Lingering frustration over the almost non-existent career services help
Solicitations from them always misidentify the particular school within the university from which I graduated
Nonetheless, I think it could be a good fit for my child. I assume that from the college’s perspective the appeal of a legacy is primarily the establishment of a family tradition that has led or will lead to alumni donations? If I haven’t donated, has that negated the impact of my child being a legacy?
It depends on the school. On the application they only ask if your parents (sometimes family members) attended this school, they never ask if they have donated.
A hook is when someone from the development office or a coach or the head of a department has the clout to walk into admissions and let them know that so-and-so is to be admitted, period.
If your old college/university gives bonus points for legacies, then your kid will get them whether or not you’ve ever donated one cent.
Agree with happymomof1. Legacy status is not related to donations. (Being a ‘development admit’ is.) The definition of a legacy varies by school - for some it’s just for a candidates whose parent attended as an undergrad. For others, grad school counts. For some, it’s just parents. For others, siblings or grand parents might count.
Legacy is important at many schools especially if it is a parent or grandparent. Some schools will not allow you to put anything down beyond that. Certain schools require it to be the same undergrad. Others more flexible. Chicago, Emory, Penn (parent or possibly grandparents and it must be ED), Cornell (they actually check, we got an email requesting attendance information), Brown, Barnard and Yale (sometimes). Columbia does not care about grad school or Barnard legacies (even from the days before Columbia was coed) so I really do not understand why they give you false hope by asking for the information in the first place. They do care about College or SEAS legacies but not as much as some other schools.
I think it depends on the school and the kid. I have two friends who went to an Ivy Legaue University who were told that legacy would not help their kids unless it was coupled with significant donations over time. I recently went to a college fair and the Director of Admissions from Gettysburg distinguished between “legacies” (those who had donated $ since graduation) and “former customers” (alums who had not contributed financially since graduation).
My relatives and some of my friends relatives are former customers, other than Columbia they were treated as legacies, getting letters thanking them for encouraging me or my friends to apply.