<p>What % of the MIT class is legacies? If it’s small, maybe that means that MIT students disliked their time there so much that they dissuaded their kids from applying. I’m being facetious, but it’s possible.</p>
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A majority of the kids at those colleges are from public schools.</p>
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<p>I’m not sure I’d agree that legacy applicants would be more likely to be accomplished in these areas than kids from the other pool with equivalent academic/intellectual parameters. But okay, to design the control group, you could throw in the average rating that legacies get on the EC scale, which I’m sure all admissions offices have in some form or another.</p>
<p><<<if it’s=“” small,=“” maybe=“” that=“” means=“” mit=“” students=“” disliked=“” their=“” time=“” there=“” so=“” much=“” they=“” dissuaded=“” kids=“” from=“” applying.=“”>>></if></p>
<p>We have two close friends, brothers, who are MIT alums who insist that their children will never attend MIT–to quote the younger brother, “I was bloody miserable, there.” </p>
<p>Three men in our synagogue, all MIT alums, too say that their children will never attend MIT, all citing a less-than-satisfactory social environment.</p>
<p>@antidrama</p>
<p>What I got out of the first article you referenced was that if admissions standards are lowered for legacies, they will do worse than the average student. This is a no brainer!</p>
<p>fwiw: MIT’s Common Data Set clearly states that legacy is a “Considered” factor, which is the same priority as first gen, URM, and geographical residence.</p>
<p>maryfk your takeaway is exactly, IMHO, on target. White kids who arent athletes, kids of profs, or well connected financially have a very,very remote chance of being accepted to HYP. The spots allocated for them have largely been taken up by the afore-mentioned group.</p>
<p>Soomoo: What I got out of the first article you referenced was that if admissions standards are lowered for legacies, they will do worse than the average student. This is a no brainer!</p>
<p>I was merely pointing out that among legacy admits, there is a significant enough group of legacies, within the legacy admit group, who are admitted with lesser data/qualifications to even make a categorical statement that they do more poorly than minority admits.</p>
<p>I was not unmindful that admitted students with lower data tend to do more poorly on the college level<—not my point.</p>
<p>^sm74</p>
<p>If you page down to the bottom of this link you will see the % composition of all the favored groups at Princeton for the class of 2014. Now clearly there is some overlap in these numbers, (URM athletes, URM legacies). You are right though in that there is not much left over for just your average white kid.</p>
<p>Really though, if you are a white kid from a not so very interesting geographical location you are really going to have a tough time.</p>
<p>Is there a correct number of unhooked white kids that should be admitted though? What is it?</p>
<p><a href=“http://paw.princeton.edu/issues/2010/10/13/pages/9837/index.xml[/url]”>http://paw.princeton.edu/issues/2010/10/13/pages/9837/index.xml</a></p>
<p>Yale says that legacies perform better at Yale than non-legacies do. You don’t have to believe this, of course.</p>
<p>And soomoo, those Princeton numbers refer to “minority” students, not URMs. I think this probably includes Asian students. I very much doubt that 37% of Princeton students are African-American, Hispanic, or Native American.</p>
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<p>PG: Why it’s a problem to point to the good quality of an institute compare to the peer institutes? Isn’t that the reason we all are on this CC site.</p>
<p>^Yes. I understood that to be the case. ORMs are definitely not “hooked”. It was more that a previous poster was wondering how many spots “unhooked white kids” got. </p>
<p>All statistics say it’s even tougher for unhooked asian kids.</p>
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<p>I’ve seen the 40% figure mentioned on CC a few times to refer to the number of students in each class at top schools with those hooks. I don’t know how it was calculated but it sounds about right given overlap among the favored groups. Since about 10% at these schools are internationals, that leaves about 50% of the class for the non-hooked whites and Asian-Americans. If you know the distribution of applicants (for ex. many more than 10% are internationals), you could figure out the admit rate for this group.</p>
<p>It’s more than a little offensive to postulate that once you clear away legacies, athletes, URM, etc., there’s a “real pool” that the “real deserving kids” are chosen to fill. </p>
<p>White unhooked kids don’t “own” slots at HYPSM that are being ripped away from them and handed to legacies, athletes, URM’s, first gen, etc. Even if HYPSM explicitly decides they want to give x% of the spots to legacies, athletes, URM’s, first gen, whatever, in their role as social engineers, as private schools they have that right … no? </p>
<p>And amazingly enough, even though these schools are all being filled with so many “undeserving” legacies, athletes, URM’s, etc. – no one ever looks down the line and says, “Well, the smart kids must be going some place else then – I’ll go there.” Nope. It’s talking out of both sides of your mouth. These places are now diluted by the weaker hooked kids – but my smart kid absolutely has to wind up there or else he’ll just up and die. Uh – if you really believe the truest smart kids are being crowded out of HYPSM by weaker unhooked kids, then where are they going and why wouldn’t you want to head there?</p>
<p>^Yes PG I agree with you 100% but it’s still fun to play around with the numbers to try and get a feel for how many truly “unhooked” kids are walking around on these campuses. :)</p>
<p>first gen, URM, legacy, gender, etc. should have no effect on your admissions process</p>
<p>Meritocracy at Harvard significantly predated WWII. My grandmother, the daughter of a Russian Jewish immigrant, was a member of the Radcliffe Class of 1917, and her three younger brothers and one brother-in-law all went to Harvard College. Her father, who had nothing but a cheder education in Lithuania, had gotten rich enough to send his children to college, but nowhere near rich enough to buy their way in. At the time, it was not remarkable to see German Jews in elite colleges – my grandmother roomed with Estelle Frankfurter, sister of the then newly-minted Harvard Law professor. But Russian Jews were another thing. At Yale and Princeton, they were not accepted in any numbers until after WWII.</p>
<p>As a result of this, my family had an intense loyalty to Harvard, one that is only waning now, when none of the current generation gets accepted. My generation had 7 undergraduates and 5 graduate/professional students. My mother – who herself turned down a place at Radcliffe, and then dropped out of Harvard Law School in disgust – sang “Fair Harvard” and “With Crimson In Triumph Flashing” to me, literally in the cradle. When I applied to Harvard – I had a conversation much like Mr. Wells’, except there WAS another college where I wanted to go – I could list 37 relatives whom I knew personally who had Harvard degrees (well, 36, since my mother never got her degree). I would not be considered a legacy under today’s rules, but then there was no question about it.</p>
<p>But, maybe the reality is that the only thing that truly qualifies you for Harvard is to be a “hooked” student. I mean, if you have to have an SAT above X, and a GPA above Y in a curriculum A, and be hooked? So what? Don’t apply if you’re not hooked. Or, apply, with the understanding you are buying a ticket in the unhooked raffle and hope they call your number.</p>
<p>I think ALL the kids in the freshman classes at HYP can do the work and deserve to be there and will bring a lot to the institution. No issue there. I am just looking at it from the point of view of my own rising high school senior daughter currently #1 in her class at a large college-prep high school. HYP is her dream and when she looks at the admissions statistics she sees 6% (or some other low number) admission rate for HYP and she thinks she has a 6/100 chance of being accepted. She doesn’t. She has a MUCH LESS chance of being accepted because she is not an athlete, is a girl (many more girls apply to college than boys), is white, and from a very populous state (it might even be close to a zero percent chance). Better to have a realistic view now and let that inform her college search than a shock next spring.</p>
<p>Among my son’s friends (the class graduating this year), three of the four people accepted at Harvard or Yale were unhooked non-legacies, and two of those three were totally unhooked east Asians whose main claim to fame was academic ability. None of the four was a valedictorian, or even close to it.</p>