<p>I think I applied as bio and premed. I am still deciding 
</p>
<p>Sent from my SPH-D710 using CC</p>
<p>I donāt buy that thereās any detectable difference (other than for athletes). Theyāre trying to do basically the same thing.</p>
<p>Hanna, while I agree, I get the impression that Harvard makes more of an effort to get to know schools outside its geographic area than Stanford. I donāt know how else to explain that year after year after year Harvard accepts several students (lots who arenāt athletes or legacies) from our high school and Stanford has only accepted legacies or recruited athletes.</p>
<p>There is a clear difference in geographic preferences. Stanford admits a lot more students from west coast and central regions of the country. Harvard admits around 200 students from the state of New York while Stanford only admits around 50. Given the higher number of athletic recruits Stanford has each year, it is not surprising that you feel that only legacies and recruits were admitted. Texas is somewhat on the opposite end. Stanford admits more students from Texas as Harvard would admit. Competition for Harvard slots in Texas would be very brutal since the average is about 60. If you are from Alaska, you may be way better off by focusing on Stanford (7-8 per year admitted by Stanford vs 0-1 admitted by Harvard).</p>
<p>āThere is a clear difference in geographic preferences.ā</p>
<p>How is that clear? For all we know, the larger number of NY admits at Harvard is directly proportional to a larger number of NY applicants.</p>
<p>Hanna,</p>
<p>You could be totally correct that the regional references in admission is completely due to a regional reference in the applicant pool. However, it could be odd that there are 7- 8 times more students in Alaska applying to Stanford than the ones applying to Harvard or Yale.</p>
<p>It could be Hanna, but Iām looking at the little dots on Naviance. Itās a sea of red dots for students in the top range for Stanford, with a couple of outliers with much lower stats that are green, while in the same range for Harvard, Yale and Princeton about 1/3 of the dots are green. Nearly all our valedictorians get accepted to Harvard if they apply, none have ever been accepted to Stanford. Not in the last ten years anyway.</p>
<p>I read somewhere that 20% of Stanfordās incoming class consists of legaciesā¦Iām sure itās about the same in other schools on the East Coast.</p>
<p>āit could be odd that there are 7- 8 times more students in Alaska applying to Stanford than the ones applying to Harvard or Yale.ā</p>
<p>I wouldnāt find that odd at all. I donāt know if itās true, but I think itās perfectly plausible.</p>
<p>āStanford takes a lot more students with lower GPAs and test scores than Harvard, and there just seems to be more variance as to the range of GPAs that Stanford accepts.ā
@TKsmom
Its not like tht actually , its just tht stanford donāt give addmission to a soulless person with 2400 SAT or perfect GPAs.</p>
<p>āI read somewhere that 20% of Stanfordās incoming class consists of legaciesā¦Iām sure itās about the same in other schools on the East Coast.ā</p>
<p>Harvard limits legacies to 10%, or so Iāve read.</p>
<p>Hahaha no</p>
<p>Most legacies attending Harvard are more than qualified and would have been admitted anyway, so thereās certainly no 10% cap on āstudents who deserve admission but oh no we canāt admit them because theyāre legacies.ā I have not heard anything about Harvard creating a cap on unqualified legaciesāthey wouldnāt want to admit thereās a separate category for unqualified anything, for one thing. If there is such, they havenāt told anybody. I donāt honestly think being a legacy is a huge advantage (being a they-named-a-library-after-you-legacy yes, but there arenāt so many of those to even approach a 10% cap). My cousin asked, on a campus tour, whether my attendance here would help him get in. The admissions officer responded no, only parents could help, and even then it was āa feather on the scaleā that only could make a difference between two very equal candidates. Thatās the closest Iāve heard to an official line on the subject.</p>
<p>exultationsy,</p>
<p>I donāt think I said anything about āunqualifiedā legacies. What I wrote is that Harvard limits legacy admissions to about 10% of their incoming class. I assume that theyāre all qualified, but Iāve also read that the pool of legacies who apply is much larger than the pool of legacies who gain admission. </p>
<p>Iāve read that the rejection rate for legacies is 70%. In other words, 7 out of 10 legacies arenāt admitted.</p>
<p>Nonetheless, that means that Harvard legacies are admitted at a higher rate than non-legacies.</p>
<p>I think about 20% of the class is legacies, so I was trying to come up with an interpretation where you might still be somewhat right. I canāt find a number again, but Iām pretty sure itās a boost, not a cap.</p>
<p>Actually, thatās a lie, Stanford is usually ~19% legacy and Harvard usually actually ~12% legacy (Princeton about the same), so it appears Stanfordās legacies get a particularly large boost, which was your original point.</p>
<p>I can only share my personal experiences regarding the college admissions process. Unfortunately, I donāt think my anecdotal info will be that helpful to the OP. The only thing it proves is that it is possible for an applicant to secure an acceptance from both universities in question. Harvard and Stanford are both highly selective schools with less than 10% acceptance rates. Both look for an applicant who has strong academic credentials, excellent test scores, a strong enthusiasm for learning, dedication to community service, and leadership potential.</p>
<p>I was a California state resident at the time of applying to college. I was valedictorian at a modestly-sized rural high school (graduating class of 260) that probably wasnāt even on the radar of the more competitive colleges in the U.S. My SAT score was 1510 on the old 1600 scale. (Bear in mind that the SAT scoring scale was re-centered a few years later in 1995, which essentially added approx. 100 points to most studentsā scores.) I was fortunate enough to get in everywhere I applied: Stanford, Harvard, Yale, Cal Tech, MIT, UC Berkeley, and UCLA.</p>
<p>After reading this thread, I have to say that, unless participants also serve on adcoms for the schools being discussed, there is a ridiculous amount of wild speculation regarding the admission chances for legacy applicants. Typically, adcoms donāt release that sort of info to the public. When I was at Harvard, I knew a handful of legacies (defined as having one or both parents who graduated from Harvard). Some did great in their classes (clearly academically qualified), whereas others took āgutsā (easy courses) and were still curve fodder. The vast majority of the legacies that I knew attended elite prep schools on the East Coast. I guess thatās not so surprising.</p>
<p>āAfter reading this thread, I have to say that, unless participants also serve on adcoms for the schools being discussed, there is a ridiculous amount of wild speculation regarding the admission chances for legacy applicants.ā</p>
<p>Iām not sure where you find āwild speculation.ā I get my āwild speculationā from the Harvard Crimson, quoting folks in the Harvard admissions office. </p>
<p>In this article, they quote a guy from the admissions office named Fitzsimmons. Maybe youāve heard of him. Here is an article from May 2011:</p>
<p>[Legacy</a> Admit Rate at 30 Percent | News | The Harvard Crimson](<a href=āhttp://www.thecrimson.com/article/2011/5/11/admissions-fitzsimmons-legacy-legacies/]Legacyā>Legacy Admit Rate at 30 Percent | News | The Harvard Crimson)</p>
<p>Here is a little bit from the article:</p>
<p>āHarvardĀs acceptance rate for legacies has hovered around 30 percentĀmore than four times the regular admission rateĀin recent admissions cycles, Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid William R. Fitzsimmons Ā67 told The Crimson in an interview this week.ā</p>
<p>He also notes that legacies comprise about 12% - 13% of the undergraduate population.</p>
<p>Or maybe this Fitzsimmons fellow is āwildly speculat[ing,]ā too. LOL.</p>
<p>@notjoe: Thanks for citing a source. To be fair, the source does not indicate that the Harvard adcom ālimitsā legacies to 10% of the incoming class. It merely states the admit rate and matriculation percentage. Using the word ālimitsā implies that a target was set deliberately by the adcom. That isnāt necessarily true. The numbers could have just shaken out that way based on the strength of the legacy and non-legacy applicant pools in recent years.</p>
<p>I donāt dispute anything that Fitzsimmons is quoted as saying in the Crimson article. He revealed that the admit rate for legacies has hovered around 30% in recent years. FYI, thereās no guarantee that that particular level will be maintained moving forward.</p>
<p>Comparisons to the Yale admission statistics might suggest that Harvard gives greater preference to its legacy applicants, but we arenāt really sure if the Yale and Harvard legacy applicant pools are equivalent. Itās certainly possible that the Yale legacy applicant pool is not as strong as the Harvard legacy applicant poolā¦which could explain the lower admit rate and overall percentage within the student body.</p>
<p>Is a 30% admit rate for legacy applicants at Harvard āfairā? I donāt know. Itās a private university, so presumably the adcom could offer acceptances to applicants based on any number of arbitrary factors. That being said, there are a couple of plausible explanations for a higher admit rate for legacies vs. non-legacies: (1) their families are aware of the highly competitive nature of the Harvard admission process and the stringent academic demands upon enrollment, so in a sense the legacy applicant pool is perhaps more āself-selectiveā than the non-legacy applicant pool, and (2) on the whole, legacies probably receive better academic preparation than non-legacies before college.</p>
<p>Personally, Iād like to see adcoms look more carefully at socioeconomic background in their applicants. Such a change would probably de-emphasize legacy preference in college admissions.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Harvard admissions officers have said from time to time that part of their standing instructions is not to have too many legacies. Legacies are considered as something of a separate pool, but no different standards are applied, and it may in fact be tougher on marginal candidates because of the desire not to have legacies exceed ~13%. They track what happens with Yale and Princeton legacies as well ā i.e., how many get admitted, despite having no special consideration ā and it has historically been very close to their acceptance rate for Harvard legacies.</p></li>
<li><p>Before you jump to the conclusion that Stanford likes legacies twice as much as Harvard, make certain you are comparing apples to apples. Harvard defines a legacy as someone with a parent who got a bachelorās degree from Harvard College (although Iām sure the rule will be expanded to include people who left Harvard without a degree and wind up in the top-100 wealthiest people in the world). Stanford, I believe, gives legacy treatment to anyone with a parent (or maybe even just a grandparent, not sure) with any sort of alumni status at any part of Stanford University. (Lots of colleges use an expansive definition of legacy ā in the end, legacy preferences are really mainly a marketing device to get applications from full-pay students who are likely to attend if accepted.) If Harvard used the Stanford definition, it might well have 19% legacies, too.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Bartleby007,</p>
<p>āTo be fair, the source does not indicate that the Harvard adcom ālimitsā legacies to 10% of the incoming class.ā</p>
<p>My impression of Harvard is that they receive many applications from many qualified applicants in any number of smaller populations. I imagine that Harvard could fill a class with perfectly-qualified one-eyed green-polka-dotted Martians without any loss of academic quality.</p>
<p>I doubt that itās any different for legacies, but Iām more than willing to alter that view if someone shows some evidence for it. Other schools have somewhat lower legacy rates (although from what I can see of the Ivies, the ones for which Iāve seen data hover around 10%. I think Dartmouth is around 9%, Princeton is around 9% - 10%), but others have higher rates, much higher rates. Very good schools.</p>
<p>That suggests that Harvard could likely take a few more legacies without any loss of academic quality in the aggregate. As well, Iāve seen anecdotally legacies who were rejected who seemed quite qualified. Just like many of the kids who are rejected every year. It does not seem that Harvard runs out of qualified legacies around 12% or so, and thus, doesnāt admit any more. Rather, it appears that they get to around 10%, maybe squeeze in a few more that they just canāt stand to turn away, and then just accept that they canāt admit every qualified applicant, even the legacies.</p>
<p>Thus, it is likely that Harvard has a certain number in mind when it admits legacies, and that number is in the low double digits.</p>
<p>Now, that is speculation. But it isnāt āwild speculationā by a stretch.</p>
<p>As for the legacy rate for Yale, it doesnāt differ terribly much from Harvard, nor from the other Ivies. I found a source that indicates 8.7% for the last year reported. Again, hovering around that seemingly magical 10% number. They reject more legacy applicants - 80% - but thatās still not dramatically different from Harvardās rejection rate of 70%.</p>
<p>āIs a 30% admit rate for legacy applicants at Harvard āfairā?ā I neither asked the question nor provided any view on it. My own post was merely to provide a little bit of accurate information to the discussion.</p>
<p>āPersonally, Iād like to see adcoms look more carefully at socioeconomic background in their applicants.ā</p>
<p>Maybe a little. I understand the point, and am sympathetic to it, but Iām not sure itās a terribly good idea to go very far in that direction.</p>