Can you indicate a couple of countries where this is likely the case?</p>
<p>In much of Europe, most universities are public and admission is based 100% on grades/standardized test scores and major. Universities publish the past year’s cut-off scores by major, and most applicants apply to exactly one university because the admission decisions are so predictable. The application forms don’t even have a place to note the names of your parents or their educational background. If a university gave preferential treatment to someone with lower scores and anyone found out, the university would have a lawsuit on their hands.</p>
<p>Are you arguing that these universities secretly give preference to legacy students these days? How exactly would they do that?</p>
<p>You’re an idiot.
Well, since you wanted it, here it is.
GPA: 3.7 Weighted, 1 honors class sophomore year (Algebra 2 H, A/B-), 2 AP classes jr year (he sort of messed up Jr year, got a C/C+ in AP Chem and a C-/C- in AP US History [2 on US and 3 on Chem], as well as a B/B- in junior English and a A-/B+ in Precalculus). 2 AP senior year (AP environmental, got a B+, AP Stats, got a B+. He dropped both after first semester since). The school offers 20-25 AP classes, so this was not a lot at all.
Extracurriculars (I do know all of these, in fact): Athletic: JV cross country sophomore and junior year
Service hours: He spent 50 hours spent working in a soup kitchen senior year
Academic EC: Speech and debate freshman year (how he met my sister)
His hobby was playing video games, which is obviously not an EC.
Awards: none
Family income: They are multimillionaires and his parents together make over 500k yearly, no kidding. They are LOADED.
SAT: 1870
My sister helped him with his essays since she’s an English major, and she said they were pretty bad.
By the way, I don’t think the kid has faced any major hardships. None of his close family members have died, nor his close friends, he never suffered any kind of abuse at the hands of anyone (his parents are really really nice but overprotective of him), he was born super rich, he doesn’t have any diseases or genetic disorders… He is a really lucky person in terms of where he was born into.
I wouldn’t think somebody like this had any chance of Harvard, but he got in (not even waitlisted). How? Is it because he listed “black?”</p>
<p>For heaven’s sake, being black is in itself an advantage for elite college admission, there is no secret about that. Not every black applicant has a secret hardship or a wonderful essay.</p>
<p>By the way, legacy admission to Oxford and Cambridge is very strong. There are two components - until recently about 50% of the admitted students came from the English ‘public’ (i.e. expensive private) high schools such as Eton (schools accounting for just a few % of the population). And admission to those schools is very much a legacy thing. Also, Oxford and Cambridge interview applicants, so they can go ‘beyond’ test scores and quickly ascertain that your parent(s) did indeed also attend.</p>
<p>“By the way, legacy admission to Oxford and Cambridge is very strong. There are two components - until recently about 50% of the admitted students came from the English ‘public’ (i.e. expensive private) high schools such as Eton (schools accounting for just a few % of the population). And admission to those schools is very much a legacy thing. Also, Oxford and Cambridge interview applicants, so they can go ‘beyond’ test scores and quickly ascertain that your parent(s) did indeed also attend.”</p>
<p>This is pure ********. It is true that a large portion of the admitted students at Oxbridge come from private institutions, but as far as “legacy” goes, it is NOT considered. The government forced these universities to stop giving preferential treatment to legacies two decades ago. The interviews are purely academic and have nothing to do with where your parents went to school. I say this because I was interviewed there and talked to other interviewees as well. In fact, if you try to bring up your privileged background in an Oxbridge interview, chances are the tutors who’re interviewing you are going to be very put off. And this is a university-wide policy. Any underprivileged student who feels they’ve been rejected unfairly at the expense of someone whose parents went to Oxford/Cambridge will be fully within their rights to sue the university, and there are simply NO such cases nowadays. The princes William and Harry couldn’t go to Oxbridge because their academics weren’t strong enough.</p>
<p>As for European universities, b@r!um hit the nail on the head. No one cares where your parents went to school, plain and simple. And I have friends in Argentina and Japan who say the same thing.</p>
<p>Legacy admission as a legitimized preferential treatment is a distinctly US phenomenon.</p>
<p>William and Harry couldn’t go to Oxbridge because of the scandal over Charles being admitted to Cambridge, as Wiki says: </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>We know now that a legacy applicant should at least be minimally qualified to avoid trouble.</p>
<p>The public school - Oxbridge legacy connection is still very strong.</p>
<p>Medical schools in the UK also traditionally favor children of doctors, on the excuse raised above for dentistry that ‘they know what it takes’. And it helps your friends too.</p>
<p>Unless I missed it, no one has observed that an sat point is not an objective measure. If you take the 160 points estimate (and one would wonder exactly how that number was arrived at) and divide between math and critical reading, you then have 80 points per section. At a school whose average score was in the low 500s, then an 80 point advantage would be the equivalent of moving someone up by 25-30 percentile ranks on his score. Certainly a large jump. After all, 80 points is 80 points…right?</p>
<p>But consider Harvard, where everyone is already pressed into the right tail of the distribution. If someone scores a 1420 as a legacy, the equivalent of adding 80 points per section boosts him all the way from the 95th or 96th percentile to the 99th. Now I will admit that this is not utterly immaterial, but it hardly fits the typical template that these types of studies would like to lay on the legacy admittees. They also love to quote the admissions percentages, but no one has ever given the characteristics of the legacy applicant pool vs the overall pool.</p>
<p>It is resulting in inbreeding…and a perception of a ruling class. Between the insane price points of these schools and the admissions processes, the bloom is, for many people…off the rose.</p>
<p>I guess I’m having a little trouble seeing your point, dadx. Look, the typical “unhooked” candidate who comes in at the 95th percentile of anything probably has little or no real chance of getting into Harvard. If the legacy candidate does in fact have a 160-point advantage, then the legacy applicant who comes in at the 95th percentile is treated as if he’s at the 99th percentile, i.e., he has as good a chance of admission as the very strongest candidates. That’s a HUGE advantage. </p>
<p>I don’t have the figures for Harvard, but Princeton says applicants in the 2300-2400 SAT range (CR+M+W) are admitted at a 22.4% rate, while applicants in the 2100-2290 band are admitted at less than half that rate, 9.4%. And the distribution is probably skewed within that band, so your hypothetical 1420 CR+M kid is probably closer to the next band down, 1900-2090 CR+M+W, who as a group get admitted at a 4.6% rate. I also suspect that a VERY large fraction of those who DO get admitted in the 1900-2090 band and the lower end of the 2100-2290 band are legacies, URMs, and recruited athletes. In other words, there are probably almost no unhooked candidates admitted at that level. If that’s right, then the 1420 legacy candidate’s chances go, by virtue of the legacy advantage, from a rate approaching zero, up to 22.4%–the rate at which 1580 CR+M candidates (2300-2400 CR+M+W) are admitted. That’s extraordinary.</p>
<p>I’m sure other schools make their numbers available. </p>
<p>Note that the percentage of legacies as admits is more important than the percentage of legacies as matriculants, since legacies typically have higher yields. Take Duke, for example. For the class of 2012, it admitted 300 legacies, making up 9.4% of the admits that year. The percentage of legacies enrolling was likely much higher (perhaps even 15%).</p>
<p>A much more interesting comparison would be between legacy RD applicants and non-legacy RD applicants, as I suspect much of the legacy boost can actually be attributed to a combination of better preparation and applying ED, which most of them are encouraged to do.</p>
<p>My view of this is that admissions rates mean little if you don’t know the characteristics of the population. We don’t know the characteristics of the non legacy applicants, and it will be a cold day in hades when we learn the characteristics of the legacy applicants. The only data I’ve ever seen (although its been a long time since I was looking) was the old quote from Harvard’s Fitzsimmons that the average SAT for his legacy matriculants was 2 points below the overall class average. Not significant. </p>
<p>Frankly, its hard to see how that could possibly be the case…unless the legacy pool of applicants is much more highly qualified than the general pool. Or, unless the legacy admittees tend to be chosen from among the highest scorers. In either case, its not much of an advantage, regardless of how those against it attempt to portray it.</p>
<p>“Legacy Admits” are a relic of past social patterns and need to be abolished. Same with AA policies or anysuch thing. Let the best folk in, period.</p>
<p>Oh no! UKDude84 discovered our secret plan to keep the “best” people outside of selective colleges so that remnants of the WASP Establishment and undeserving token minorities can rule the world!</p>
<p>Seriously, it’s not a conspiracy, my friend. It’s just impossible to define who the “best” people who deserve the opportunity to study at top colleges are. Standardized test scores aren’t even close to objective and more importantly, they only measure a specific form of academic ability, not a general kind of intelligence, creativity, passion, or discipline. How do you determine which applicants will succeed once they matriculate and then go on to great things? It’s almost impossible, which is why the holistic college application process is so damn messy. But you can’t make it more objective because it’s impossible to objectively measure the desirable qualities of an applicant to an elite school.</p>
<p>This is ridiculous. How many legacies are going to be URMs? They are mostly white. The real question is why do some people heatedly oppose affirmative action for URMs but have no problem at all with white legacy admits? The latter is, basically, a form of affirmative action for the MORE fortunate. </p>
<p>I don’t particularly like the idea in 2010 of affirmative action based on race/ethnicity or gender. But unless ALL types of affirmative action are abolished - which means legacy admissions, geographic advantages, athletic advantages etc. - then I have no problem with traditional affirmative action.</p>
<p>To UKDude: How do you determine the “best folk?” Standardized tests? That’s a crock. Leave it up to authority figures? We have a long history of authority figures deciding the “best folk” were white Anglo Saxon Protestant progeny of their country club pals. Trusting authority figures - the people in power - ain’t making it, “Dude.” We don’t believe in “royalty” in this country.</p>
<p>Standardized tests are actually a good way to measure a student’s potential, more often than not. I don’t know why people refuse to acknowledge this. Maybe because great test scores are much rarer than great grades and hard-working, good students with a belabored 2150 on the SAT feel butthurt when someone suggests that they’re not as talented as some slacker who scored 2350 without studying (which is most likely true)? I don’t know.</p>
<p>posted by UKdude84:
"“Legacy Admits” are a relic of past social patterns and need to be abolished. Same with AA policies or anysuch thing. Let the best folk in, period. "</p>
<p>Hereditary monarchies need to be abolished, UKdude. I have never understood how it is that the English still put up with a group of parasites that has the nerve to consider most of the population that supports it as inferior.</p>
<p>These threads always leave me with a vague discomfort. My son is a freshman at Princeton. He’s a double legacy and a URM. Yet his SAT scores were 2360 and his GPA was 3.9ish (his school really didn’t keep track). He was also accepted to MIT.</p>
<p>Was he the only “hooked” applicants with these sort of scores? This thread would have me believe that this is the case, but I just don’t buy it.</p>
<p>I’m not saying he would have been admitted had he not been “hooked”, but clearly he is very qualified to be there.</p>