Which has the bigger boost in admissions for Ivy?
If I am alumnus of one school but long time admin (mid to high level) at another school, which school does my kid have a better shot at in applying early?
IMHO it depends entirely on the school Vassar for example has explained in one info session that ED doesn’t affect chances while UPenn has told alumni in sessions that they have a much higher chance (if I remember correctly 40% higher chance??? don’t quote me on that.) Some Ivies are so competitive that even high-level profs worry and do much to increase the chances of child getting accepted. I know of one family at one Ivy that did this. The prof was beloved, was long-time tenured; had served as dept. chair, won massive awards, served as dean of one major school at uni (I’m purposefully change details slightly so don’t bother googling which Ivy has this combo but it’s basically the same story). In addition to those credentials of the parent, the family provided ~$200 per hour private test prep for SAT/ACT; professional help on the essay and other parts of the application, and applied ED. They were still nervous. Child did get in. Best of luck to you.
Generally faculty/high admin kids IMO are given a bigger boost than legacy. U Penn states that legacy is a bigger boost if used with ED. So if you are a Penn alum, your kid needs to apply early there to get the full legacy advantage. Unless one of HYP is in play where SCEA is applicable (other than Princeton this admissions cycle), since ED is binding, the question is whether your kid has an overwhelming preference. Choose that school in the early round because with the exception of Penn legacy, you’ll still get a legacy/faculty boost in the RD round.
The admissions committees are made up of university employees and not alumni. Shockingly, the children of employees get significantly higher boost, as shown in the data from the Harvard lawsuit
@morningside292 was that data specific for Harvard?
You should have the conversation with your employer’s admissions office to start. Princeton is very very good to employees’ kids from what I have seen, for example. Legacy often breaks down into big donors, those who remained very involved (class agents, trustees, meaningful volunteers) and those who attended and write a 3 or 4 digit check every year, and not all are treated the same.
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My kids’ HS has quite a number of Stanford employees as parents. Those kids are usually admitted if they are strong students (top 5% of the class), whereas legacies are far more hit and miss (and need to be right at the top of the class). My understanding is that there was some special early application window/process for children of employees that is evaluated separately.
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@Dustyfeathers
Well, it’s the only one we have hard data for. The articles about the lawsuit were very eager to report that Harvard legacy had 33% admittance rate (since legacy has become an easy target of late). But less reported was that Employee/Faculty children had 50% admission rate. Anecdotally, I believe it to be similar at all of the elite universities, since human nature is the same – as noted above even in this small thread regarding Stanford and Princeton.
In regards to Princeton I remember attending the Princeton HS (a public HS) graduation twice in the last few years and the number of kids matriculating at Princeton was startling to say the least. I just pulled up the program for one of the years I went, and they had 21 (twenty-one!) who were going to attend Princeton! A couple might be unrelated (I know one personally who was neither category) and a few might be legacy, but I was told this was typical number for them because they had so many employees/faculty kids who went there.
The quantifiable answer to your question is buried in the Harvard lawsuit. Google Arcidiacono report. Then goto Table B.7.2
This table presents a logit estimate of the odds of admission to Harvard based on various factors. The effect of legacy, double-legacy and faculty/staff child can be found on this table. The log-odds are depicted in this table. He used 6 different models with varying levels of data. To convert to odds, take the natural log of the logit. The odds will give you a sense of how each factor weighs independently of each other.
The odds of acceptance for a legacy varies between 3.5 to 7.8. For a double legacy, the odds are actually a bit lower (1.4 to 1.9). And the odds for a faculty/staff child range between 3.5 to 6.2. This means that being a faculty child confers about the same advantage as a single legacy, and about twice as high as a double legacy. For some reason double legacies at Harvard have a smaller advantage than single legacies. Legacies and faculty/staff children have about 3 x greater odds of acceptance as compared to normal students.
Hope this helps.
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