<p>I am making a list of HS that my son may apply to in September.
Is it somewhat misleading to me when HS boast high Ivy acceptance rate, while in reality most of it is due to legacy .
It is not uncommon at some HS school in my area, to have more than 50% legacies in a senior class, at any giving year. I would not be surprised if in 10 year the # of legacy is close to 100%.
When prospective parents look at a HS school brochure, they can't help be impressed, when they see the high acceptance rate at the Ivies.
I am an immigrant and so are many of my friends. One of them told me she will not put her son at a particular HS because not a single kid went to H. last year. That is how she decides how rigorous a HS is.</p>
<p>Legacy applicants do have an advantage, but it isn't a huge one.</p>
<p>And there's really no way to factor it out. Many legacy applicants who are accepted into highly selective colleges are just as qualified as other applicants. So eliminating all legacies before calculating acceptance rates wouldn't give an accurate picture, either.</p>
<p>Perhaps the best thing your son can do as he puts together his list and discusses it with you is to ignore the legacy thing completely. He needs to choose colleges that are right for him -- in the reach, match, and safety categories. That's where his focus needs to be -- not on the legacy status of some of his classmates (who may not be well suited for the colleges where they are legacies, anyway).</p>
<p>Do you mean private high schools (prep schools)? Or do you live in a city where you can apply to different public high schools? A lot of parents do look at how many seniors are accepted at very competitive colleges as a measure of how good the high school is. Even if some of that is due to legacy, a high school with a lot of kids going to Ivy colleges is probably going to prepare your child for college well.</p>
<p>I think it's excellent that a HS has a history of sending student's to Ivy's, regardless of whether they are legacy's or not. For many HSs, the Ivy League is like Pluto --- it exists, but is irrelevant to their student's lives.</p>
<p>Muffy I do mean private HS.
Marian My son is in seven grade he is not looking at Colleges.
It is true that many legacies do qualify to attend the schools but their status do give them an edge.</p>
<p>I don't think it's misleading - their acceptance rate is their acceptance rate, and it would be impossible for a school to make a valid determination as to how many of their students would have been accepted in the absence of the legacies. If my main purpose in sending a child to a particular private school was to get him into an Ivy, making the Ivy acceptance rate a very important factor, I'd certainly dig deeper into the statistics before writing my check.</p>
<br>
<blockquote> <p>Is it somewhat misleading to me when HS boast high Ivy acceptance rate, while in reality most of it is due to legacy .<<</p> </blockquote>
<br>
<p>Legacy, unless your last name is Kennedy or Bush, doesn't carry this much clout--not in this day and age, even at an Ivy.</p>
<p>Mdoc I agree with you. However, I want to point out to parents that there are other factors that make that acceptance rate so high.</p>
<p>Pullinhhair, indeed at many elite private high schools, a large number of kids will be legacies at top schools. There are usually many top URM candidates and kids who will be recruited athletes too. These schools have scholarship money and their classes look very much like a class at a highly selective college. Often there will be several development candidates as well.</p>
<p>As we found out, when it comes time to apply to college this will be your child's number one pool of competition. While some think legacy is not important, at every top college I've seen legacies are admitted at twice the rate or more. At schools like Princeton, it's much higher than that.</p>
<p>And the kids at these high schools are mostly all qualified as the standard of getting into the high school is similar to that of a top college--high SSAT scores, top grades and good ECs, so these are usually successful legacy applicants.</p>
<p>So while Andover may send 10 kids to Harvard this year, 8 will most probably be legacies, URM, recruited athletes and development.</p>
<p>It's important to understand this in looking at private high schools.</p>
<p>I agree with you 100 % hmom5.
Ellemenope legacy does carry some clout. I remember reading years ago that Harvard reserve 10% of is entering class for legacies.</p>
<p>Do the HS's (assuming private) want to know what colleges you and you spouse attended?
Why do you think they are interested? In part it's because they know that the legacy status will provide an edge to their graduates four years from now. As a result legacy status (at colleges) provides an edge in admissions to competitive private HS's.</p>
<p>Also concur on the legacy advantage. It won't get a 3.5/2000 kid in, but can work wonders for a 3.9/2200. </p>
<p>And, don't forget, if your kid is not one of the top 10 at Andover (just to follow hmom's example), it's unlikely he'll get into Harvard. (The Andover GC cannot write 'best-of-my-career' on every recommendation in his/her school.)</p>
<p>There was an article in the WSJ a couple of years ago about a southern california family who mortgaged the house to send their son to one of the top NE prep schools so he could get into Yale. Since he was not part of the top xx at the prep school, he did not get into Yale.</p>
<p>The same thing is true for athletic abilities and minority status. But these things are at least attributes of the student rather than their parent.</p>
<p>Legacy does count. 13% of Princeton's freshman class next year will be legacies. </p>
<p>
[quote]
So while Andover may send 10 kids to Harvard this year, 8 will most probably be legacies, URM, recruited athletes and development.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>One of the many things I've learned here at CC is how very true this is. I'm not complaining nor do I think it's wrong but it is true and it's something that parents need to understand.</p>
<p>So, yes, I agree that the stats are misleading.</p>
<p>If you have a child who is a non-legacy, non-URM, non-recruited athlete it would be nice to know the placement track record of the HS for non-legacy, non-URM non-recruited athletes.</p>
<p>No high school wants to tell you that! At one of my kid's schools, parents finally won the battle to have them identify legacies, URMs and athletes on their internal scattergrams. Not available to applicants however.</p>
<p>The good news is that development candidates are said to be way down this year!</p>
<p>The other thing I'll throw in my opinion on the legacy issue. I think people see that legacy kids they know are not getting in and assume it's not a hook. Colleges favor a certain type of legacy, one that comes from a very high income family that has given somewhat significant gifts, but more importantly, is known to have the potential to give large gifts in the future. Development offices have files on such families. These families are often big city private or boarding school families. These kids have a very high chance of acceptance if they have 25th percentile stats. If they have median stats, they're in.</p>
<p>Hmom5 I don't expect HS to tell parents who the legacies are or the percentage of it.
At my kids' school, the kids always know who the legacies are. Every year it seems to get higher.
There is no question that colleges favor legacies from high income families. This is going to get worse because of the economy.
Curious14 I never made the connection that you mentioned in your post.</p>
<p>There were a number of legacy acceptances to H and Y from our large public high school and some who weren't. But every kid who was accepted at those schools was in the top 2% of the class as well and had excellent SAT scores as well. And every kid in the top 3 or 4% of the class, no matter who their parents were, went to excellent schools.</p>
<p>But I do agree, it sure would be nice to know when you are evaluating how good a school's college placement is to have some indication of how much legacy, URM or athletics may have played into those admissions decisions.</p>
<p>Equally important since students cannot be legacies at all top schools, it would be nice to know into how many of those top schools individual students got admitted. This would put the legacy factor into better context. S2 applied to two schools. One in which he had multiple hooks and one where he had none. He got into both.</p>
<p>That would be hard at colleges that offer ED because that's when legacies apply. At my kids' different private schools, before H and P stopped ED/EA, about 80% of kids applied in that round. Now it's down to 70%!</p>