<p>I know that colleges prefer "legacy" applicants. I bet at tier-1 schools there are a lot of legacy applicants. I wonder if we pulled legacy applicants out of the mix, how that would impact acceptance rates? I wonder if it is significant or not. Anybody have any idea?</p>
<p>I don't think that legacy applicants get the advantage now that they might have in the past unless the legacy involves prominent and powerful parents, or parents and family who have donated vast sums of money. My child got waitlisted at both of her parents legacy schools, but was admitted to a top ten school where there was no legacy.</p>
<p>while it obviously varies by school, legacy does mean something at most top schools--but less than you might think. Basically, it is a tie-breaker (i.e., all other things being equal, the legacy gets the nod over the non-legacy) unless a great deal of money has been donated (think building named after you).</p>
<p>At Stanford, the legacy acceptance rate is twice that of other applicants fwiw.</p>
<p>also, many schools (such as UPenn and Duke, I believe) dont take legacy into account unless you apply ED, because (whether its fair or not) they often assume that legacy kids applying RD are only doing so b/c their parents made them and not because they were genuinely interested.</p>
<p>Does having a legacy, in general, help out a little when applying EA over RD?</p>
<p>Yes.</p>
<p>Being legacy is a better chance booster than being URM. I looked up statistics to back it up in some past thread (like 5-6 top schools each showed about 5-7% advantage for legacy kids over URM).</p>