<p>OK, i need to know the real deal with legacy here, it could be the deciding factor behind early application. Does it only help if you have a parent who was a legacy, so they give your ap an extra look? Or does it also help if you have 6 legacies, not just parents? will those 6 help me get in? please answer.</p>
<p>It depends on who they are and what they donated. Except for extreme cases, legacy is a tip factor when all other factors are equal or very close. In the extreme cases, where granddad funded a chair or dad has $100 Mil in the bank, it makes all the difference.</p>
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<p>Or does it also help if you have 6 legacies, not just parents? </p>
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<p>Each college has its own legacy policy. At Harvard, the only legacy category is if your PARENT graduated from Harvard COLLEGE. Siblings etc. don't count; relatives who went to Harvard graduate schools don't count. That being said, if the six relatives who went to Harvard College are your parents, your grandfathers, and two of your great-grandfathers, my sense is that (unofficially) they do like to see applicants with long family relationships to Harvard.</p>
<p>That's true, but ad-com may not even be aware of such a strong legacy line--there's no place on the application that asks specifically about legacy, just space to write where your parents went to college.</p>
<p>I was in a similar situation--I'll be the fourth generation of my family to attend--but as far as I know, ad-com had no knowledge of this apart from my parents' attendance.</p>
<p>If it is a strong enough legacy to count significantly, they will know about grandparents etc.</p>