My parents attended brown and upenn respectively, and other members of my family (Uncle, aunt, grandparent) have attended those two schools also. Will this help me to be accepted into these schools? Thanks
I think it helps a lot - but only assuming you’re already qualified (because there are far more qualified applicants than a college can accept, so this would be a way to choose one over the others).
If you’re not already qualified, they’d have to probably donate a ton of money to the school or something to get you accepted, but I’m assuming that’s not your case.
First of all, the amount legacy factors into college evaluation varies by school, and some elite schools don’t consider at all; for example, MIT doesn’t look at legacy at all. You can see how much legacy matters in each college from CDS C-7 or from collegedata.com.
Second, you should know why legacy is taken into account. It all starts with that colleges want money. When a college accepts into its institution an applicant whose parent(s) or grandparent(s) (note that aunt/uncle/etc. usually do NOT count, and typically ONLY parents and grandparents count) is/was an alumnus of the college, the college is giving a sign of asking the alumnus to donate money to its college. Typically, colleges accept an applicant in with a very high chance if the applicant’s parents are the alumni of the college AND are very rich AND have histories of donating a significant amount of money to the college. Otherwise, colleges won’t really care much about legacy status.
So ask yourself:
Is any of your parents/grandparents an alumnus of the college you are applying for (check each school’s legacy policy for more accurate data)?
If so, is he/she rich?
If so, has he/she donated money to the college you are applying to?
If you said yes to the last question, then your chances of acceptance to that college will go up. However, don’t bank on it too much as it is merely one factor, especially when he/she hasn’t donated HUGE sums of money (like, enough to construct a building named after him/her).
Legacy status is hard to untangle, but in general it will really only help you if your alumni family has donated significantly to the university, and if you’re already a reasonably-qualified applicant. It won’t factor in much, if at all, if there haven’t been any donations, and/or your grades, scores, and other stats are too far below what they’re willing to admit.