Harvard Legacy Admit Rate -- 30%

Parents Forum
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<p>I believe in playing any card you’re dealt, personally. Whether that’s legacy, ED, connections, URM, athletic prowess, whatever. Put another way, I see no reason not to play those cards under the assumption that they make life “unfair.” There are plenty on CC who gave their kids far greater opportunities than I ever could give mine. That’s not unfair, that’s life. POIH’s upset about the “unfairness” of legacy at Harvard – well, it’s unfair that a lot of people can’t afford Harker or a similar fine private school, but that doesn’t seem to bother him. It wasn’t unfair of him to send his daughter there just because others can’t do the same.</p>

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<p>“If you only allowed bidding for people with SATs of 2100 and above and GPAs of at least 3.6 unweighted, you still get plenty of bidders.”</p>

<p>Oh, definitely. Acceptance of the bid would only be considered if Admissions concluded that the kid was capable of graduating in 4 years. That would include most development applicants, I expect. Anyone who can graduate from a liberal arts program at UMass can graduate from Harvard.</p>

<p>“Is there anything to suggest legacies flunk out at any higher rate than non-legacies?”</p>

<p>Not that I’ve read, but it might be true at less selective schools. In other words, if your admissions standards are only moderate, and you bend them a little to accept more legacies, you’re more likely taking some people who can’t hack college. Most applicants who wouldn’t get into Harvard without a tip are still going to be very successful at some other great college. To be really blunt about it, the Harvard legacy who gets in due to the tip was probably Cornell or Chicago material on his own. That’s a great student who’s going to do fine anywhere, including Harvard.</p>

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<p>RE: Pizzagirl’s 142:</p>

<p>Agree. It’s not unfair. It’s life. Better to learn that when you are young.</p>

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<p>My impression of what happens is that big time donors generally know the minimum sat/gpa requirement for their kid. Given that the SAT doesn’t really test much more than ninth grade math with a lot of tutoring and help they work to get their kids up to this minimun.
At the college level they go with the line that its really hard to differentiate the 2100sat kid from the 2350 kids-they are all smart and can do the work so we will set the bar at 2100.
The problem I have is they do know who the really bright, motivated kids are. The high schools know who these kids are. Most top notch private schools have Cum Laude which identifies the top 10% of their class. But the bottom line is the elite schools don’t want to limit themselves to these kids because that rules out too many athletes, rich donors, and social justice candidates.</p>

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<p>^Not to mention that at least in year’s past Harvard thought there was a certain advantage to accept a fair number of “happy C’s” to keep down grade inflation. There are fewer of those slacker kids there now and it’s not necessarily an improvement.</p>

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<p>Wow this makes as much sense as affirmative action, which doesn’t make any sense at all</p>

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I think it bears repeating that even if legacies get into Harvard at a rate four times the rate for non-legacies, that doesn’t mean that the advantage of being a legacy is fourfold. It may be, and probably is, substantially lower than that, because of the number of legacies who would get in without any tip. The same is true, of course, for URMs, athletes, and anybody else who is “hooked.”</p>

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<p>An interesting read as to how legacy really worked back when at HYP. Given that legacy preferences today are nothing like this, I can’t get too worked up over it. THOSE were the days of connections trumping all and presumably unqualified people getting in, not today. </p>

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<p>My grandfather, Richard Claypoole Wells '33, arrived at a Harvard built for men like him. He traveled in those elements universal at the school from the time of his father’s generation. Richard’s Harvard was a social club for jockish Easterners, a clannish and cheery aristocracy. </p>

<p>His consequent brand of alumnal reverence drew equally on two passions: a dogged devotion to Crimson football and a worried sense that his son (my father) wouldn’t make the cut for Harvard admission. </p>

<p>Henry Wells, my father, took to heart his own father’s concerns. Early in his senior year at Exeter, he headed down to the College counselor’s office to ask if he shouldn’t consider other Colleges beside Harvard. </p>

<p>The college advisor, a tall man bent with age and the weight of a ever-full belly, considered his file. </p>

<p>“Other colleges, Wells?” </p>

<p>“Yes sir. I was wondering whether I shouldn’t apply to any other colleges.” </p>

<p>“Do you want to go to other colleges, Wells?” </p>

<p>“No, sir.” </p>

<p>“Well then, Wells, it would seem a bit foolish to apply.” </p>

<p>“Yes, sir.” </p>

<p>Less than a year later, my father drifted into Harvard’s Class of 1959. The template of my grandfather’s biography repeats itself. </p>

<p>My father joined a finals club and involved himself in the associated life of Cambridge, academic and social. By his generation, however, the guiding climate of Cambridge had changed.</p>

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<p>I think the age of meritocracy at elite schools began after WW2. The GI Bill really opened up higher education to the masses. My father attended Harvard Law on the GI bill - something he never would have dreamed of coming from a a poor farming community in Northeast Texas.
And back then the law school ranked each and every student. You knew exactly where you ranked when you left schol.</p>

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<p>^My father’s experience was actually rather interesting. He was going into his senior year at public school and his parents decided he wasn’t working hard enough to follow his brother’s to Harvard. So they shipped him off to Exeter where he did well enough that the Exeter folks put him in the pile of kids that Harvard should take. His Dad never finished high school having come through Ellis Island as a teen and having had to go to work young because his father died. He definitely enjoyed hobnobbing with the more aristocratic element at Harvard, but there were plenty of both types there then (and in my day the 1970s).</p>

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<p>An interesting take on this issue from Alexandra Petri, writing for the Harvard Crimson
[Give</a> Legacies a Chance | Opinion | The Harvard Crimson](<a href=“http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2009/8/20/give-legacies-a-chance-in-the/]Give”>Give Legacies a Chance | Opinion | The Harvard Crimson)</p>

<p>I don’t like the introduction, but the rest of the column makes an interesting satirical point. An excerpt:</p>

<p>“The least you can give a child who was forced to grow up in a house with Harvard armchairs is a second look at his application. Scratch any legacy student and you will find someone who, as an infant, was forced to wear a bib that said I Will Go To Harvard Someday . . . . If you are a young future-legacy, an entire section of the COOP exists specifically to make your life miserable, with crimson baby booties and Harvard bath towels—even Harvard teddy bears.”</p>

<p>Also, she cites a legacy admit rate of 34-35% about 4 years ago, so apparently it’s dropped.</p>

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<p>Of course Harvard can do anything it wants with admissions. But, from a practical point of view for those of us trying to advise our kids about college aps, about 50% of the incoming Harvard class of 2015 are international or URM students, about 20% are recruited athletes and I learn from this thread that legacies have a 30% admissions rate. Now many of these groups are overlapping, but also given Harvard’s probable interest in geographic (and gender) distribution of their incoming class, the truth is that girls from populous states who are not athletes, not URM or international students, not legacies, have a chance at admissions (no matter what their GPa and SAT scores) MUCH lower than the 2015 6% acceptance rate. This is been quite eye-opening for me.</p>

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<p>I think the only fair way to gauge the advantage would be to compare the pool of legacies with a randomly-selected, non-hooked group of applicants with the same mean and median academic index. You could then compare the admit rates of those groups and determine the legacy advantage. I suspect admissions offices do this calculation internally but would never publish the findings as it would either confirm an “unfair” advantage or disappoint alumni who expect their kids to have even a greater leg up.</p>

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<p>Mathmom your comment about Exeter I think speaks to a very basic change in how HYP accept applicants. The top private schools, where HYP still to this day get a majority of their students, used to identify their top 10% kids and a few athletes and some rich donor kids in the top 25% and those kids got in. Not any longer-top10% doesn’t do much for you anymore atleast for those colleges.</p>

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That would be helpful, but even that would not be sufficient. The academic index (designed to make sure athletic recruits are qualifed) looks only at grades and scores–it does not consider ECs or other achievements (something that is, perhaps, academic when looking at recruited athletes). It could easily be the case that legacies are unusually well accomplished in non-academic areas like music, public service, writing awards, etc. Of course, if this is true, it may be because their parents enabled them to have those opportunities.</p>

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<p>The phenomenon you’re describing is called the Z List.</p>

<p>For more information about aforementioned Z List see:
[Amazon.com:</a> The Price of Admission: How America’s Ruling Class Buys Its Way into Elite Colleges – and Who Gets Left Outside the Gates (9781400097968): Daniel Golden: Books](<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/Price-Admission-Americas-Colleges-Outside/dp/1400097967]Amazon.com:”>http://www.amazon.com/Price-Admission-Americas-Colleges-Outside/dp/1400097967)
[Amazon.com:</a> The Chosen: The Hidden History of Admission and Exclusion at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton: Jerome Karabel: Books](<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/Chosen-History-Admission-Exclusion-Princeton/dp/B0027VT0HE/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1305220992&sr=8-2]Amazon.com:”>http://www.amazon.com/Chosen-History-Admission-Exclusion-Princeton/dp/B0027VT0HE/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1305220992&sr=8-2)
[Z-Listed</a> Students Experience Year Off | News | The Harvard Crimson](<a href=“http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2010/3/30/students-year-harvard-zlist/]Z-Listed”>Z-Listed Students Experience Year Off | News | The Harvard Crimson)
[The</a> Back Door to the Yard | News | The Harvard Crimson](<a href=“http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2002/6/6/the-back-door-to-the-yard/]The”>The Back Door to the Yard | News | The Harvard Crimson)
[Veritas</a> Has No ‘Z’ | Opinion | The Harvard Crimson](<a href=“http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2002/10/17/veritas-has-no-z-it-is/]Veritas”>Veritas Has No 'Z' | Opinion | The Harvard Crimson)</p>

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<p>Nothing is perfect and there are flaws in everything and when an appropriate thread comes up I’ll certainly contribute to that too.
But in this thread the purpose of showing the legacies acceptances at HMSPY is to indicate that you can be an elite institute without giving undue advantage (4 to 6 times the acceptance rate) to legacies, atheletes, URM or for any other reason.</p>

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<p>^Actually URMs do get a substantial boost at MIT. I would bet for a qualified URM it’s much greater than 4 to 6 times the regular rate!</p>

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<p>[Affirmative</a> Action Admits Tend To Be More Successful Than Legacy Admits, Says Study](<a href=“http://diverseeducation.com/article/7277/]Affirmative”>http://diverseeducation.com/article/7277/)</p>

<p>excerpt: However, legacies who enjoyed a greater admissions bonus earned lower grades. The greater the gap between a legacy’s SAT score and the institutional average, the lower grades they received. The odds of a legacy admit leaving school were higher when they posted lower grades than their schoolmates.</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2008/08/04/legacy[/url]”>http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2008/08/04/legacy&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>excerpt (re: Duke): While the study finds that legacy students and others with college parents come from advantaged backgrounds, in which cultural and educational activities were common, legacy averages on measures of academic performance suggest that they are less well prepared than other students whose parents went to college. For example, the average SAT score for legacies is 40 points lower than that of students with parents who have professional degrees and 12 points lower than that of students whose parents have college degrees. About 44 percent of legacy students – compared to 32 percent of students whose parents have professional degrees – are below SAT averages for the class in which they were admitted.</p>

<p>In their first semester, legacies perform on average two-tenths of a letter grade lower than students with professional degree parents and one-tenth lower than other students whose parents have college degrees. After the first year, however, the legacies close this gap. Beyond performance, legacies also differ from other students in what they study. Compared to other students, alumni children are less likely to study the natural sciences or engineering and are more likely to major in humanities.</p>

<p>In terms of post-graduation plans, the study finds that legacies aren’t that different from other students, although they are slightly less likely to report plans to go to graduate school full time. One difference, perhaps not surprising, is that legacy students are more likely to plan on using personal connections in planning their futures. While 45 percent of students with professional degree parents say that they plan to use personal contacts in seeking post-graduation opportunities, two thirds of legacies plan on making use of such connections.</p>

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<p>But you haven’t proven that it’s an advantage of 4 times the acceptance rate, POIH. Because legacies as a whole might still have a high acceptance rate if their legacy status wasn’t known. And that’s shown by the fact that if you look at other-elite-school legacies as a control group, it’s not that much of a boost. Haven’t you been reading the thread? Or are you just determined to tout MIT’s supposed perfection in every way?</p>

<p>Oh, MIT does recruit athletes. I guess that’s “different.”</p>