<p>My mom attended Harvard for Graduate school. I was wondering if that would greatly increase my chances of getting in. I also have a second cousin who attended undergrad-would that count too?</p>
<p>Having a parent attend Harvard graduate school does not qualify as being a legacy. Harvard’s definition of legacy is that your mom or dad must have attended Harvard as an undergraduate. Cousin’s, grandparents, uncles etc also don’t count.</p>
<p>Well just doubled checked and your right. Too bad.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, Harvard has pretty narrow “legacy guidelines”; however, I think you still note where your parents attended school, so it still may give an ever-so-slight boost, but I’m not sure.</p>
<p>Wow, 14sandbergk.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>You asked a really basic question, and when a veteran poster answered, you felt the need to go double-check the answer. This implies that…</p></li>
<li><p>You had the resources to go get the answer for yourself in the first place.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>My goodness.</p>
<p>Sorry did not mean to offend you are this supposed “veteran poster”.</p>
<p>I was surprised that the Harvard supplement has no place for indicating legacy status. The common app has a section for parents’ college and graduate school affiliation, so they’ll see your mom’s graduate school there. Like Gibby says (and as you verified) I wouldn’t count this as a hook. Re: trusting “veteran posters,” I’m not sure that spending lots of time posting messages on CC confers any great authority. You might want to check out a variety of posts by an individual as you consider the merit of his opinion. In this case, Gibby has proved to be pretty knowledgeable. Good luck to you, 14sandbergk!</p>