<p>But what the student athletes do in exchange for admission leniency has nothing to do with why a college / university exists, IMO. The purpose of a university is to provide education in various fields to the people who enroll there. As part of that, the purpose may be to provide physical education opportunities (sound mind in sound body and all), but not to provide spectator sports opportunities. Again, I don’t feel strongly enough about this to vote with my kids’ applications against it, but come on now. If athletics, which have nothing to do with the mission of the university, are ok because they promote a certain school spirit / esprit de corps, then it’s kind of hard to fault legacy admissions for the same thing.</p>
<p>I think when you start talking celebrity level, the legacy piece becomes meaningless. Meryl Streep sent her kid to NU’s theater program. I’m sure they considered that quite a meaningful coup, and I’m equally sure they couldn’t care less that she wasn’t an NU grad. Ditto with Tom Hanks.</p>
<p>mini, where are you getting your facts from?? International students are admitted under the same financial aid policies as domestic students, and many are only able to attend because they receive generous financial aid. Also, as a Pell grant recipient attending Harvard, I found the few of my classmates who I know are legacies to be much more academically qualified than I am. </p>
<p>Top schools lack low income students not because they’re being need aware, just like they lack underrepresented minority groups not because they don’t want black and Hispanic students! In this country, family income and, in turn, emphasis and attitudes on education directly correlate with academic performance.</p>
<p>Top schools lack low income students because many low income students have not been made aware of the fact that these schools exist and provide significant aid.</p>
<p>All I know is Harvard accepted my son - double legacy, skyhigh scores, top 1% of the class, singleminded EC at a top level, and reject my niece, double legacy, high scores, even higher class rank than my son, more well-rounded. They have thoroughly annoyed her parents and the Harvard alum who interviewed her and thought she was much stronger than many students he had interviewed they accepted in year’s past. Count me in as not a particular fan of sports preferences - especially at places like Harvard where very few students really care that much about how the teams do.</p>
<p>I don’t think a 30% admit rate is too low, though I would be happy if they also accepted a great percentage of economically disadvantaged students.</p>
<p>(My son was one of those legacies who chose to forge their own path BTW.)</p>
<p>Exactly. All these people whining about the legacy rates aren’t getting that there are still an overwhelming number of perfectly-qualified legacies at top schools who don’t get it. Your niece, JHS’ children, etc. It’s still a low acceptance rate. This would be a meaningful discussion if legacy acceptance rates were, well, high. But they aren’t. </p>
<p>There’s just such a range. At D’s LAC – there are legacy kids from well connected backgrounds, a kid whose father is a reasonably significant public figure … and kids from “typical” suburban middle and upper middle class backgrounds … and kids from East Timbuktu. It’s all a mix. And that’s what makes it so fun.</p>
<p>My understanding is that Harvard is embarking on their first major capital campaign in over 10 years. Never been a better time to have a friend or relative who is a major donor.</p>
<p>I don’t know what the percentage of applicants are who are legacies. H is saying they accepted 30% of the legacies this year. I didn’t see how much of Harvard is made up of legacies. </p>
<p>Mathmom, did your niece graduate from a school that takes a lot of Harvard kids? When I lived in the midwest, our local high school would rarely get more than 3 HPYSM kids accepted each year. In fact, I doubt if it ever did. For a kid to get into Harvard from that school, s/he had to be val or sal pretty much whereas around here and in your school district, there is much more leeway. I know two kids from your district, brothers, one who got into Yale, the other to Harvard in the last 3 years. Pure academic excellence there. Near perfects SATs and very high class rank. No familial connections at all. I don’t remember the numbers of how many get accepted from your district, but they do blow the socks off of the average high schools.</p>
<p>But of course! How many kids per high school do you think these schools can accommodate? There are 30,000 high schools in the country. (I’m excluding homeschooled kids and internationals just for ease of discussion.) Each of them can’t send multiple kids to HYPSM when HYPSM’s sum total freshman class is what, probably 10,000?</p>
<p>One HS which has the same name as one of the HYPSM, Last year 25 kids went to that U with the same name. 19 were professors kids.
So Amy Chua’s daughter had double advantages, legacy at H and prof’s kid at Y where she was accepted.</p>
Its been a long day-- I can’t follow this calculation. Can you dumb it down for me a bit? How do you arrive at that calculation?</p>
<p>… hey… I am still getting my head around the fact that I graduated from the same HS that mathmom’s kids did-- only I did so 40 years ago! I will say, though, that in the spring of my senior year, one teacher asked each of us during class where we were going to college. It read like a who’s who if the ivys, top LACs and MIT, Cal Tech, etc. It was an eye-opener…
But I digress…</p>
<p>Pizzagirl, this was a huge high school and there were always a number of kids whose test scores were way up there and to get a class rank in single digits in a school that size, is tough going (especially with their grade inflation). In this area, it’s not uncommon to get what Jym describes. At some schools even kids in the second quintile get into Ivies.</p>
<p>Legacies have preferential treatment. But the significance is getting less over the years.
An Ivy alum told me he was unhappy about the school cause it does not take as many legacies anymore. That school has higher legacy admit rate than H and Y.</p>
<p>cpt, for a school that regularly is listed in the bottom half of the county schools we have surprisingly good acceptance results. There are a lot of academics who are parents - so education levels are high even if incomes aren’t. That said we don’t have huge numbers heading off to Harvard, the year my son was accepted the #1 in class was accepted (he was a legacy at Yale and went to Yale, the #3 was waitlisted at Harvard but got into Princeton (not a legacy at either school), and my son #8 was accepted.) My niece’s school is a big school in NH. It historically has sent 2 or 3 kids to Harvard every year, but they skipped out on it my niece’s year. Mostly I think she was unlucky. I personally think she also probably suffered from a certain lack of chutzpah. (My son told the interviewer Harvard wasn’t his first choice and his essay started off with a computer program. I don’t think she knew how to play the game as well.)</p>
<p>Jym, I edited my post and it disappeared … I’ll repeat it.</p>
<p>Starting Points:<br>
Harvard receives 30,000 applicants.
Acceptance rate of legacies: 30%
% of the total resulting class that is legacies: 15%</p>
<p>My assumptions:
Acceptance rate of non-legacies: 7%
100% yield (just to take that out of the equation entirely; that is, admitted = enrolled)
I also assumed they were filling a class of 2,376 (why that number? it made my calculations easiest).</p>
<p>So, here’s how it works. I can’t really explain how I back into it, because I “see” the solution, but here’s the gist.
Total Applicants: 30,000</p>
<p>4% of applicant pool (1200) are legacies –> accepted at a rate of 30% –> 360 admitted / enroll
96% of applicant pool (28,800) are non-legacies –> accepted at a rate of 7% –> 2016 admitted / enroll</p>
<p>This gives you a class of 2376, of which 15% (360/2376) are legacies and 85% (2016/2376) are not.</p>
<p>The overall acceptance rate is 7.9% (2376/30,000) … that is, the increased acceptance rates for legacies doesn’t really change the overall admissions rate that much (7.9% among total, 7% among the non-legacies). This is key, because a lot of people start acting as though “well, if it’s 30% among the legacies, it must be close to zero for the non-legacies.” No. </p>
<p>So … if an applicant pool is 4% legacies, is the subsequent freshman class of 15% legacies “too much”? It’s certainly higher than fair share … but is it outrageous?</p>
<p>Quote:
Top schools lack low income students not because they’re being need aware, just like they lack underrepresented minority groups not because they don’t want black and Hispanic students! In this country, family income and, in turn, emphasis and attitudes on education directly correlate with academic performance. </p>
<p>Exactly. Which is why it is ludicrous to use standardized tests of students to rate/grade/retain/pay teachers and schools. School “reform” really has to be about addressing poverty and family attitudes about education. Something teachers have no control over whatsoever. </p>
<p>So when HYP etc. give a break to URM’s and low income students, they may actually be ever so slowly (generation upon generation) be doing their part for “school reform.” The kids of these ivy-educated URM’s and low income students will have the benefit of parents who value education, hence do better in school, etc… and maybe get into HYP.</p>