<p>^ Go ahead and rant. In my opinion, you’ve earned it with this quote:</p>
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<p>Priceless.
:-)</p>
<p>Coureur,</p>
<p>I had the same issue with Stanford, my alma mater. Both kids top GPAs and test scores (S #1 slightly higher SATs, but both above 75%) Applied EA, accepted. Attended. S #2, slightly more ECs (music, research). Applied EA, deferred then rejected. Going to an Ivy league school instead (with no legacy). You never know. I will say that as a legacy, the rejection stings more than a school with no connection. On the other hand, I am glad S#2 is going to another school and seeing the East Coast.</p>
<p>There are so many qualified kids with 4.5+ GPAs and 2300+ SATs these days. Schools have the luxury of making decisions based on other factors, be it legacy, ethnicity, athleticism or that proverbial tuba player.</p>
<p>Though some schools do not give as much weight for legacy, most of the more selective schools do. I saw HPY legacy stats that pretty clearly stated that chances for legacies are much better given the same stats. The qualifications of the legacy pool are lower than that of the rest of the class in total. Only athletes as a group have more of break in stats.</p>
<p>Now that it is not so at all schools. I have heard that MIT is not particularly interested in legacy. </p>
<p>Private schools also have legacy and sibling preference which have created an issue of very few spaces left for unconnected kids. One year the class was more than 2/3 legacy, sibling, faculty kids and significant others. Left spaces only for the top students not in those categories, making a significant academic gap between them and the preferred group.</p>
<p>My son was a double legacy at Yale (me and my father), and didn’t get in despite wonderful grades and test scores, etc. I know that with an 8% acceptance rate, a whole lot of kids with legacies get rejected of necessity. And my son has been extremely happy at the U. of Chicago. Still, I was annoyed. Way more than he was. How dare they not recognize his genius?</p>
<p>And, this is what I get for 30 straight years of giving one or two hundred bucks a year to Yale? </p>
<p>I admit that I do get a certain amount of petty gratification now from throwing out all the fundraising letters I get from Yale, and saying “not interested” when I get fundraising calls. Yale will just have to manage without me from now on, somehow. Nobody rejects my son without consequences.</p>
<p>@archiemom, I agree it’s a bit of a celebration. My life is simplified now, and no worries about silly quid pro quo stuff. </p>
<p>I’m much more comfortable with the idea of merit. But of course, it’s still a murky process and that’s what makes us all so crazy. So I wonder, should admissions be blind? And blind to what?</p>
<p>Yale can make so much money with those exotic financial transactions anyways.</p>
<p>Legacy and URM frustrate me more than any other hooks like athlete or academics. Here’s why: the applicant had no control over these hooks.</p>
<p>But I honestly feel that each applicant has to find one aspect about them that makes a difference, something that stands out (on top of all the other very strong aspects in their resume). Create a humanitarian club that raises oodles of money, develop some really cool invention in science research that gets written up in the local newspaper, design an app for the iphone that sells like hotcakes…I feel that this not only will get them headed towards an interesting career someday, it will also get them accepted to the colleges of their choice.</p>
<p>And I don’t blame Donna one bit. Colleges get letters, calls, emails, responses to alumni fundraisers saying that since the college now rejected their kids, the donation have now ended, and the school where those kids go will now get the donations. Can add up to quite a bit. </p>
<p>There was a letter making the rounds of a Notre Dame alum who ended his very active relationship with his alma mater after his kid was rejected from there. He had been a leader in all kinds of alumni events and it was quite a loss in terms of a participating alum, never mind the monetary donations. But it makes sense; it’s not necessarily vindictive. I spend time and money now supporting my kids’ schools because it is an immediate priority and something in my face, in my life right now. If my kids also happen to be at my alma mater, I would, as most folks in such a situation, be even more involved and more generous since there is a double connection there. We stopped donating to our alma mater when our kids tuition costs got to the point that we needed to make some budget cuts. In our case, none of our kids even bothered to apply to our alma mater despite the fact that they were familiar with it and had enjoyed some reunion events with us. Two of them would have been good candidates to the college. But even though they did not reject our kids, they lost our contributions and participation. We are just too darned busy with our kids’ colleges to participate in ours, and theirs have priority. Had they gone to our alma mater, I guarantee, our participation in their college and donations would have been more than they have been with the schools they picked. So of course, alumni kids get some preference. The college gets back the preference from the parents. And they lose, sometimes a lot, if those kids are rejected.</p>
<p>Even though the conversation has veered in another direction, I’d like to comment about application essays. So many students have high scores and GPAs that those numbers lose their value. Essays are an area where students can stand out. Admissions officers are NOT looking for the most polished professional essay. Essays that express something unique about the writer are the ones that make an impact.</p>
<p>zlc, This is a very valid point. Our son has been told they will see thousands of applicants that have GPAs and scores that make them viable candidates. The essay needs to be thought of as their interview. It is often the students only chance to say ‘this is why I’m different from the last 100 applications you just read, I’m unique and will be an asset to your university community’.</p>
<p>@archiemom and DonnaL … same here , H and I met at the wretched school that denied DS. He was more than qualified. (although I do give some thought to the fact that his essay was about his parents talking too much about the cold MAY have had something to do with it.) But in reality and as a courtesy at the minimum, they could have waitlisted him. And in years past we did the $50 donation, but every year since 197XXX … and bigger now the mortgage was paid off. grrr.</p>
<p>Yes, esobay, honestly all I was looking for was the courtesy waitlist. S1 was waitlisted and never intended to attend; S2 would have considered it, but with better scores, essay and teacher recs, wasn’t even waitlisted. He actually was relieved not to have to make the decision. And the school he has chosen is absolutely a perfect fit.</p>
<p>For a bit, my FIL also considered ending his donations to the same school (H was also a legacy), but the pull is still strong. My husband did refuse to attend their annual football trip this next year, though.</p>
<p>I believe my kid got into his dream school in part because of his essay. When he went to the spring prospective student’s event, an admissions counselor said, “Oh, you’re <strong><em>? I loved your essay on </em></strong>.” He was definitely in a top range, but he got into schools the valedictorian did not get into (and the valedictorian was a top athlete, too, and a really great kid). So these things can be a mystery.</p>
<p>Konabean:</p>
<p>I think you’re going out on a limb to claim you know why son didn’t get accepted to BC and his friends did (legacy).</p>
<p>When schools go to their waitlist, they are taking a fresh look at their needs. Maybe they have enough chorus singers, engineering majors, and opera singers (fill in the blank). The criteria for how they use the waitlist for any individual student and the “mosaic” of different students they’re trying to build for their incoming class is not something you and I are privy to. </p>
<p>None of us have any clue what criteria was used to pass over your son and accept his friends. Latching onto the legacy argument is an easy target. I’ve seen kids not get accepted to BC who had recommendations from those whose names are on BC’s buildings (that they paid to build).</p>
<p>The only data point we all know for certain, which has been repeated here often, is: Colleges accept the students they want.</p>
<p>My nephew is a great kid. In high school he had strong grades, respectable test scores and solid EC’s. Please note that I did not say spectacular grades, stellar test scores and/or life changing EC’s. I proofread his essay, it was great, just not off the charts.</p>
<p>He did however come through the trauma of his brother’s suicide and his mother’s death from cancer with uncommon grace and fortitude. He also went to a school with a guidance counselor that has a reputation for really advocating for students and writing recommendations that illuminate students for admissions committees. (yes, a private school)</p>
<p>We were all shocked when he was admitted to Stanford. But he is thriving there.</p>
<p>My brother jokes, in a very gallows humor vein, that 2 deaths in the family is an irresistable hook.</p>
<p>A poster wrote “If you think that getting beaten out by a legacy is irritating, try getting crowded out from top colleges by AA. Ridiculous.”</p>
<p>What does AA stand for?</p>
<p>S also had a friend who was a top athlete but much lower academic stats get accepted into one of the schools with a free ride where he was WL(and ultimately accepted) at but that didn’t bother me nearly as much, since I understand that he has a tangible talent that the college can benefit from.</p>
<p>I guess I never thought about how being a legacy could benefit a school.</p>
<p>Don’t even get me started on the URM thing, that one bugs me too.</p>
<p>“The only data point we all know for certain, which has been repeated here often, is: Colleges accept the students they want.”</p>
<p>I hear that, but then my question is, how do you know what it is that they want?</p>
<p>If they want legacies, there’s nothing you can do to become one.</p>
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<p>“AA” stands for affirmative action and this poster is a ■■■■■, ignore him.</p>
<p>Re: Whether legacy really is a boost at top schools. In addition to my own kids’ experience (0-for-legacies), I can give tons of other anecdotes from my world on how little legacy status seems to mean. Like the girl whose father, grandfather, and older sibling went to Princeton, and applied ED there (in the last year that existed), only to be rejected outright. Perhaps she wasn’t up to snuff? That’s not what Harvard or Stanford thought. Or another girl who was accepted at her mother and grandfather’s alma mater, Harvard . . . and also at Yale, Stanford, MIT, and Princeton, where she had no connection.</p>
<p>I’ll also repeat something I have posted about before, although it’s four years old so maybe getting stale: A friend was told by a high-ranking Harvard admissions person that Harvard’s internal numbers showed they accepted Yale and Princeton legacies at approximately the same rate they accepted Harvard legacies (without, of course, having a structure intended to achieve that result). In other words, the real preference was for the children of highly educated, affluent parents, and not because they set out to admit that group, but because those students unsurprisingly looked like they belonged at Harvard.</p>
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<p>I just wanted to agree with this. My alma mater called for money the other day. I told them my D and my money are both going to Bryn Mawr. 
Now, my D didn’t even apply there so there are no hard feelings at all. It’s just that there is a limited pool of money and right now it is all following D.</p>
<p>That said, my husband still volunteers for our alma mater and I can’t see that changing. (besides I have a younger child I am trying to steer there ;)</p>