<p>
This has been my observation at our high school. The legacy at Yale also gets into Harvard and vice versa. My son with the stellar stats got into Harvard, my son with the iffier transcript did not. Legacy or good call by the college? I’d say the latter.</p>
<p>Legacy may be a two-edged sword. What if they think you haven’t given enough time and/or money to your old school? They many think your kid will be the same way. Who knows? </p>
<p>For the OP - BC didn’t take your son and no matter what the reason is, you should feel fine about it. For example…</p>
<p>A - the process is mysterious and chaotic and things can’t be predicted with accuracy, so, who cares? or…</p>
<p>B - the other boy wrote a brilliant essay, so what can you do? or…</p>
<p>C - BC chose based on legacy or some equally stupid reason so they are NOT really a worthy school and you should be GLAD your son dodged a bullet here!</p>
<p>Quote:
“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.
End quote.</p>
<p>You look at the common data set, visit the school if you can and get an idea from the adcoms who do the info sessions (yes, I know some people skip these however we have learned some good information from S2’s top choice). If you are here, you are getting information from other parents, and sometimes the adcoms themselves. Other than that part of it is subjective and there is no way around that. </p>
<p>I do not say this as someone whose kids have superior scores, legacy at schools on their radar, or any other hook. I stated previously, but will repeat as I see you are probably in the same situation, S2’s top choice lists on their common data set three of the things they consider highly important (top consideration) are legacy, gender, and race. These are out of S2’s control and he is not what they would be looking for in any of these categories. We simply have to accept it and move on, hoping that his LOR, EC’s, and essays will make him stand out. All are somewhat subject. No possible way around that, none. There are always intangibles we will never see.</p>
<p>There are schools that consider #'s primarily. The culture there is generally not one of student involvement in the university community, but one where you study your arse off while they try to squeeze you out for two years. In this case your #'s alone would be a sufficient indicator of your ability to succeed there. You can receive a stellar education at many of these schools, it is simply a different experience.</p>
<p>These are generalizations, however S2 is considering 2 schools with these vastly different admissions approach. He will simply throw his hat in the ring and hope the decision is not made for him via elimination at one of the schools.</p>
<p>Peace</p>
<p>I agree that these “advantages” are extraordinarily frustrating. Konabean, I completely understand where you’re coming from. Yes, it may not be up to us to decide who is “qualified” for admissions, but the reality is, if the kid is laughing about getting off the WL with his lower scores and grades, he probably accepts that he is less qualified. When someone admits that they actively did not work as hard academically as someone else, but still got admitted to an institution of higher EDUCATION, it’s a bit frazzling, to say the least. Watching a 2.9 athlete get into Amherst and the 3.5 partying athlete get into Harvard doesn’t really make for a fun spring (this happened at my school…I wasn’t too fussed about it, but I remember that my friend was beside herself).</p>
<p>Legacies and URM status do bother me somewhat in admissions, simply because it’s not something the student can control. Feeling like you’re powerless over your own fate is not fun, especially when people make a point of bragging about their advantages. Unfortunately, c’est la vie…there will be plenty of things in life you cannot control, and the college admissions process is one of them. As frustrating as it is, maybe it’s best that your S learned this now instead of later.</p>
<p>Kids can’t control legacy status or whether their parents can pay full freight for tuition or URM status, etc. etc. but the powerless argument implies the admissions process for the ivies or other very selective institutions should be based on numbers alone when we all know that it isn’t. The process is subjective and while numbers are important–they often aren’t enough. To me, that’s the message I would give a kid who’s disappointed. I wouldn’t tell him/her that he’s better than a classmate who got into the school. The process is difficult to get through and I wouldn’t focus on the losses–I’d get the kid to move on and focus on the victories.</p>
<p>Whether fair or not, no opinion.</p>
<p>But I don’t know if I’m reading this stuff correctly, but I think it shows alumni kids getting
admitted at 40% or above, which is a pretty significant bump for legacy at this school.</p>
<p><a href=“Facts & Figures | Princeton University”>Facts & Figures | Princeton University;
<p>[Undergraduate</a> Admission - A Princeton Profile - 2008-09](<a href=“http://www.princeton.edu/pub/profile200809/admission/undergraduate-admission/]Undergraduate”>http://www.princeton.edu/pub/profile200809/admission/undergraduate-admission/)</p>
<p>[Princeton</a> Profile - Princeton University](<a href=“http://www.princeton.edu/pub/profile/]Princeton”>Index of /pub/profile)</p>
<p>Those Princeton numbers are interesting, but they don’t actually tell us whether legacies get in because they are legacies. It might be the case, as claimed by the Harvard rep, that you’d see the same kind of results with alumni of any top school. Indeed, the pool of legacy apps might include more that are really hopeless, but who give it a try because of legacy.</p>
<p>Here’s my general take on this: I support legacy preference, and my kid has benefitted from it. But I would be annoyed, and would rant, if another kid benefitted from it to the detriment of my kid. I see no problem with holding both of those opinions.</p>
<p>
Of course you can’t tell that.</p>
<p>But given that the rates are four times the normal acceptance rate, and kids with superlative stats numbers-wise are often rejected, my opinion is that it is a significant help. But like I said, that’s just my opinion.</p>
<p>At my last college reunion a fair amount of grumbling took place by the alums whose kids had been denied. The kids ended up at JHU, Cornell, Chicago and Williams (at least the children of my friends) so even if their numbers were marginally lower than Brown’s median admit numbers, it would not be a stretch to say that the kids were qualified at least by the numbers. And it would be very easy to find kids who were admitted who were not legacies who had MUCH lower stats- much lower.</p>
<p>Our conclusion? Legacy matters if you are a celebrity (actor, politician, Pulitzer winning writer) or a mega-donor. Legacy can be a moderate tip factor if you are from Oklahoma or rural Arkansas. Legacy is not meaningful, all things being equal, if your kid is the typical bright, high scoring applicant from New Trier or Brookline High. </p>
<p>The adcoms (at least at Brown) do not seem willing to admit legacies unless they can also check another box by doing so. If you are a legacy and your kid is also desirable for another strategic goal (geographic diversity, unusual academic interests, etc.) than I suspect legacy is meaningful. If you live in a town where your kid is one of 20 applicants to a particular Ivy League school and you’ve dutifully sent in your $500 to the annual fund every year-- well, be prepared to be disappointed.</p>
<p>I seem to remember that one of the Kennedy clan got denied to BU or BC a couple of years ago, although they were a legacy. Anybody remember the details of that? Was it one of Maria and Arnolds kids?</p>
<p>Yes, it was one of Arnold and Maria Shriver Schwartzennegger’s kids, a daughter, who was denied. Who knows whether she was qualified for admissions? Don’t know where she ended up going.</p>
<p>I read an excerpt of one of the Kennedy cousins’ memoirs, and he writes about getting denied at Harvard while Robert Kennedy Jr was admitted. The young man, Christopher something (not Kennedy) had better academic stats than his cousin but I guess he was just to far removed from the legacy and celebrity. He ended up at Tufts. There was a bit of animosity about that, I remember. So even in families, this happens.</p>
<p>JFK Jr. was rejected by Harvard, wasn’t he? Or was it that he didn’t bother applying? I know he was not supposed to be a stellar student, unlike his sister.</p>
<p>(I still can’t believe he died. To me, he’ll always be John-John.)</p>
<p>JFK Jr did not apply to Harvard. And, no, he was not a stellar student. Oh, the Kennedy cousin turned down by Harvard the same time Robert Jr was accepted was Christopher Lawford. I still can’t believe JFK jr is dead either, DonnaL. We date ourselves when we think of him as John-John!</p>
<p>JFK jr. went to Brown.</p>
<p>Forget about that, what about GWB getting into Yale?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>After the admissions process is over there really is no need for you to know. They picked someone else. That’s it. It’s a competitive process and everyone they select is “qualified” in their eyes, even though you might not know or understand why. There can be many subjective factors that you are not aware of (essays, LORs). Legacy certainly can be one of them.</p>
<p>But no applicant is <em>entitled</em> to a spot, so therefore no applicant is in a position to complain or resent when some other individual gets the spot they wanted.</p>
<p>I mean… if you think that college applications are tough, try looking for a job. </p>
<p>Let me ask you this: after your son received notice that he had been waitlisted, what actions did he take to let BC know that he very much wanted to attend? Had he asked for financial aid?</p>
<p>Maria and Arnold’s daughter is attending USC.</p>
<p>The Schwarzenegger kid wasn’t a legacy at Boston College by any conventional definition. Her father never went to college, and her mother went to Georgetown. Her maternal grandfather and uncle went to Yale, her grandmother to Stanford. I don’t think there was a lot of higher education in her father’s family, but if there was it was all in Austria.</p>
<p>Of course, her Kennedy-ness (and her Ah-nold-ness) should have been worth far more than mere legacy status at BC. It’s hard to believe they rejected her, unless they knew she wouldn’t really come if accepted.</p>
<p>Well, Katherine could have gone to her father’s alma mater – same initials as SC, but add an “M” in the middle: SMC (Santa Monica College). I’m sure she could have gotten on on that legacy.</p>
<p>“Let me ask you this: after your son received notice that he had been waitlisted, what actions did he take to let BC know that he very much wanted to attend? Had he asked for financial aid?” </p>
<p>I didn’t say he was WL at BC, he wasn’t. He was rejected. There is no doubt in my mind that his friend would have been rejected too if not for his legacy status. Of that I’m sure, too many very well-qualified candidates apply to BC for them to WL someone with relatively low GPA and test scores, and no, this kid is not a star athlete nor does he play the tuba.</p>
<p>Also, my son didn’t ask for financial aid anywhere that he applied.</p>
<p>I feel we are all so lucky that our kids have enough to eat. 30,000 kids starve to death every single day.</p>
<p>I don’t care about legacy status.</p>
<p>This is not a “fair” process by any means, but all our kids are lucky enough to get an education and enough food and avoid a draft. So far, nothing to complain about.</p>