<p>Yale did an analysis of admitted legacy applicants who also applied to Harvard and Princeton. They found a substantial number were cross admitted at those schools as well – signalling that even w/o any legacy “boost”, those kids happened to be amongst the most competitive. </p>
<p>I don’ t have the actual data or the actual report. These obviously Yale friendly, Yale is fair- type findings should be scrutinized – but if taken as true, they point to the correlation of high achieving parents and high achieving offspring being more a factor than simply George W type of legacy admissions that were endemic in the top colleges in days gone by.</p>
<p>Tons of top politicians kids get in with questionable stats all the time - George W Bush had a 1206 (on a 1600 scale and before they recentered the test, which would now be a 1260/1600), Al Gore had a 1355 (and got a D in natural sciences at Harvard!), John Kerry got lower grades than Bush at Yale. Apparently Barack Obama’s records are a state secret, but he was among a transfer class into Columbia that had an average of 1100 (1600 scale) on the SAT. George W’s estimated IQ based on numerous tests is about 125, Al Gore about 133, JFK was estimated at 119. About the only legit admittance into any of the top schools I can find is Chelsea Clinton - don’t know her scores, but she’s undoubtedly smart enough to get into Stanford on her own, and I personally think she’s got all the charm of a dead fish.</p>
<p>Perhaps the real scandal is not that the connected get their kids into HYP, that’s always going to happen, but rather what I’ve said before, you don’t have to be all that smart to succeed there, about an IQ of 125 or an ACT of 27-28 will get you through. You basically need an IQ of 125 to become a physician. So you need to be Top 5% or so, which is really smart compared to the general population, but there are still plenty of smarter people. As the saying goes, you have no idea how low below average really is.</p>
<p>The idea that the kids at HYP are the best and the brightest is a myth, there are schools where the rigor is much higher. HYP contains smart kids, but not just the tippy, tippy top. You want to go to HYP for the connections, which once you exceed a certain intelligence threshold, are much more important. That’s why the competition is so keen.</p>
<p>SAT scores are supposed to end in 0, right?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Note that Columbia is relatively transfer friendly, and (generally) transfers at the junior level are mainly evaluated on their previous college records rather than high school credentials.</p>
<p>But also remember that Obama, Bush, Clinton, Gore, etc. attended college when admission standards were not as competitive as they are now, due to there being fewer high school graduates then, and fewer of them trying to go to college.</p>
<p>The SAT has changed over time, and Bush’s score was widely reported, so it’s safe to assume that a mid-60s SAT had numbers other than “0”</p>
<p>The year Obama transferred in, 1981, the freshman class had a 1200 SAT average. Transfers had an 1100 SAT and a college GPA of 3.0. Let’s just say that if his numbers were brilliant, he’d have no reason to keep them under lock and key, for all three schools, Occidental, Columbia, and Harvard.</p>
<p>No one denies Bill Clinton is brilliant. And he definitely had no legacy admit, he’s the definition of merit all the way. Congenital liar, too clever by half, but a very gifted man intellectually and politically. Sometimes you want your leaders to be an SOB, it often comes with the territory.</p>
<p>More kids trying to go to college does not make the top schools more competitive, as most of the additional kids are of marginal quality. Bush, Gore, Kerry, Clinton all went to school at the height of the boomers hitting college. I don’t have enrollment numbers for then vs. now, but at the time, more kids were hitting college than ever before, so it was probably the most competitive it had been up to that point. People were less mobile, which probably kept a lot of kids from applying to schools far away, but I believe a large amount of the increased competition now is due to the surge in high-achieving Asians hitting the colleges starting in the early 90s, though I’m more than willing to be corrected on that point.</p>
<p>I second ucbalumnus on the point that the legacy applicant pool is likely to be stronger than the general applicant pool as a whole. I also know many alumni who don’t encourage their children to apply if they don’t think it’s realistic, though I admit this is anecdotal and doesn’t mean it happens on a large enough scale to be significant.</p>
<p>Most legacies that were accepted to highly selective school had more than just the legacy card going for them. They also may have been a recruited athlete, celebrity, development, very high academic accomplishment, etc. So i’ts difficult to measure how much of a push that the legacy status had. Ivanka Trump was not accepted to UPenn as a freshman despite coming from Choate Rosemary Hall with stats that have gotten others from that school accepted. She did not apply ED and she was waitlisted. Cleared the Georgetown waitlist and transferred to UPenn with excellent first term grades. I know several other legacies that were denied including a double legacy kid with perfect ACTs and first quintile grades (that generally will get a kid into the school) who was WLed to Duke after being deferred ED. Her good friend, non legacy with nearly the same grades and excellent test scores from the same school was accepted. No hook either. So how much did not legacy card count there? I’ve known a number of such cases.</p>
<p>We know someone who has been making sure he is on development at the top colleges since his kid turned a teen so that when the time comes, he’ll be sure to get into HPY. I’ll let you know if it works. The kid is at a top private school, does well at school and has been SAT tutored since he was 10 years old, but no big hook, not a recruited athlete or any other such thing that would help. Dad has the money and will spend over a million to get his kid into one of those schools and is smart enough to know that he can’t be obvious about it and is doing it over time.</p>
<p>If you are a legacy applying to a college, the answer that is most useful for you (to the question of, how much does legacy matter?) is, not much. If you are a parent of a legacy applying to a college, the answer is probably, not at all. Too many people count on legacy as a “huge boost,” only to be bitterly disappointed. </p>
<p>The debate of the relative advantage posed by legacy, and its “fairness,” is a perennial one on CC, and it has the advantage of being a bottomless source of grievance and consolation, so it will never be resolved to anyone’s entire satisfaction.</p>