<p>My father (S's grandfather) did his Master's degree at CMU. Is this enough for him to count as a "legacy"? In reviewing the question "List immediate family members who have graduated from or are presently attending Carnegie Mellon." on his submitted common app supplement, we can't review what the choices were in the drop-down menu, so we're not sure if he omitted something he should have included or not. Does anyone know? And if so, is this worth sending in as an update? (My husband and I are both graduates of U. of Waterloo (undergrad) and MIT (grad), neither of which cares, so this would be his only "legacy" situation, if it counts.)</p>
<p>I don’t think it’s likely to make much difference, but it can’t hurt to just send them an email with the information. They’ll stick it in his file.</p>
<p>It’s probably not worth your time (unless his grandpa is a trustee, endowed a scholarship, chair or building at the college). Legacy applications at most schools are not given great weight, and as the poster above said, they will just stick it in his file. If it will help you sleep better knowing it’s done however, go ahead and send an email.</p>
<p>If they even consider grandparents, I’d probably have him shoot off a quick email (although his grandfather is not a distinguished alumnus in any way). However if “grandparent” isn’t even on the list that they ask about, then he might look “silly” sending that mail :)</p>
<p>I think they do consider grandparents, parents, and siblings. Usually not aunts/uncles/cousins/godparents/pets, etc.</p>
<p>Just email it. It won’t hurt you or anything.</p>
<p>If the question is “Does CMU consider kids whose grandparents went to CMU (actually Carnegie Tech in D1’s case) to be legacies?” then the answer is definitely yes. If the question is - “is it an advantage?” Uhhhhhh, maybe a little at most. But, it wouldn’t hurt to let them know about gramps.</p>
<p>You don’t need to worry about looking silly. No one will reject your son because he sent one extra email. Now if he’s sending one every other day, that could be different… I believe grandparents count. And while aunts and uncles don’t usually count, I don’t think it hurts to mention them unless the college specifically says they don’t want to hear about them. So for example, when U Chicago asked who in the family had gone to Chicago, my son did mention an aunt and uncle. (They’d also gotten a passing reference in his Why Chicago essay.)</p>
<p>In the Common Data Set, CMU does list Alumni/ae Relation as an Important Factor in the admissions process, so I would think that you would want to contact the school.</p>
<p>See page 2:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.cmu.edu/ira/CDS/pdf/cds_2009_10/c_first_year_admissions.pdf[/url]”>http://www.cmu.edu/ira/CDS/pdf/cds_2009_10/c_first_year_admissions.pdf</a></p>
<p>He could send the email with a note about how Grandparent used to talk about CMU and it is one more reason he’d like to go there ;-)</p>
<p>(DH’s father is an active Cornell alum; that certainly piqued both kids’ interest.)</p>
<p>Thanks, we’ll send the info. Grandpa rarely talks about CMU with the grandkids (even though he really did love it there), which is why S forgot to put in that info (even though Grandpa was in the room while he was filling out his application!) so I think he’ll be skipping the stories about Grandpa’s enthusiasm fueling his own ;-)</p>