Here’s another perspective on legacy. Ime, most kids do not know their target colleges well. They have trouble with any Why Us? or structuring their apps to show “match.” One advantage a legacy may have is a different knowledge of the college (which matters to an elite) via the family connection.
None of this is as simple as a legacy check mark. And as time passes, as SES diversity on campus increases, the mix changes.
However, if a legacy applicant’s greater knowledge of and connection to the college is already an advantage, then why would the college need or want to give additional consideration to the legacy status?
Of course, since the alumni parents of the legacy applicants are college graduates, they are less likely to be low SES than applicants in general. And for elite college feeders to consulting and Wall Street, they are more likely to be high SES than college graduates in general.
“Less likely” doesn’t offer some universal truth. Not all elite grads choose high pay careers, have inheritances, or send their kids to elite preps.
As for, why consider legacy at all, it doesn’t offer some rubber stamp. We’ve been discussing this for years.
Legacy preferences make a mockery of self-proclaimed goal of diversity. I can’t think of any measure, other than outright discrimination, that would make a college less diverse.
There is also history, Time was that kids from high SES on the East Coast would go to the “right” prep school, and from there, automatically go to the “right” college. While thing have changed, legacy admission to these “elite” high schools and these “elite” colleges maintain a large number of students still following this pipeline.
The pressure on the “elite” prep schools and on “elite” colleges to be more inclusive has made changes as has competition from high achieving kids from outside this set of wealthy and powerful people. The establishment of schools like Bronx Science, which wasn’t established to serve the rich and powerful also factored in.
Still, if you compare the number of seniors matriculating to “elite” colleges from top public magnet high schools to those from “elite” private prep schools with an equivalent achievements, there is much higher number of students being accepted and matriculating to “elite” colleges from private prep schools. Partly because of lower numbers of legacies, and partly because of affordability.
Some of the New York public magnets are outliers in this, possibly because they were established specifically to prepare students from lower SES for the “elite” colleges of the Northeast.
Our high school is considered middling in our county. (i.e. we are not talking Scarsdale here) Nevertheless there’s always a good representation of Ivy acceptances and it’s not all sports (though that helps) or legacies (almost every legacy I know of personally got into an equally selective non-legacy).
And while lookingforward talks alot about fit. My kid (a legacy) got into Harvard telling the interviewer why he thought it wasn’t as good a fit as MIT (where he got rejected). His application was bascially “I’m a computer nerd” and he left it up to the colleges to decide how many computer nerds they needed.
The student’s idea of “good fit” may be the opposite of the college’s idea of “good fit” (for aspects other than stronger academic credentials that all colleges like to see).
MIT bachelor’s graduates are over 30% CS majors, while Harvard bachelor’s graduates are probably only about 7% CS majors. Lots of computer nerds see MIT as a “good fit”, but MIT probably does not want that many more CS majors than it already has. On the other hand, if Harvard wants a more well rounded frosh class, it may prefer a computer nerd over another economics or social science major aiming for consulting or Wall Street.
Maybe his spunk appealed to them. We don’t know how this one aspect, the interview, was written up. Over time, you’ve described many of his assets. I don’t think it’s representative to label this just as his legacy.
We totally get that. Which is why we encouraged him to apply. When he went to accepted students weekend he liked it a lot better than he thought he would. (He found the nerds.) But in the end he went to an even nerdier place.
I just worry that kids perceptions of what a good fit is and what colleges are looking for may not be accurate. I also think that they may well have admired his spunk. They were creating an engineering department that year as well. And to get back to the topic. He did have a 4.0. 
“Fit” is always through the lens of the school. Criteria are never specific in holistic admissions. No one, including the insiders, can articulate them in anything other than vague generalities. Furthermore, applications of the general “critera” are inherently and unavoidably subjective (unless an applicant happens to fill one of the school’s particular “institutional needs”).
It’s almost impossible to pinpoint why an applicant was accepted by one school but rejected by another with any precision, because the process lacks precision, legacy or not. The process is purposely designed to be that way, so no one, especially the outsiders, can question it, except trying to “explain” in terms of some vague “fit”.
You’re right, @1NJParent, that criteria are not always specifically laid out. But this is more than a one-word concept, “fit.” It’s too simple to boil it down that way. It’s a bit of the common want for clear instructions, “Do it this way and you’re set.” Easy, little work.
The first issue with elites is the limited number of seats. Plenty of great kids don’t get an admit because the roster is full. But kids who can dig a bit and even acknowledge that it takes more than wanting a college and having the stats or some titles, can better present themselves to those colleges.
What I advocate is that, rather than getting upset, kids/families do take a deeper look, see what they can glean about the college’s sense of identity, the sort of community it has built and wants to continue. Nope, it’s not handed to you. But hey, if you’re going for a tippy top, why not try to understand?
MIT is one of the clearest on this, via their blogs. Yet, how many kids never even get that far, find them and put a little head thought into digesting the messages? How often do threads focus on stats, missing the “what else?” Not to mention, kids confusing what a school does offer.
A little more care could benefit.
As usual, Harvard does this to the most extreme. In their CDS, almost every factor is in the “considered” column (except for factors they do not consider, like religion). This allows them to accept whoever they want, without being bound by any specific criterion.
Unless you attend one of the well connected feeder high schools where the dedicated college counseling staff will tell you which “reach” colleges are the ones most likely to see you as “good fit” for them.
Of course, the CDS is not gospel, not policed in any way. Not some formula. You get more sense of what a college wants in other ways. But many look at the CDS and assume that, if one category is highly considered and another just considered, it offers insight into what “matters more.” Not necessarily.
Imo, H’s problem (challenge) is their ‘what we look for,’ which I find utterly vague.
A dedicated HS college counselor certainly helps, but it’s shocking how many students and parents ignore the advice.
I do think it’s time we stopped looking at all this as if privilege makes kids interesting to an elite. That’s such simplistic thinking, as if the whistles and bells are all it takes. Pay-to-play isn’t an “it.”
The challenge is much more than your parents paid for something. Lots of kids choose narrow paths, never expand, can’t do an effective Why Us-- no matter their affluence.
Much of what hs kids can do, the extras like travel sports or enrichment programs, are not among the criteria.
And feeder schools, as I’ve said, can be any sort. Plenty of hs out there with good track records with elites.
Too much emphasis, in some thinking, on buzzwords like “fit” or “feeder” or cursory looks at the family wealth of enrolled students.
Looks like that you do not want to admit that privilege of various kinds gives some students a leg up in admissions, or finding which elite colleges are most likely to be the ones that see them as a “good fit”.
But then the ideology that everyone has an equal starting line to becoming self-made makes it easier for the existing elites to justify parentally bestowed advantages, and adding privilege to existing advantage (like legacy preferences), in order to perpetuate an inherited aristocracy, even though it may allow a few outsiders in while also doing some weeding out of its own ranks.
My experience is very much that privilege does not make for a better app. It does not mean a kid can think her/her way out of a paper bag, so to say.
Perpetuating an inherited aristocracy is bosh. Again, simplistic thinking, looking for easy excuses, trying to blame colleges rather than see where the responsibility starts: with the applicant.
Not to mention, how it aggravates me when faced with sterotypes about kids in lesser resourced high schools.
On the topic:
What I advocate is that, rather than getting upset, kids/families do take a deeper look, see what they can glean about the college’s sense of identity, the sort of community it has built and wants to continue.
Excellent advice. And why I don’t understand kids/families who apply to all of the ivies as though they are interchangeable.