@mathmom That’s a whole other discussion that would take this thread off course.
Yes, I believe there’s a whole thread devoted to that. 
It’s always hard to parse out what is just noise in all the data. I
“Well here’s an interesting survey just posted by the crimson about harvard’s class of 2019. Sixteen percent of the incoming class is legacy and many come from the top 1%.”
The relevant comparison to the 16% is … What % of the applicant pool was legacy. I draw very different conclusions if (say) only 5% of the applicant pool was legacy versus if 40% of the applicant pool was legacy. The 16% is utterly meaningless without that context.
Vanderbilt’s full class size is 1,600: for Class of 2019, over 2,500 legacies applied. Binding ED admission rate = 45%; regular decision 9.5%, but competitive need-based financing opportunities.
Harvard is usually between 12 and 16% legacy. Harvard’s legacy acceptance rate is reported at around 30 percent. Regular acceptance rate is sub 10%. 6.2% acceptance in 2015. Assume that the yield on legacy offers approaches 100%. Overall yield is 82%.
So ballpark, 3-5% of the pool are legacies. But check my math.
I’m not so sure approaching 100% of legacies matriculate. I know several kids who applied to Harvard as legacies and attended other schools. Some are also legacies at other equally prestigious schools, some apply to Harvard to placate Mom and Dad, some would pick it over other schools on their list but prefer something else. In the years when my kids were applying nearly everyone who could chose Yale over Harvard.
I don’t think you really are a MathMom.
If you use 82% yield instead of 100, the numbers barely move. 3-5% of the pool still.
If the spread in acceptance rates is really between 30% and 6.2%, it is more like 3% of the pool becomes 15% of the class.
Just use the same yield for legacies and non, for goodness sake!
The noise around legacy yield is really just noise. I’m willing to bet that for every legacy kid who applies to Harvard to shut up daddy, and therefore would choose Yale or Stanford if he got the choice, there’s another non-legacy kid with the a similar set of issues (but likely for different reasons).
Net- Pizza is correct. Assume legacies and non yield at the same rate, given that 17 year old kids often do things to make their parents happy, and are equally capable of doing things to drive them nuts.
I know a Harvard legacy who ended up at UVA despite parental hair-pulling (their own, not hers) and despite getting in to Harvard where- everyone in her HS class, plus her guidance counselor, believed she belonged. I only knew her from what the local newspapers wrote about her incredible accomplishments, and from what her mom said about her in line at the grocery store. (nice accomplished kid with some stellar achievements although the mom was modest about that),
The heart wants what the heart wants (a BF in this case… the relationship lasted about three months but she’s a proud UVA grad.)
Not a mathmom really, mom to a math kid. I liked math in school, but I never took statistics and I don’t use much besides trig (and that rarely) and basic arithmetic in my work. Anyway, I’ll take your word for it as far as the numbers go.
Who cares about a minor difference in yield. Point is that about 3.5% of the app pool turns into 15% of the class at Harvard.
Thoughts on that?
Among those who apply Early Decision, they do.
"Who cares about a minor difference in yield. Point is that about 3.5% of the app pool turns into 15% of the class at Harvard.
Thoughts on that?"
I don’t think anything of it. I don’t know the qualifications of the legacy applicants vs non legacy applicants.
Let’s just say, for the sake of argument, that legacy applicants are equally qualified (not greater, not less). Let’s also assume that yields are identical (make it 100% for argument’s sake). Let’s assume there is no legacy preference either.
Let’s also say that the H experience was so spectacular and its alums so prolific that 40% of the app pool - and hence 40% of the acceptance pool - are legacies.
Is that too “legacy heavy” even if there is no explicit legacy preference? What level of legacy "feels"too high to you all? 10%? 20%? 40%?
^^ Unfortunately, I have no idea what you are taking about.
It’s exactly as I stated and simple math, but ok. Let’s try it again.
Let’s pretend a lot of legacies apply and “crowd” the applicant pool because their parents’ experiences were so stellar. Let’s also pretend that there are no legacy preferences one way or the other - they are accepted at fair share.
So if 10% of the applicant pool are legacies - the admitted pool is 10% legacy.
If 20% of the applicant pool are legacies - the admitted pool is 20% legacy. And so forth. With me?
So. In this scenario - what % of the admitted pool being legacy “feels too large”? What if Harvard were 40% legacy - but it’s not because legacies were favored, it’s just that boatloads of them applied? Is that still "too much "legacy?
These numbers are purely fantastical. Harvard gets about 40,000 applications a year; 40% of 40,000 is 16,000. Harvard College graduates about 1,650 people per year. At that rate, Harvard College graduates would need to average nearly 10 children over the course of their reproductive years.in order to produce an annual stream of 16,000 “primary legacy” applicants–and just about every last one of them would need to apply to Harvard. In fact, college-educated (Bachelor’s degree holding) women have on average about 1.8 children over the course of their lifetimes. Graduate or professional degree holding women have on average about 1.6 children. Since it’s a good bet that a substantial percentage of Harvard College graduates go on to earn graduate or professional degrees, the Harvard College graduate average is probably somewhere between those two figures. And there’s no reason to suppose that male Harvard graduates produce more children on average than female Harvard graduates. Also some Harvard graduates marry and/or have children with other Harvard graduates, and we can’t double-count those children, each of whom is one legacy whether one or both parents went to Harvard. There’s just no way Harvard College graduates produce enough children to represent 40% of Harvard applicants.
Of course, Harvard has other units besides Harvard College. I don’t know whether the children of Harvard Law, Harvard Medical, or Harvard Business School graduates get a boost in Harvard College admissions. I also don’t know whether Harvard considers more distant relatives than parents, e.g., aunts & uncles, grandparents, siblings, etc. But even if it does, the research shows that it’s primary legacies–applicants whose parent or parents attended the school–who get the major legacy boost. The rest is mostly window dressing.
Northwesty’s estimate that about 3.5% of the Harvard applicant pool are legacies strikes me as realistic and plausible. That would mean about 1,400 legacy applicants per year. Assuming each Harvard College graduate produces on average 1.7 children, that would produce an average annual stream of about 2,800 children of Harvard College graduates. Some small fraction of those will never finish HS. Some others will finish HS but not attend college. Some will finish HS and attend college, but they and/or their families will deem them unqualified for Harvard, and they will never apply. Others may be plausibly qualified but resist the idea of applying to their parents’ alma mater, either because they just don’t like Harvard relative to other schools, or because they want to stick it in their parents’ eye or simply don’t want to be pigeonholed as just a “chip off the old block.” A few may have parents who had such a negative experience at Harvard that they advise their children not to apply. [I know and work with many Harvard graduates. They tend to be quick to find a way to inform and/or remind you that they are Harvard graduates–“dropping the H-bomb,” it’s called—but in comparison to other schools, relatively few of them wax nostalgic about their Harvard experience or express warm feelings toward the institution]. When all is said and done, if half the children of Harvard College grads applied as legacies, that would be a lot. I recognize that these figures could be thrown off by the children of graduates of other Harvard units as well as more distantly related legacies, but I should think both the parental pressure to apply and the school’s reasons for giving a legacy advantage would be much lower for those more distant legacies. So I think 1,400 or so legacies applying annually is probably somewhere in the ballpark. It also has the advantage of squaring with the reported rates of legacy and non-legacy admissions.
Yes, I know it’s fantastical unless H grads multiplied like rabbits. I am trying to get to a different point. Is there a perceived ceiling at which legacy presence becomes a turn off? ND is often cited as a college that is thick with legacies.
bclintonk, I believe Harvard only considers the children of Harvard College grads as legacies for undergraduate admissions. Which makes sense, as undergraduates are only about 1/3 of Harvard students and if children of Harvard MBAs, MDs etc. were considered legacies, that would water down the impact of the preference.
Others, such as Yale and Stanford, include graduate alumni children as legacies for undergraduate admissions, although as you say it may be that having an undergraduate alumni parent counts more than having a graduate alumni parent.
Probably not coincidentally, undergraduates are a higher percentage of total students at Yale and Stanford (around 45% if I recall correctly, and maybe more like 50% at Yale once the two new residential colleges open).
I’m certainly not worried about Harvard being over run by legacies if 85% of the class is not a legacy.
Right’ but at one point you might or would. I’m asking what that point is.