<p>Right. It has been noted several times that Harvard found it had nearly the same admission rate for Yale and Princeton legacies, to whom it gives no preference, of course, as it does for Harvard legacies. And I know plenty of Harvard and Yale legacies who have been admitted to Stanford with no particular hook there. The fact is that lots of what elite colleges consider “merit” – high test scores, excellent writing, community leadership, good performance in a very demanding secondary school curriculum – probably correlates highly with having smart parents who are sophisticated about higher education, probably more successful economically than average, and who themselves showed lots of “merit” in their teens.</p>
<p>And, we should not forget that in that pool of 94.31 percent of rejections, there are plenty of legacies and faculty brats! </p>
<p>Among my close friends, I can point to families with all three siblings with double legacies accepted at Stanford as well as a family of Stanford grads and faculty having their oldest accepted and the youngest rejected. More anecdotes are cut from the same cloth. </p>
<p>Legacies still help --as they should-- but they hardly represent a safe bet at schools that reject 18 to 19 out 20 applicants.</p>
<p>It used to be said that a Princeton degree was hereditary, like British titles of nobility.</p>
<p>^^I think the same can be said about H :)</p>
<p>For what it is worth, the best and brightest of our HS graduating class have been admitted to some absolutely terrific schools. There was a huge randomness in the entire process, but they were still able to get those admits based on merit alone.</p>
<p>The legacies, minorities and athletes have been accepted as well, but I do not think they “stole” spots from the very top kids…</p>
<p>I also wanted to point out the fact that even if you are perfectly eligible (in terms of stats) does not have to mean that you are the top student. We all know how it works ;)</p>