<p>Please believe me – being a legacy at Brown isn’t what it was even a couple of years ago. </p>
<p>This year, my daughter was deferred early then rejected regular round. </p>
<p>Both my spouse and I graduated from Brown (plus I have a Master’s degree from there), her grandmother is a Brown grad, and my son is there now. </p>
<p>Her GPA is 3.9 in a school district where B’s are 93 and below. Her ACT scores were in the 99th percentile. She had excellent EC’s and state level achievement in an academic area. But this year, that still wasn’t good enough. </p>
<p>I think the new Admissions director has decided to seriously downplay legacy status, and that this year the admissions stats that come out will confirm that.</p>
<p>Bottom line – nothing is a sure thing these days. Fall in love with more than one school.</p>
<p>(By the way, she’s since fallen in love with Hopkins and will be happily attending there next fall.)</p>
<p>Fandangoya -- see the other thread about legacy. It really won't help that much.</p>
<p>And as for knowing deans, it depends which dean. If that dean is willing to meet with you and write a short rec letter for you, that might help, but otherwise it won't do you much good.</p>
<p>There was a similar thing in my area-- double legacy, w/ grad school; kid was WL. </p>
<p>My H keeps thinking legacy of active alumni is some sort of huge boost (because it is at his alma mater) and I say, NO IT IS NOT. He says, then <em>why</em> do you do all the interviews? My answer is, because I love Brown!</p>
<p>But Hopkins is a marvelous school!! Congrats!!</p>
<p>And I know of a situation where a girl got into another Ivy as a legacy and is now in drug rehab. She DID NOT belong at that school but her grandfather, father and sister were there and there was this pressure for her to go there. Her grandfather gave an enormous amount of money to the school and she was accepted ED. She was a good student but nothing deserving of this school. The pressure for her to succeed there was great and apparently too great for her because she dropped out and I was told was in drug rehab. Dont know where she is now, but sometimes you have the evaulate the child and the school and determine if it is a right fit for THAT child-not just making the family happy by continuing with a legacy.</p>
<p>Unless your uncle is the president of Brown, any connection you have will do little or nothing to bolster your chance of admission; there are NO friends in the game of admissions.</p>
<p>fredmurtz, I wonder if there's some self-selection going on...? I would have a pretty clear picture whether or not my kid is in range for admission or not... If the 'clearly not in range' kids don't bother to apply, then the odds for the kids who do apply will be better.</p>
<p>speaking of "uncles at brown," at ADOCH, dean of admissions jim miller told us that he understood what we went through with college applications... his own daughter was in the process of applying to colleges. i wonder where SHE is going :-)</p>
<p>The female percentage of applicants at Brown rose to an Ivy-high 61.5% this year. Many speculated that the adminstration might be slightly alarmed by this, and would strive to achieve something closer to gender parity when it came to admits.</p>
<p>I think there is little question that the admit rate for females will, in consequence, be lower than the admit rate for males for the class of 2010. Thus, female applicants - legacy or no - may be at something of a disadvantage.</p>
<p>The situation at Brown is virtually the mirror image of the situation at MIT, where the administration strives for gender parity - or close to it - by admitting females at a higher rate than males.</p>
<p>singme: I feel your pain. I think this was a rough year for legacies at Brown, and I don't know if it's a new policy from the new admissions director or just demographics. I, too, know of qualified legacies who were not accepted, who applied ED, and that there are many hurting parents out there. The legacy admit rate was higher than the overall admit rate, but the number of legacy applicants climbed very high this year, resulting in a lower legacy admit rate than in the past. Girls, especially those not planning on majoring in a science, also had a tougher time. </p>
<p>I will second your message -- don't assume that having alumni parents/siblings/other relatives, even ones who are very active alums, will help much in the application process.</p>
<p>As stated previously, the applicant group was a record 61% + female at Brown this year - up from an Ivy-high 58% last year.</p>
<p>Brown attempts to redress the gender imbalance by admitting females at a lower rate.</p>
<p>For the Class of 2009, the 58-42 female edge in applications was reduced to a 51-49 edge in matriculants by admitting 17.6% of the men but only 13.6% of the women.</p>
<p>Between 15-20% of the male matriculants were recruited athletes.</p>