Just Wondering if it will help at all?
Legacies normally have somewhat of an advantage during admissions process although different schools have different policies regarding legacy status. I.e no one other than your parents count at some schools while other may not follow that rule so stringently
Legacies definitely help and I believe it offers you a second read on your application.
Columbia is so selective now that it will only help if you are competitive in every other respect. If your grades, test scores, and extracurriculars would not otherwise qualify you for admission, then legacy won’t get you in. I am an alumna (Barnard and graduate school) married to an alumnus, and neither of our kids had a chance in the current admissions scenario. We have numerous friends whose children have been rejected, despite respectable high school records. If your family has donated millions, it would make a difference. The biggest hook I’ve observed among kids we were surprised to see admitted has been athletics in recent years.
Re: #4 - @westchester1: I understand that, to some extent, but my husband is a CC alumnus, and we know that wouldn’t have helped much unless either boy was highly qualified in every other way. Neither would have made the initial academic cut, nor would they have played a varsity sport. My husband’s best friend from college was informed that his son - a good student, with high stats, who went to NYU - wouldn’t have a prayer for admission. That was probably 16 or 17 years ago, and CC has only grown more selective since then. If your child is a highly competitive applicant, the legacy will help. If not, it won’t make a difference unless you have buildings named after you.
Legacy at Columbia can play a relatively large impact on your admission result. As for me (Dad went to grad school for engineering), it definitely changed the outcome for me because I was outright rejected at comparable schools like Princeton, Harvard, and Penn, but was waitlisted at Columbia for engineering. That being said, I was also a relatively competitive applicant at all the schools I applied to (34 ACT, 790 and 800 on SAT II, 5s and 4s on APs, strong curriculum, and high GPA). I ended up staying on the waitlist, but chose Cornell, which I also happened to have legacy at, since their engineering is much better. All in all, yes, legacy is important (especially in the ED rounds), but you must be a objectively and subjectively competitive applicant.
@kevinjuan Actually,legacies only matter if your parents go there for undergrad, not grad.
At Ivies, being a legacy gets you a second look but it is not a guarantee.
On this plus side, they will send you extra-long rejection letters explaining exactly how sorry they are to discontinue a family legacy if they do reject you!
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Agree with what others said…it won’t bring you up from the bottom of the pile but if you are a competitive applicant, it may well tip you into the acceptance pile.
it’s equivalent to a lob.
if you’re athletic enough to dunk, it’s a lot easier to do so off of a lob than doing so off dribble
otherwise, it doesn’t matter (and is just more embarrassing).
@Qwerty568 This isn’t necessarily correct. Many schools accept parents who were from their grad schools as legacies that their children have connections to. On the Common App, each school’s supplement will ask what degree your parent received from the university. Because of this, grad school legacies do count. Furthermore, legacy, while not a guarantee of admission, definitely play an important role, but the academics are obviously required. My legacy status definitely helped me get different outcomes to schools I may not have had a very good shot at (Columbia, Cornell, and UVA OOS). Finally, your theory of an extra long rejection letter is just down right absurd and incorrect. Colleges will send the same rejection letters to all rejected applicants since many of these schools receive such a large volume of applicants that they can’t sort through all rejected legacies and send special letters to them. Unless you’ve already applied and gotten into college, I think many of the things your saying are unfounded and misleading to a person who just wants as honest of an answer I can give.
@kevinjuan That is not a theory. I know that you get rejection letter supplement- that is honestly not a joke. I received one for Harvard (which surprised me, since my grandfather went there, not my father/mother, and I wasn’t really a very competitive applicant). A friend whose parents and sister attended Harvard got one as well. My best friend recieved one for Yale. It isn’t long, and it isn’t personalized by any means, but it exists. I promise that I say this with complete honesty. If you are a legacy at one of these schools, believe me, you will get a LOT of almuni-related mail from the Ivies.
Grad school legacies may count at Ivies, but to a more limited extent than they do for undergrad. This is a well-established fact on College Confidential. I suggest you scour some other threads; many other members are in agreement with me.
Please refrain from being rude. The things I say are not unfounded, nor are they misleading. If anything, you are being misleading, because unless you have an SAT of 1200, there is absolutely no way for you to know how your legacy status influenced your admissions decision considerably at those schools. Many students consider legacy a significant hook. It will NOT get you in if you don’t have fantastic stats as well, especially at non-Ivies. Even if you were rejected from peer schools…it does not indicate that legacy got you in.
Columbia’s admissions officially considers legacy only during Early Decision and you are deemed legacy if your parents or siblings were in Columbia College (undergraduate only) or in SEAS (undergraduate or graduate). So a masters in engineering or applies science is the only masters that count for legacy. Of course you list your parents degrees in the Common App so there might be some benefit from other graduate degrees but only for extremely competitive applicants. My S1 was wait-listed at Stanford, CalTech, and MIT but his legacy at Columbia might have given him the slight push needed get over the line and he applied regular decision with no ‘official’ legacy consideration.