Back in the day (way back in the day), when I was a hs juniior, my dad’s best friend offered to get me into brown. He was on their alumni committee, was very wealthy, contributed a lot of money and had no kids.I had good grades and SATs, who knows if he really could of done it (he insisted he could), but it didn’t feel right to me. These many years later, with a better understanding of hooks and legacies, it doesn’t feel quite so wrong to me.
fast forward to last night, I was talking to a friend, he said he could get a recommendation from a well-known alumni for my daughter. The alumni doesn’t know my daughter, I suppose the alumni could meet with my d and then create a recommendation. My daughter’s standardized test scores are at William’s 75% percentile and she has a 4.0 unweighted gpa.
My reaction is similar to the offer of admittance to Brown, doesn’t feel quite right. My wife thinks I’m being naive and this is the way of the world.
thoughts?
I can’t imagine why someone who doesn’t know a student at all would agree to write a letter of recommendation for that student. It makes no sense to me. None.
The recommendation will not help her cause. What would it be based on? Put the energy in to making sure that she gets some good teacher recommendations.
I don’t think those kinds of recommendations help most of the time, I think they can hurt in this day and age.
We have so few data points when it comes to judging whether something like this is likely to help. Here’s one: a friend’s daughter attends a top private school. Their college counseling dept suggested they get a "friend of the family " recommendation for their d from an alumni. They did so, d admitted.
@quietdesperation that was a friend of the family. At least this friend knew something and could write sort of a character reference.
The OP says this Willaims person does NOT know her or her kid…at all.
Waste of everyone’s time.
That’s why I put friend of the family in quotes, the person was not a friend of the family. It’s hard for me to understand how you can so confidently state “waste of time”. I’m sure I could spend an hour with anyone’s kid and write a great recomendation were I so inclined. By the way, I’m op.
Actually, let me amend that, I could write a great recommendation and not spend a minute with the candidate.
What sort of message does this send to your child? I don’t want my kids wondering if the only reason they got in was because of some “lie” (essentially). Yes, I’m sure there are people who do it, thinking they’ve every right to “play” the system, but I think it’s better to let your child be proud that their own achievements and character is was got them noticed.
I honestly think top colleges look at these recommendations with suspicion. Unless the writer has good first hand knowledge of the student, it just smacks more of privilege than anything else. And colleges like Willliams aren’t hurting for privileged applicants – they are trying to find ways to let in more students who need a leg up if they can. There are exceptions. On of my kids had a U of Chicago grad who was a coach of an academic EC that she excelled at for four years in HS. He knew my kid very well, she was his top performer in the EC (3rd in our state), and was happy to write her an additional rec for U of C. Where she also got in – but there was some meat to his letter, he had spent a huge number of hours with my kid and really knew her well. The casual acquaintance letter can hurt more than it helps. Those kinds of letters used to help 30 years ago, but admission has changed – signs of privilege really aren’t a boost up these days.
If you think this is a good idea…then do it. It appears that you are leaning in that direction. So go for it. You will never know if it mattered…or not.
^^ no, I’m leaning against it on moral grounds similar to those that whataprocess stated. I’m just debating with you (and others) whether it would be effective.
Otoh, my wife argues that an admissions process where legacy status is considered is not a meritocracy. Still, I see this as immoral act of deception.
If you believe in six degrees of separation in the world (with most people being much, much closer such as a friend of a friend), then tons of applicants will have similar connection and admissions will likely get too many of these letters, which makes them nothing special, which means it has no importance in the admission process…yet, if you do go done this path, your daughter will always wonder if she was accepted on her own merits.
I know a few individuals who believe they got into college or got jobs through family connections and they carry with them some insecurities because of it.
Just to be clear, CC is not a place for full out debating. It is OK to have a couple of posts of “point/counterpoint”, but it has to end pretty quickly or the thread gets bogged down.
Now in my non-mod mode, IMO legacy has ceased to be much of a factor at most schools. There is too much pressure to increase diversity, to keep up stats, and all sorts of other factors that get involved. Now money certainly talks, and money plus legacy no doubt talks louder. But this will be fairly rare. And to the issue at hand, I rather agree that a letter from such an individual probably carries far less weight than it used to, unless that individual can really affect the university in some way, which again would be very, very rare. And even then, is this such an important favor to that letter writer that if the university still said no to the individual, they would be that perturbed? Once again, fairly unlikely. Probabilities are multiplicative, so if each one of my “unlikelies” (that letters such as these carry much weight at all, that this is a unique situation where the letter writer is uber influential, or even if he is that he will be upset if they still decide no on the candidate) is even 50-50, then you have .5x.5x.5=12.5%, fairly low. Of course i was being incredibly generous. I would put each of those probabilities at more like 10%, but let’s make it 20%. .2x.2=.04x.2=.008, or 0.8% chance that the letter really carries weight. One can certainly say the first is 50-50 and then 10% and then 30% and get 1.5%. You get the idea.
So in this case I personally would feel pretty confident turning down the offer, keeping the integrity issue on your side and really not sacrificing anything. Can you be 100% sure the letter would have no effect? No, unless she got turned down. Technically even then you wouldn’t know that it didn’t help at all, just not enough. But like I say, I find that unlikely enough that I think it is a good opportunity to teach your child to think through the benefits versus the costs of such decisions, especially when things are fuzzy which they usually are. I think it is important to realize there are few absolutes in life, but if one is going to sacrifice an instinctual moral principle, these kinds of fuzzy calculations are important.
What your friend is proposing makes absolutely no sense to me. I’m not even sure if the wealthy alumnus were your friend who did know your daughter whether his letter of recommendation would help. I would focus on your daughter getting into college on her own merits - and letters of recommendation.
Seriously, why do people think pulling strings is a good thing for our kids? I’ve seen it done and ultimately, it can backfire and do more harm than good. (do you really want an adult child who feels entitled because of connections instead of what she can do?)
Yeah it does not feel good because it isn’t. And how would that sit with your daughter-knowing that she did not get in on her own merits. Maybe she can. But she won’t know. This stuff happens but why would you want to be part of it?
@quietdesperation, my son is a Williams graduate, and when he applied (several years back) we took admissions at their word (from the information session) that they pay close attention to supplemental materials. In addition to the two required academic recommendations he submitted letters from two leaders whom he had interacted with in his major extracurriculars. They attested to his character, commitment and drive in these activities.
I don’t know if admissions read and considered these extra endorsements or if they sighed and tossed them in the trash, but if I had to do it again, I would advise my son to include them.
But as for a recommendation from an alumni/ae who may be well known to the college but who does not have a personal connection to your daughter, I’d say probably not. As other posters have pointed out, because of the pervasive trend on campus away from elitism and privilege, a nod from a well connected person may actually be counter-productive.
@fallenchemist A quick google found that Harvard’s admit rate for legacies is 30%, Princeton is down(!) to 30 per cent and Yale is 20%. I don’t think the point is that a recommendation would guarantee an admit, instead it might help the candidate stand out from a sea of othet candidates.
Again, these probabilities are hard to determine because we have so little data. But a datapoint is that one of the top private schools in nj still thinks alumini recommendations have a positive influence.
Is your student a legacy?
The common wisdom is that such recommendations are useless. They may not have been when you and I were applying, but they are now. Adcoms want recommendations that help them know the kid. For a recommendation from a well-known alum who doesn’t know your kid or who has only met her for an hour to have any real weight, it seems to me that two things would have to be true. First, the school would have to be incredibly beholden to this alum, be getting tons of money or otherwise have a strong interest in keeping this person happy. Second, the alum would have to make clear that the school staying in his or her good graces depending on admitting this kid.
One specific school a number of years ago, but stilling telling, I think - there’s a story in The Gatekeepers about the president of the university calling the head of admissions to support the application of the kid of a president of another university, the two presidents being friendly. No help at all.
I’ve seen more than once that there’s a saying in college admissions - the fatter the file, the worse the applicant. This is the sort of thing they’re talking about.
Now, if a long time family friend was a tenured professor at Williams and had spent lots of time with your child over the years and was a position to speak knowledgeably about your daughter’s intelligence, drive and personality and could speak genuinely, specifically and enthusiastically about what an asset she’d be to Williams, I’d say that’s a letter worth asking for. But a friend of a friend writing a letter about someone he doesn’t know - how much attention would you pay?
actually @fallenchemist I take your point about debate, we have no real data, I don’t feel comfortable with the approach and while my wife may disagree, she respects my pov.
I’m going to disengage on this thread, unless anyone objects. prob best to lock.