<p>Anyone know the acceptance rate for legacies applying early decision?
Thanks!</p>
<p>Pretty good I’ve heard</p>
<p>Overall legacy acceptance rate was about 36% two years ago. Probably has dropped a bit since then. Don’t know the ED/RD breakdown, but the boost during the ED round is definitely larger than the boost during RD. Your application automatically gets read by an additional person, so it certainly doesn’t hurt. If your parent/grandparent is an involved alumnus time-wise and/or has donated lots of money to the university, obviously that helps even more. 
Legacy status won’t get unqualified students admitted (unless there have been ENORMOUS donations), but serves as a “hook” such that if you are qualified for admission, you are more likely to get accepted. (As the majority of “qualified” students from an academic standpoint get rejected from Duke).</p>
<p>Edit: Note that in 2005 the legacy acceptance rate was near 50% (and about 66% for ED), so things have gotten much more competitive very quickly for legacy applicants.</p>
<p>Alright thank you very much. This was very helpful!</p>