<p>“The fact that legacies get admitted to other big name schools does not prove that they are more qualified but only that pedigree can help elsewhere too”</p>
<p>I disagree. The fact that a Princeton legacy kid applies to and is accepted at Yale and Harvard and Princeton says to me the the kid, regardless of her legacy status – was a superstar. No schools have a need to give any preference whatsoever to another school’s legacy applicant. For what purpose could it benefit the college? I can’t think of any.</p>
<p>The example of Yale legacy kids getting cross-admitted to other similar super-selective schools like HPMS is evidence (to me) that the kid is a super star and would have been admitted despite legacy or non-legacy status. </p>
<p>If there were significant nos. of Yale legacy kids who get no other admits from similar super-selective schools – this would be more evidence of Yale’s bias for legacy status. I don’t know if these numbers are separated out from the 20%. That might be info they want to keep closer to the chest. </p>
<p>Obviously, if a large no. exists, this might be perceived as bad form on Yale’s behalf – and they’d be inclined to keep this no. low I imagine.</p>
<p>I did see a story about a study that tried to separate the issue of “kids of legacies have all sorts of advantages-- upbringing, family economics, good education, whatever-- so it’s not so surprising that they get admitted at a higher rate” from “legacies simply have a significant advantage”. They did that by trying to see whether these kids were more likely to get accepted by the legacy school than by other schools of “equal caliber”. The schools remained nameless in return for sharing their data, but they were almost certainly the very top tier schools. The end result-- yes, legacy matters, quite a bit. </p>
<p>T26E4 - "The example of Yale legacy kids getting cross-admitted to other similar super-selective schools like HPMS is evidence (to me) that the kid is a super star and would have been admitted despite legacy or non-legacy status. "</p>
<p>Do you have any evidence that they get admitted everywhere else? I can see that happening with some but not 12% of legacies.</p>
<p>It does help to have well known parents who are legacies at other schools. I can’t see Bill Gate’s son being denied at any Ivy.</p>
<p>Bill Gate’s son has a legacy of fame, not a legacy of an Ivy League. At best his son would be seen as the son of a college drop out (to Harvard of all Places)</p>
<p>Now, in contrast, they’ll see him as the son to the richest American - not the son of a legacy to an Ivy.</p>
<p>All i’m going to say regarding this is that I highly doubt Ivy’s hold some obligation to “steal” legacies from other schools. Their competition is for the best and most fitting students for their campuses, which all are varying in their cultures and atmosphers. Long story short, ANYONE who gets into 3 Ivy’s of their choice is a superstar, nothing short of that.</p>
<p>It would be interesting to read that study, although it looks like you have to pay to read it. There are a few things you’d wonder about. First, i suspect a lot of legacies apply early, and those that get in may never apply anywhere else, or withdraw their applications before hearing back. How is that counted? Second, there is always the possibility that being a legacy at one school might actually hurt you at another school that cares about its yield.</p>
<p>It seems to me that if you really wanted to study how much of an advantage legacy is, you’d want to know what was the next most selective school that an admitted legacy go into. Thus (in my opinion), if a Yale legacy admittee also got into Harvard and/or Princeton, there’s not much evidence of a legacy tip. If, however, he was rejected at other Ivies, and admitted to a school in a lower tier, more evidence. If his next best school was his state flagship, then even more evidence. While I know this is anecdotal, my review of results threads here on CC doesn’t suggest that there are many legacy admittees to top schools whose “next best” school was very far down their list of schools.</p>
<p>In my own very small sample, the tip didn’t seem too helpful. I have undergraduate and graduate degrees from Yale, but my legacy son was rejected there. He’s currently a non-legacy freshman at Harvard (where, to put it mildly, he’s very happy), </p>
<p>We had a pretty realistic sense of how tough it is to get into those schools these days, so we weren’t sure he’d get into H or Y, but we figured his chances were better in New Haven. We can speculate, but we’ll never know why he got into H rather than Y. These decisions are tough to predict.</p>
<p>hunt and opensecret - very interesting posts. The fact that now three schools have gone to SCEA, it would be hard to look into applying elsewhere once a kid has gotten into one of them SCEA if they are legacy. Other schools would know they are not your top choice in the RD round.</p>
<p>Have any of you seen any kind of cross admit statistics for legacies alone? </p>
<p>Jsherm101 - Is it your contention that a dropout does not count for legacy? The whole point of pedigree is that there are more well known people that have come out of the Ivies that any school would like to have their offspring be associated with their own school going forward. I am still not sure about Amy Chua’s daughter’s accomplishments that go above and beyond a peer of her in her own high school but I highly doubt she would have been denied an admission in Columbia, Princeton, Penn if she had applied.</p>
<p>This is for those who look at admit ratios of legacies and jump to conclusions from them.</p>
<p>Some time ago Richard Levin, president of Yale, quoted in the Yale Alumni Magazine a study that showed that while children of Yale parents were admitted into Yale at higher rates than the general population, children of YALE parents were also admitted into HARVARD and PRINCETON at similarly higher rates than the general population IN THOSE RESPECTIVE POOLS.</p>
<p>It is not surprising, the article goes on to say, that when you have parents who tend to value education, and tend to have the experience and means to acquire what’s necessary to further those values, the children will tend to be more highly qualified than the average population.</p>
<p>So calm down, folks, about those legacies. WJB is right in post #4.</p>