<p>Just a comment about legacy kids: it’s NOT that they have nothing in their application except connections. In most cases, they have plenty of things in their application. A girl that I know, whose parents and grandparents all went to top boarding schools and then Harvard/Yale, did summer programs at Yale/Brown, interned at a SP500 company at 9th grade (why not, it’s her uncle’s company). She went skiing in the Scandinavia every year and did fly to Africa to help poor children. Sure her parents’ connection partly helped her get in top schools, but she argues that she did spend a lot of effort to go through all of those.
How can you beat that 
I mean legacy kids are advantageous in the sense that usually their parents help them gain the experiences that will greatly polish their profile. Other legacy kids that I met are kind of like that, they have plenty of things that help their application shine, with or without connection.</p>