To what extent do these factors matter to BS admissions? And who exactly qualifies under these categories? For example, how close does the relationship with an alum have to be to make an applicant a legacy? How good does the athlete have to be to become a recruited athlete? What percentage of an applicant’s background needs to be URM to count as a URM? How much money, fame and/or influence does a family have to have to become a development admit? Where are the lines drawn for URS’s?
I think the answer to your question is once again the wholly unsatisfying “it depends”.
I’ll speak to the athletic angle, as I think that was a factor for my younger girl in her admit cycle (though apparently not enough for the one school that rejected her!): As a freshman she was not just a starter on her squad, but the anchor of that squad. The same for her sophomore year. She won season-long individual title both years, and helped her squad finish first one year and second the next. She is nationally ranked in her sport and has already beaten a few Div1 college athletes and national team members in head-to-head play.
Based on that, I think the threshold is “potential to be an impact player”. To make the difference in the team’s W-L column. To allow the school to win titles/accolades. Because all of this contributes to them being able to recruit better players going forward.
Of course lots of other factors come into play, including whether or not the school already has an impact player at the position played by the prospect and when that current student is going to graduate.
Since @SevenDad has done a nice take on the athletic hook, I’ll give my view on legacy and development hooks. SevenDad is certainly right that the answer is “it depends.” I think it’s safe to say that if you had two candidates who were basically the same in all respects except for legacy status, and the school could only give one more offer, then that offer would go to the legacy candidate. It certainly at least gets you the tie-breaker. And I think it’s also clear that legacy status alone (meaning, not combined with development prospects) will not get an unqualified student admitted. In other words, even if every single member of your family attended School X, if you have grades and test scores well below the norm, the legacy status won’t get you in. Now, if every single member of your family attended School X AND there is a building on campus named after your family because they paid for it, well then I think you can expect that the school will be willing to dip pretty far down to take that candidate. That said, even then the school isn’t going to admit a student who they truly think won’t be capable of doing the work – I think in those cases, the Admissions Director has a very polite conversation with the family about some other schools that they think might be a better fit.
As for development prospects who aren’t also legacy, that’s a tougher situation. Just because a family has lots of money doesn’t necessarily mean they’re going to give some big donation to the school. In those cases, the school certainly looks to whether the family has a significant track record in philanthropy, and particularly as it relates to educational institutions. Has the family given major donations to other schools? That’s more attractive than a family with lots of money, but all their prior major donations are to hospitals or the arts. This is why the combination of legacy and development is so attractive to schools, because the prior connection with the school makes it more reasonable for the school to believe that the family will give significant $ if the newest generation gets admitted.
As for what degree of relationship is necessary to be considered, my view is that probably the only thing that really matters is if your parents attended. An uncle or aunt or cousins isn’t of all that much interest, except that it probably puts a slight thumb on the scale when it comes to protecting yield (i.e., a school can reasonable assume that they have a better than average chance that an admitted student will come if another family member is an alum of the school).
As soon as the development case is identified, you can bet the fundraising folks are running them through WealthEngine!
Legacy in general is defined as children (or grandchildren) of alums. Siblings and other relatively are considered associated with the school, which is supposed to have a lesser impact. Legacy helps but considering they are often times a more self selecting and more qualified pool of applicants, a 50% admit rate (vs the general 15% admit rate) may seem high but it just means 1 in 2 of the precious snowflakes of those high achieving alums will get disappointing news on M10!
For athletes, talk to the coaches. They can give you a fairly good idea if your kid is “recruitable”, which doesn’t equal to “recruited” but at least you know the odds.
URM: Depends on the applicant pool in a certain year. For schools that value diversity, if they can’t find “100% URM”, a 50% or even a 25% can be an advantage. The “idea” is that schools are looking for different perspectives and different life experience brought in by URM students, but in reality sometimes they are carried away by the need for a presentable student body profile.
Development case: Is this applicable to you? If I tell you for school A, it only takes 1M, would you pick up the phone and call the development office? 
URS: Outside east coast and mostly not the states with major metros (e.g. Illinois is not URS because of the open-minded Chicagoans).
Athletic hook: if your kid can play as a starter on the varsity team as a freshman then it helps. If your kid is being looked at by college coaches even better. Final call will be with the BS coach to convey interest to admissions.
URM: even one parent who is a URM will help. Best is being URM plus full pay.
Yes, 'It depends" but look at it from a different perspective. First, athletic priorities are not same for all schools, so the star in a certain sport might get a yuge boost at one school and less than none at another. Second, even beyond athletics, all applicants are not competing for the same spots. Well-connected legacies, legacies, legit development cases, spawn of the rich and famous, star, impact athletes, actual wicked smart kids, full-pay pack-fill, and “deserving” FA candidates do not necessarily compete for the same admission. Priorities of individual schools can make real differences, and this sort of thing is the last topic about which most schools want to talk. When schools say they consider applications “holistically” and evaluate the “entire applicant” and work hard to “build their community” what they are really saying is that what they will do is best for the themselves and not for you. The larger schools could fill their entire class with the smartest kids in the world who can’t pay, but they don’t. The smaller schools could fill their entire class with foreign kids who can write a check, but they don’t. Some schools will do anything for a legit development case, and others are somewhat more discerning. One thing is for sure, if you have ever gotten some for-realz special treatment from one of these schools, for whatever reason, you def know it!
This will vary by school, but statistically, at the very top GLADCHEMM (CC term) or HADES schools, legacies seem to get in at the rate that is 2-3x higher than non-legacy admits. There are obviously many reasons for this, including (potentially), lower FA needs, greater awareness of the “process” and perhaps more polishing, and development candidates. But while the percentages are better, it’s not an enormous amount in actual numbers. So it might make the “true admit” rate ex-legacies a few % lower, it doesn’t really matter especially when you recognize that many of these kids would get in regardless of status.
I actually do think sibling impact is pretty high–from what I’ve seen anecdotally, especially if they are relatively close in age, have similar interests, and the older sibling is doing well (or did well). The “fit” question–which is so, so, important–has been answered successfully in the eyes of the admissions staff. I suppose that the reverse is true–if a kid (or a family) was proven to be a problem, well that’s certainly not going to help Tripp’s bother Chip.
Fame and influence matter but it’s such a small % of the class that it’s crazy to worry about or even consider and is pretty much randomly distributed and impossible to project. A local businessman might be “famous” in one school and irrelevant to another. Sure, a senator, actor, or writer’s kid can be in your admissions pool, but just don’t worry about it.
URMs–I think there’s a legal distinction and an EEOC one which I think is 50% (one parent, or 2 of 4 grandparents) is the general guideline. Nowadays, there’s probably a self-identification element for adopted children as well but I don’t know how it is applied.
Athletes, artists, and unique-skill students are very much need-based especially within the context of smaller schools which are trying to solve for an overall class profile and broad excellence. As has been commented above, if your kid is a great goalie, that could be a tremendous hook for a team that is graduating two seniors with little depth behind or a total non-factor for a place that has three sophomore goalies that are all vying for playing time.
This is pretty easy to figure out and most coaches will be very honest with you–it does them no good to encourage a kid that they won’t support or see a successful role for. This isn’t college. These coaches, in our experience, are educators first. There’s not big shoe contract. To that end, we knew very well where our kid would be slotted, and prioritized, in all of our kid’s “recruitable” activities. And we were equally honest about our priorities. You don’t know who else is applying of course (and in multiple classes and potentially PGs), but you do know about the significant returning majority of the existing team or group as they’ll be there next year. So this will vary tremendously school-to-school and year-to-year within the same group of schools, but again, the information is easy to access with an in person or phone conversation (don’t rely too much on email).
And it’s an issue of supply and demand. There are more brilliant violinists and cellists than viola-ists and bassists. There are more great singers than there are great dancers. But all of these schools need depth, so don’t let that discourage you from applying to a place where you might not be first chair.
But remember, always: These schools were fine before–without your kid–and will be fine after, with or without. If Andover doesn’t get Joey the great backstroker because he goes to Hotchkiss instead, they’ll be just fine. The kid they do get will be close enough, and if not this year, next year. Don’t obsess over things you can’t control.
For most colleges, legacies are strictly the parents. And only if they went to undergrad there not graduate school.
For boarding school, it’s harder to say. In one situation, for one in particular, the grandfather went there, as did all his sons, but not the daughters (they were required to stay at home in private day schools). So for her son, legacy is more confusing.
The big name boarding schools are just like mini ivy league schools. They recruit, admit and select students based on similar criteria.
Athletes, URMs and legacy status holds special weight. The big difference is that developmental admits makes up a larger consideration for boarding schools.
URM- National Hispanic Merit Scholarship requires an applicant be st least 25% Latino/a from any Spanish speaking country (including Spain) OR Brasil. Color of skin does not matter.
I have heard 12.5% fulfills Native American status, but I am not 100% sure on that…
Not sure if this was posted earlier, but I believe that geographic diversity plays a large role in any School’s selection process. Go Wyoming!
To qualify as Native American, you should have traceable ancestry to someone on the Dawes Rolls. Not sure if there are % rules although practically, they would be looking for applicants with a meaningful, authentic connection to that culture, not just the family tree. (I.e., grew up on a reservation ).
@gardenstategal --very interesting. As my sister-in-law is part Navajo, I just googled “Dawes Rolls”. Apparently these rolls only applied to five large tribes so they are not inclusive of all Native American tribes (Navajo is not included). There is a lengthy PDF entitled, “How to Trace Your American Indian Ancestry” on the BIA.gov website for anyone who may be interested.
@itcannotbetrue , that’s really interesting. The Navajo Nation is big too, so not sure what those who don’t live there are expected to submit. In our family’s case, the traceable connection predated the Dawes Rolls. (To be fair, while it makes the family tree more interesting, it is not anything that should tip an application! Nor give us a share of the tribe’s income…)
Does being a very good artist qualify as a hook for top prep schools?
I’d say no but perhaps @SculptorDad can share his opinion as his daughter applied two cycles ago and is a great artist.
@doschicos Could being a good artist at least help quite a bit with admission to top prep schools?
Any high-level awards?
It’s not a hook. But it was a big help. I believe it’s called as a pseudo-hook? Anyone wants to see my daughter’s portfolio can message me.
My daughter had about 30 units at college art department, won several regional gold keys from Scholastic, and was accepted by several national juried shows for general (not student) population. She didn’t “win” any high-level awards but still had an uncommon achievement for a middle scholar.
My son is an artist as well, and while I don’t think that it’s much of a hook, it is helpful. We made a point of meeting with the art teacher/head at every tour & interview. This gave GMCkid another person at the school to communicate with, and it was a way for him to express interest. He submitted a portfolio with his application, and followed up with the art department after submission. He’s a talented artist, but doesn’t have nearly the resume of @SculptorDad 's daughter. However the fact that he was interested in the program and made an effort to reach out definitely helped to set him apart a little bit.