<p>Hi, just wondering if being a double legacy (my grandpa (on my dad's side) and my dad) will augment my chances of getting into Harvard?</p>
<p>Here are some of my stats:</p>
<ul>
<li>3.95/4.0 GPA (I don't know all of my grades yet since some finals are still being graded)</li>
<li>taking 3 honors classes</li>
<li>taking Honors Orchestra as a freshman, which is unheard of and usually just for juniors and seniors</li>
<li>play on the JV tennis team</li>
<li>play on the track and field team</li>
<li>in Model UN</li>
<li>volunteer at hospital to play cello there often</li>
<li>I already know several of the staff at Harvard because of my visits there with my family and my dad's great connections there</li>
<li>I have visited Harvard 3 times so far and fell in love with the school!</li>
</ul>
<p>Are my stats strong enough? Any recommendations for sophomore year?</p>
<p>All info and advice is greatly appreciated!</p>
<p>It’s impossible to chance any applicant (including legacies and double legacies) because the most important part of your file, aside from your transcript, are your teacher recommendations and essays. Your essay must be thoughtful and reflective. Your teachers must write that you, IvyLeague2020, are one of the best students they have had in their entire teaching career. If an applicant does not get that kind of recommendation, the kind that is on MIT’s website – [Writing</a> Recommendations | MIT Admissions](<a href=“http://mitadmissions.org/apply/prepare/writingrecs]Writing”>How to write good letters of recommendation | MIT Admissions) - they do not stand a chance at Harvard, Yale, Princeton or any of the Ivies. And that applies to legacies and double-legacies.</p>
<p>If your father and grandfather both graduated from Harvard College (not any of the graduate or professional schools), then by Harvard’s definition, you’re not a “double legacy.” Harvard only considers the schools to which your parents went, not your grandparents or other relatives.</p>
<p>Harvard accepts about 30% of its legacy applicants, which is about 5 times more than the applicant pool generally. As gibby points out, that still means 70% are rejected. But most of the advantage that accrues doesn’t seem to be from one’s status as a legacy. I recently saw something posted here on CC where Harvard compared the acceptance rate of Harvard legacies to the acceptance rate of the children of Yale and Princeton graduates. Obviously, Yale and Princeton legacies receive no formal advantage when applying to Harvard.</p>
<p>The acceptance rate was lower for the Yale and Princeton legacies, but not by much. This suggests that most of the advantage of being a legacy is that the environment from which these students come engenders a higher level of scholastic achievement.</p>
<p>The boost to your chances of acceptance by being a Harvard legacy is modest. It’s perhaps a thumb on the scale, and a light thumb, at that. Nonetheless, it is a measurable advantage.</p>
<p>So, congratulations; in the lottery of life, you’ve done well so far in that you’ve chosen your parents well.</p>
<p>To be honest, I’ve never liked to take that 30% stat as meaning it’s easier for legacies to get in. There other many other factors to consider. It seems logical that the children of Ivy League graduates are more likely to appreciate learning because their parents bring them up that way. As a result, they have an edge on the average applicant. To be honest, I have no stats to back this up, but it does seem reasonable.
In terms of getting in, my only advice is to challenge yourself and try to forget about applying to college. If you do something you enjoy and that stimulates you academically, that should naturally help your application. Don’t think too much about what you should do to get into college. Things will work out in the end.</p>
<p>Correlation is not causation for legacy admits. Students with parents that attended Harvard are by and large going to be more savvy about the admissions process, wealthier, and better connected. </p>
<p>I assume your are a frosh or soph right now. You should probably take AP classes, because a competitive shcedule with some B’s is better than a less competitive one with one B. You have common, cookie-cutter extracurriculars right now. Try to find a passion or a niche and get good at it: this could be music or sports (although you would need a strong background) or humanities and STEM. Join groups, get leadership, win awards, and become notable. Do well on standardized tests as well. For the time being AP’s, EC’s/Awards, and standardized tests (over 2250) should be your goals.</p>
<p>IvyLeague2020 - You are a freshman with all of half a year of HS behind you and yet you are freely posting your advice and opinions all over CC to others about how their activities, scores and grades will be viewed by some of the top colleges. You then turn around in other posts and ask for advice about how you yourself can be accepted to many of these same schools. You have already been given excellent advice in the Yale forum to stop spending time on CC since you are only a freshman. Also, you are mistaken, don’t have “high stats” at this point. All of the hard work to get high stats, show leadership, find something you are passionate about and do something extraordinary with it, is in front of you. At the rate you are posting (46 in a couple of days), you will end up wasting an enormous amount of valuable time on this site. I don’t mean to sound harsh, just trying to give you some well-intentioned advice.</p>