the larger ones. I’m trying to interest my D in some LACs, as I think that’s where she would really thrive, but right now she is in love with Brown and going where her brother is. It’s a perilous place to be–dead set on a school where you have a slim shot at getting in.