I applied to Harvard under REA a couple days ago. On the application, I didn’t list anything about legacy, however, two of my grandparents went to Harvard Business School and my cousin currently attends Harvard (he is a varsity athlete). Would knowing this make any difference to admissions officers? If so, how should I make this known? Possibly in an interview if I get one, an email to the office of admissions, etc.?
I don’t think those will help, but perhaps someone else closer to the school can opine.
Pretty sure only Harvard College legacy matters to College admissions, and a cousin is too distant.
Correct. Legacy only comes into play if one parent attended Harvard College (so, undergrad only; no HBS, HMS, HLS, Etc) Even then, many legacy applicants still get rejected.
@glouis - would not hurt mentioning during the interview, but email to admissions office may not be a good idea.
There are no questions on the Common App that ask “Check here if you are legacy” “Check here if you are URM” "Check here if you are international: “Check here if you are an athletic recruit.”
For these schools, you fill in the questions that are asked on the application, and each college will use that information as it sees fit.
Some school’s supplemental questions (example UMich) has questions like “Have any of your relatives attended or been employed here” and if you check “yes” it asks “Was this relative a parent or sibling”.
Yale has never had a slot asking for relatives who were not parents or grandparents. Skieurope means there are no explicit check off boxes that say “legacy” or “URM”. CA asks for colleges/unis attended by parents. CA has an option for applicants to check off ethnicity and for citizenship. There are no specific “I am a URM” or “I am an international applicant” boxes – that’s Ski’s point.
Yes, that is what I meant. Each college is free to decide (where not prohibited by law) its own meaning of “legacy” / “URM”, etc., and what boost, if any, it will give the applicant.
Harvard is one of the few which doesn’t ask about “a relative” or similar in its supplement - or it didn’t three years ago when I last looked at it. I know this because my father went there and my son applied, hoping this would be a little extra something or other to enhance his application. My son got in, without it, and then I had to go through the frustration of the knowing looks when people found out my father went there, with the implication of ‘so that’s why he got in’. And my father was not a major donor, or even a minor one. And the last names, states lived in, were different, etc.
Yet, Harvard does have a higher admit rate for legacies, so one assumes that when there is a major donor involved, that information is somehow communicated, even without a line for it on the form! But I would emphatically not send any note about it to admissions; I think that would be seen as tacky.