<p>i was just wondering which prospective applicant would have a bigger edge in admissions for the college: a double legacy whose parents do not donate a substantial amount to the college or a non-legacy development applicant (one whose parents donate a very large amount of money to the college and are on the committee on university resources-for those who donate more than a million)? and how much pull would a non-family member donor on the committee have in admissions? thanks in advance for answers.</p>
<p>You're overrating the meaning of a legacy.</p>
<h1>2, not even the shadow of a doubt. But $1 million of cumulative donations does not a developmental admissions candidate make at Harvard. The bidding probably starts at five times that.</h1>
<p>Development everytime, but JHS is right. We're talking BIG numbers. I know at least one top notch double legacy who was rejected last year.</p>
<p>thanks for the answers. just to get a better understanding of how much each of the situations might affect an applicant, could you rate on a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being just another strong applicant in a sea of thousands of strong applicants and 10 being practically guaranteed admission. The situations again being:
- a double legacy whose parents don't donate much, if at all
- a non-legacy whose parents donate millions
- a multi-million dollar donor who wants a non-family member admitted
thank you again in advance for replies.</p>
<p>oh dear! 5,000,000 so that my kid can go to Harvard! I'd rather him or her just work his or her ass off like everyone else. #2 looks like the most coveted. Double legacy w/o donations don't mean anything. Legacy admissions are a courtesy to families so that they will continue with donations. I don't understand where the third situation you describe would work out. Is the multi-million dollar donor alumni?</p>
<p>I'll give you some real life anecdotes, and you can judge:</p>
<p>Harvard: Both parents AB/LLB from Harvard, active alumni involvement, about $750,000 cumulative donations. Kid 2200+ SATs, top 5% of very competitive famous suburban public school. Deferred SCEA, rejected.</p>
<p>Stanford: Kid 2300+ SATs, top 1% of competitive urban public school, adjacent class rank students accepted at Yale, Harvard, MIT, Brown. One parent legacy, not involved or significant donations. Childless aunt very involved alumna, $1 million cumulative donations, on various alumni committees. Told admissions office this was her only "child" who would ever be applying to Stanford. Waitlisted.</p>
<p>Stanford: Kid a B student at a good boarding school. Parents and grandparents had endowed a professorship (at least $3 million). Father told politely that he shouldn't embarass himself by having kid apply.</p>
<p>Columbia: Person who had just finished a term on the Board of Trustees, well over $1 million cumulative donations, learned that his family's favorite babysitter had applied to Columbia ED and been deferred. (She hadn't wanted to ask him for help; he learned from her alumni interviewer.) Applicant had 2300+ SATs, 3.6 GPA (unbalanced -- extremely strong in humanities, B student in math/science). Succeeded only in ****ing off admissions office when he intervened. Kid rejected RD.</p>
<p>In short: None of this stuff matters as much as you might think/hope at this level.</p>
<p>JHS--pretty amazing--are you certain of the accuracy of these?</p>
<p>Well, I didn't audit anyone's cumulative donations; that's based on self-reporting (although in the second Stanford example I have a decent idea what the market is in endowed chairs). In all but the second Stanford example I know everyone involved pretty well. The second Stanford example was a work colleague of the woman in the first Stanford example -- they commiserated together about their utter lack of success in moving the admissions process.</p>
<p>I could give some examples going the other way, too. My conclusion is that it's quite easy to get a kid in if he or she was going to be accepted anyway, and quite hard if he or she wasn't.</p>
<p>Considering that 9 of the last 10 Stanford admits from our local h.s. were legacies, I must conclude that legacy status matters quite a bit, at least for Stanford. All 9 of those admits were 4.0 students (we have about 55 4.0 students every year) and some were accomplished on a national level, so presumably they were all qualified to attend independent of their legacy status.</p>
<p>In our school the only 2 Stanford admits in the last 6 years were legacies, URMs and sports recruits or politically connected. </p>
<p>Harvard had a history of accepting 50% of kids with my son's stats - they accepted him, he was a double legacy. I don't know how many of those 50% from previous years were legacies. But he was certainly a viable candidate anyway. His best friend, more well-rounded, slightly better grades, slightly worse SAT scores was waitlisted, the valedictorian (Yale legacy) was also accepted. Very hard to say whether it was my son's singleminded devotion to computer science, his legacy status or both was what made the difference in his case.</p>
<p>I know one student who has 3 older brothers that are attending or have graduated from Harvard. Both parents did not go to college. His SAT score (2100) and grades (ranked 10/150ish) weren't too impressive. Everyone in the high school expected him to follow in the footsteps of his 3 brothers. He was accepted and wasn't even surprised.</p>