<p>If one is an alumni of a professional school at a university and contributes, does that have any legacy pull (assuming there is any at all at the school) for undergraduate admissions?</p>
<p>I would guess that it is a very minor plus on the student’s application.</p>
<p>Depends on how big the contribution is.</p>
<p>Apparently this varies from school to school.</p>
<p>It depends on the individual college. Stanford treats grad school alumni as legacy, but I believe that the Ivy Leagues limit that category to graduates of the undergraduate college. Legacy also carries different weight (and sometimes none at all) at different colleges.</p>
<p>It varies from college to college. If you read their materials carefully, they often address it.</p>
<p>By and large, from the colleges’ perspective “legacy” preferences are a marketing tool, both to get students they want (often high-quality, full-paying students who are more likely to enroll than the average applicant), and to cement family loyalty for the purposes of mining contributions in the future. So there’s no particular reason NOT to look at grad or professional school alumni as conferring a legacy. The more the merrier!</p>
<p>I am reasonably certain that Penn treats the children of professional-school graduates as legacies. (Those children of Wharton MBAs are ESPECIALLY likely not to consume too many of the university’s financial aid resources.) I think Harvard limits it to parents and grandparents who were undergraduates there. I don’t know about other Ivy League schools.</p>
<p>There’s a lot of debate about this on CC. Personally, I believe that there is no real legacy advantage at the most selective colleges (and at some of them maybe there is a mild legacy disadvantage) unless one is talking about substantial (multiples of $1 million) historical contributions. Legacies clearly get admitted at a higher rate than the average, but there is reason to believe that as a group they are more qualified than average, too.</p>
<p>“Legacies clearly get admitted at a higher rate than the average, but there is reason to believe that as a group they are more qualified than average, too.”</p>
<p>Well, maybe. On the other hand, how many legacies from Harvard apply there anyway, even though their stats aren’t that great? It’s really hard to know how this works out.</p>
<p>For some schools the advantage that legacy can bring is played out mainly in the Early Decision phase of the application. Penn comes to mind in that category.</p>
<p>There is a difference but probably an overlap between a legacy candidate, which typically gives a relatively slight tip (regardless of level of contribution, I believe), and a development candidate, which is the usually the child ofmulti-million dollar contributors. A development candidate is far more than a tip.</p>
<p>In the case of a legacy candidate whose parents have given millions, it is the development aspect that carries the day rather than the slight tip because of the family connection to the school. </p>
<p>I also wonder whether there are “levels” of legacy. For example, do 3 generations (or more) at a school count more than 1? Do zip codes matter? Does history of donations matter? (I don’t know, just asking) I’m guessing that different schools have different levels of scrutiny for these things, and also guessing that the policy toward legacies at individual colleges can change from time to time as school priorities (e.g., toward increasing diversity or ranking or contributions) change?</p>
<p>Even among Legacies there is a pecking order. The child of an involved alum (whether through sustained giving or extensive volunteer work) will rise to the top because the family is a “known commodity”. </p>
<p>Legacy status will not “cure” a inferior candidate. I find it funny when the parents of 16 year olds suddenly wake up to the X Univerisity Annual Fund. It’s so transparent as to make it non-existant. Johnny’s C in math will not be transformed by your $100 gift.</p>
<p>Transformations are more likely to occur at a much higher level of giving.</p>
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<p>I have been told that a highly-ranked private u in our area notices a dip in alumni donations when it rejects legacies of said donors. Apparently, it works both ways. :)</p>
<p>JHS, I enjoy your posts very much.
However, I have been following elite college results threads here as the parent of a recent applicant.
Reading the background of accepted posters, I repeatedly begin to wonder (part way through) how the heck this particular applicant was accepted. In about equal proportions the applicant turns out to be a URM, recruited athlete or legacy. Almost never fails. I will say the legacies seem to be a bit stronger on the academics than the athletes and the URMs. But the hurdle for a legacy is clearly much lower than for the unhooked, IMO.
But what about that legacy student in the top 5 of her stellar high school class? The reality is that about 1 in 6 Val applicants, from the numbers I’ve seen, are admitted to HYP. The bar is just that high.
The legacy acceptance numbers numbers at the elites, when they are reported, are what they are.
As an aside, I would say that the recruited athletes (of whom I am not a strong backer), are less likely to attribute their acceptances to “really great essays” and “terrific recommendations”.</p>
<p>In my experience, legacy may tip the scale in your favor IF YOU ARE QUALIFIED ANYWAY. There are too many qualified candidates at most schools, so legacy will be one more factor that will be considered (along with athletic or other talents or interests that the school wants). If you’re not qualified, legacy won’t get you in.</p>
<p>I’m not sure how “professional school” legacies work, if they are the same as regular legacies or less important.</p>
<p>At the “prestige” schools, legacy admissions have been de-emphasized precisely at the time that the first signficant group of racial minorities and women could make use of them.</p>
<p>In order to establish that legacy admissions have been deemphasized, we need figures that the percentage of the class at elite colleges that are legacies have declined. From what I have seen this has not been the case. The political pressures for presidents and admissions directors not to reduce the percentage are very strong.
I know plenty of URM legacies living here on the Southside of Chicago who have been admitted to their parent’s schools. These students have not otherwise been competitive academically, and seem to me to be a win/win situation for any admissions committee, meeting implicit legacy and minority goals at the same time.
As an aside, less reported, many of the international students at my daughter’s elite (and I am assuming at other schools) are legacies.
For most legacy applicants, students are facing the same numerical admissions crunch as almost everyone else. Admissions to a particular elite is just harder than it was 10 years ago for students in about every category. I’m sure the bar for development cases (money, not brains!) has increased as well.</p>
<p>Danas suggests an interesting possibility, that legacy admission might be deemphasized EXCEPT for URM legacies. It would be entirely rational for schools to do this.</p>
<p>All I can say is that danas seems to have seen very different admissions results than I have. I happen to know lots of people who went to HYPS and had kids around the same time, and all those kids have been applying to college over the past 5-6 years. And my kids had a fair number of classmates with legacy status at those and other highly selective colleges. And I can honestly say that – ED aside – I have not seen a single legacy kid accepted at one of those colleges who was not accepted at other colleges of comparable selectivity where the kid had no legacy connection. You just can’t whine too much about a Harvard legacy accepted at Harvard, Yale, Stanford, and MIT. Furthermore, I have seen lots of legacies rejected by their legacy schools and accepted by other comparable institutions (e.g., legacy deferred ED/rejected at Princeton, accepted at Harvard; legacy deferred/rejected at Yale, accepted at Oxford and Harvard). And lots of nonlegacies accepted over legacies with comparable or better “objective” qualifications.</p>
<p>I can confirm that lifetime giving approaching $1 million, and lots of alumni involvement, is apparently not enough to get a child with 2300+ SATs and a top 1% class rank with a “most challenging” curriculum into Stanford or Harvard. (Although I’m sure many kids like that are accepted, too.) In the Harvard case, an admissions officer told the anguished parent that Harvard’s admission rate for Yale and Princeton legacies is the same as for Harvard legacies, and if anything they are under some pressure to cap legacy admissions. And Yale’s President claimed in an interview that legacy students enrolled outperform non-legacy students with comparable grades and test scores. I don’t know whether any of that is true, but I do know it’s plausible based on what I have seen.</p>
<p>On the URM front, one set of friends (Harvard AB + Harvard AB/MD) have been VERY successful getting their children into Harvard. However, one of my kids had a very talented, smart URM classmate who was a legacy at Dartmouth rejected there ED.</p>
<p>“And I can honestly say that – ED aside – I have not seen a single legacy kid accepted at one of those colleges who was not accepted at other colleges of comparable selectivity where the kid had no legacy connection.” </p>
<p>I know first-hand of a H legacy who was NOT accepted by any school of comparable selectivity/reputation, but after dad gave several million $$, she was accepted at H for the following year, i.e. delayed admission. No matter what, money talks.</p>
<p>I should have made clear that I wasn’t talking about true developmental admits (for whom the starting bid seems to be around $4-5 million).</p>
<p>On the other hand, one very close, very reliable source told me a story about a friend of hers who (with his parents) had given that much or more to his HYPS alma mater over the past decade (including endowing a professorship), and who was told – very, very politely – that his OK-not-awful student child should not bother applying.</p>