In my immediate family, people have graduated from USC and one of the top tech schools in Asia. I have cousins that graduated from University of Michigan, University of Pennsylvania, and Carnegie Mellon. All of those are pretty good schools, so will that help me? I’m talking if I applied to a school not one of the ones above, so not exactly legacy admissions.
No, this won’t affect your chances. YOU are the one applying, and your application will be judged on its own merits.
If you’re not talking about legacy, there won’t be a benefit.
Legacy is usually parents, not cousins or other members of your family. For USC, legacy can help you but you still need to meet the academic threshold.
Just to expand your thinking: Imagine you’re on the hiring committee of a hospital. A physician candidate comes in, you look over his credentials. Then he blurts out that his wife is also a physician and attended USC or Vanderbilt for med school. You glance at your list of job requirements and shake your head.
It’s completely irrelevant.
In the book A IS FOR ADMISSION, the author talks about how this might actually hurt your chances, because admissions officers will expect a lot out of you if you puff up your family’s success.
it’s already helped you: presumably, by providing you with a financially stable home, a safe neighborhood with good schools, a family that values education and helps when it can, perhaps even tutors or test prep.
However, you’ll be judged in relation to what was given to you. YOU are applying to college, not them. Where your parents went to school means nothing, but it means a lot if you weren’t interested in taking advantage of the opportunities their studies and position in life offered you.