Hi guys! I know USC used to have a little reputation for favoring legacies and I was wondering what you think it’s like now? I feel like now it really doesn’t make a difference but a few of my friends seem to think it still plays a large factor.
It certainly doesn’t matter like it use to. Large factor is certainly an exaggeration unless your family bought a large building. Go to alumni boards and you see how many feel this has dramatically changed, there are a lot. I would say small if any amount of influence.
With 35% internationals, first gen, URM, and all the other classes/groups that they are looking for, legacy has certainly taken a huge hit in the last 5 years. Expect this to stay this way till they realize they aren’t getting the donations they are use to. Even though their endowment is huge, donations were down over 10% this year.
It doesn’t matter as much as it used to, not by a long shot.
But the main reason is the increased selectivity over the past 20 years.
20 years ago, anyone could get in. So if the child of a legacy wanted to go, and they were willing to cut the tuition check, why not?
But it’s a different ballgame now. Most legacy parents, if they had to apply now with their grade and test scores, couldn’t get in. Neither can their kids.
But IMO if the applicant has competitive numbers, legacy is still a good “tip” in their favor.
@blueskies2day @8bagels I had the same thoughts. When my mom went there (heck even when my sister got in 6 years ago) it seemed to still have the reputation for being for dumb rich kids. It’s now one of the top schools and just as hard to get into as UCLA which seems crazy. Thanks for your input.
@itssophie Ya all those dumb rich kids are now out in industry and leaders that are funding the giant endowment that USC has while hiring a lot of students graduating today. (And I assume your mom would be paying for your education.)
@8bagels Saying legacy parents and now their kids couldn’t get in is quite an unappreciative slam. What is sad going forward is that many of the people attending for basically free today or having everything handed to them will never give back like the generations before them. Many may bring in the scores here and there but unfortunately come from a “get what you can and run” mentality and upbringing. That is the problem going forward for USC.
I think it matters a lot for the Trojan Transfer plan.
@blueskies2day It’s not an unappreciative slam, it’s just a statistical fact.
When a school goes from a 75%+ acceptance rate (with low GPAs and SATs) to an 18% acceptance rate (with high SATs and GPAs) in one generation, it’s simply statistically true that most of the people who graduated 25 years ago wouldn’t get in today. They were an academic level of students attending a relatively open enrollment school at the time. And it’s also true that their kids (like most kids) are statistically likely to not have the numbers to get in.
So, not a slam, just a fact (and one, by the way, that applies at varying levels to all top 25 schools).
I agree that many of the people attending today, esp. the 58% on need based financial aid, and the many on academic scholarship who are attending because USC is willing to “buy” their high test scores to boost rankings, are not going to contribute on levels of the past.
While you wait for results, here’s some trivia from USNWR and other sources:
1970
Yale 20% Admission Rate 1350-1550 25th-75th percentile SAT range
Columbia 24% Admitted 1341-1438 Range
Penn 43% Admitted 1370-1440 Range
WashU 56% Admitted 1180-1380 Range
USC 70% Admitted 1070-1310 Range
Chicago 71% Admitted 1270-1470 Range
You were a likely admit with a 1500 at Yale, 1400 at Columbia and Penn, and 1300 at WashU, USC and Chicago.
~1995: University of Chicago: 68% Acceptance Rate
~1998: George Washington University: 80% Acceptance Rate
1995 Yale 22%
2000 Yale 16.2%
2015 Yale 6.7%
Miscellaneous info:
In 2000 USC had total enrollment of 28,500. Currently 43,000.
USC acceptance rates within last 15 years:
2003 29.9%
2005 27%
2010 24.3
2013 19.6
2015 17.8%
UChicago was 40% in 2005 and is 8% today
Vanderbilt was 40% acceptance in 2005 to 11% last year
Of course a lot of these crazy figures at all schools are because there are a zillion more applying (whether paid or with fee waivers) than a decade ago and certainly more than 20-30 years ago. I read that schools that market that they meet 100% of financial need get a lot of “extra” applications because of people misunderstanding that to mean free money, not realizing that often includes loans for both parents and student.
Also Common App went online in 1998
Just some totally random info that I ran across and thought I’d share… 
Good info. Here’s some more, copied and pasted from another thread somewhere here. Amazingly high numbers, esp. to those of us old enough to feel like 1990 wasn’t all that long ago.
In the 1990 US News’ America’s best colleges (selected samples):
Ranked Acceptance Rate
1 Harvard 18%
2 Stanford 18%
6 MIT 30%
11 Univ. of Chicago 45%
13 Univ. of Penn 41%
13 UC Berkeley 37%
15 John Hopkins 48%
17 UCLA 43%
21 Univ. of Mich. 60%
22 Carnegie Mellon 64%
23 Northwestern 47%,
24 Washington Univ. 54%
In the next quartile (#26 to 50, no ranked order, selected sample):
Emory 55% acceptance rate
NYU 52% acceptance rate
UC San Diego 55% acceptance rate
UC Davis 69%
Univ. of Notre Dame 34%
USC 74%
Univ. of Washington 65%
Univ. of Wisconsin 72%
Vanderbilt University 58%
I think the most substantial increases (that I was unaware of at least) are UChicago and Vanderbilt. Oh geez, 64% at Carnegie Mellon. Wow, those were the days. Good stuff.
According to the following, USC considers legacy, aka “Relation with Alumnus” in admissions, but it doesn’t rate as “Very Important” or “Important”.
http://www.collegedata.com/cs/data/college/college_pg02_tmpl.jhtml?schoolId=1138
BTW - back when I was going to grad school in the late 80s, I remember someone in administration saying that for USC’s IE graduate program, you were admitted if you were in the top 50% of your undergraduate class. Most of the people I went to grad school with were fairly intelligent, but there was one guy - I don’t know how he graduated from high school. He somehow got his Masters, though.
@blueskies2day just curious as to why you’re assuming my mom is going to pay for education? Because she’s not. Also I never said their alumni are unsuccessful-I know the alumni community very well and am well aware of their success. I just meant the majority of students they are accepting today are very different than before due to the increase in ranking