My dad got a master’s degree at a relatively selective university I’m interested in. It’s not an Ivy League, but decently good private school. He got his master’s from the university’s school of business, which I will not be attending (studying business? Yikes, I could never).
When applying for undergrad, will I be considered a legacy student? Could this help my chances?
Any college is free to define legacy as it sees fit. I know you mentioned not an Ivy, but as examples: Harvard only considers a parent attending as an undergrad as legacy, while Penn includes grad schools.
Along the same lines, what bump, if any, legacy gives is up to the college.
Depends on the university. Duke for example will consider legacy status for kids whose parents attended any of the graduate schools, or even did residency at Duke. But the level of the boost is more limited. Graduates of the undergraduate colleges (Trinity, Engineering) have more of a meaningful boost.
As others have said this depends upon the university. It is up to each university whether they consider the children of people with graduate degrees to be legacy, or even whether they care about legacy at all.
I heard that Stanford does consider the children of parents with master’s degrees to be legacy. However, it is also my impression that the boost that you get from being legacy is very small at Stanford. What they said a few years ago in an article sent to alumni is that the children of Stanford graduates will have their application read by a second admissions officer if the first does not recommend admitting the student. That does not seem like much of a boost to me.
I thought that I heard somewhere that if a parent got a master’s at Columbia then the kids are considered legacy, but I was not able to find it just now in a quick search of Columbia’s web site.
I am pretty sure that MIT does not consider legacy status at all.
If you mention the university where your dad got his master’s it is possible that someone here might know whether or not this would help you.
From the Columbia site: "When an applicant is extremely competitive and compares favorably with other similarly talented candidates, being the daughter or son of a Columbia University graduate (from any Columbia school or college) may be a slight advantage in the admission process. This advantage may especially apply for “legacy” candidates.
Please note: applicants are considered to be “legacies” of Columbia only if they are the children of Columbia College or Columbia Engineering graduates."
https://undergrad.admissions.columbia.edu/ask/faq/question/2412
Correct. From the MIT site: “MIT doesn’t consider legacy or alumni relations in our admissions process. If you’d like to read more about this policy, check out the blog Just to Be Clear: We Don’t Do Legacy.”
https://mitadmissions.org/help/faq/legacy/
Also wanted to point out that even within the same college, things will change over time.
For many years UChicago did not give any legacy preference to sons/daughters of graduates. But with the new Dean of admissions, he does like to give legacy preference. So each Dean has their own way of doing things. This is highly dependent upon University needs, and may change from year to year.