<p>This was my question: “How do we know that more qualified applicants get rejected in favor of legacies?”</p>
<p>So are you, by quoting Hernandez, saying that athletes, low income and minority applicants are the same as legacies? News to me!</p>
<p>ND is well known for favoring the children of its alumni. It’s not HYPS. The admit rate is over 30%.</p>
<p>No, I was defending the statement that legacy is a hook.</p>
<p>Then please don’t quote Hernandez. The fact is that there are other factors that are hooks, and bigger ones than legacies. The importance of legacy status is diminishing all the time. It’s become far more difficult to “buy” one’s way into one of the most selective colleges (Donating a million won’t cut it).</p>
<p>As others have pointed, a student who is a legacy at one of the uber-selective schools has a good chance of being admitted at another of those. In my S’s high school cohort, 11 were admitted to Harvard, quite a few with legacy status. But most of these were also admitted to other uber-selective schools. Ten of them chose to attend H. One decided to go to Stanford where she had no legacy status at all.</p>
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<p>Can you quote a source here. Maybe not at Harvard, I really don’t know, but it’s plenty at most T15 schools. I personally know several in very recent years who bought their kids’ way into very top schools for less than one million. Of course the schools do their diligence and are betting on getting more later, but I can assure you many kids are walking through ivy gates with less than a million on the table.</p>
<p>As I said several posts back, I agree that legacy is certainly not the hook at most top schools that it was a couple of decades ago. Institutional priorities have indeed shifted. </p>
<p>Yet from absolutely everything I’ve seen as an alumni interviewer for an ivy, at my own kids’ 3 high schools that send 30% to ivies and working in an industry where almost all of my colleagues produced ivy legacies–it’s still a very real hook.</p>
<p>I also think development admits will continue to grow with the dollar amount it takes to get in going down. The colleges need the money more than ever and I think this economy makes the still rich more anxious than ever to secure their kids a place at a top college.</p>
<p>And what’s wrong with Hernandez as a source? I find her very direct and very accurate. Painfully so perhaps.</p>
<p>From mathson’s class - kid in at both Y and H, legacy at H. Kid in at P, not a legacy anywhere. Niece rejected at H, despite being double legacy good SAT scores and #3 in her class. I do think legacy may have tipped my son in, but he had SAT scores in the upper end of H’s range, perfect SAT subject tests, fives on all his APs and some interesting EC experiences. I’m not seeing legacy as that big a tip - athletes, URMS, big donors yes. Even years ago (70s) my cousin was rejected by Harvard despite double legacy status.</p>
<p>$1 million may be plenty for some schools. I don’t doubt it. I’m interested only in the most selective schools.</p>
<p>My own personal knowledge matches mathmom’s exactly. I did read in the Crimson once of one Harvard admit with somewhat lower stats (1200+/1600 on the SAT). She was a 13th generation Harvard attendee and a recruited athlete (soccer team captain). One has to wonder which of the two was the greater hook!</p>
<p>It’s also interesting to note that the “hooked” admission phenomenon does not apply uniformly to all top schools. For instance, Univ of Chicago’s admissions is far less affected by the “stacked cards” since </p>
<p>(1) they have dismal 
athletic scenes,
(2) the school is too scary (where the “fun comes to die”) to attract “glamorous and well endowed” crowd unless they also happen to be burning with desire to learn for the sake of learning
(3) it is too cold for sunny climate “glitteratis” and celebrities
(4) their alums are overrepresented in academia and underrepresented among captains of the industry and movers and shakers in the political inner sanctum: not enough mega donors or “power connection” providers
(5) they have only started to think about “legacy” issues: no well-oiled legacy machine to speak of - not yet</p>
<p>I believe this is why S1 managed to be accepted there with anti hook (over represented state, upper middle class suburbia, overrepresented ethnic/race background, overeducated parents, etc)</p>
<p>By the way, I get the feeling that U Chicago is getting smart and catching on, but for few more years or so, it may still be easier to get in there purely based on meritocratic qualifications. Something to think about…</p>
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<p>How are you defining most selective? I think Penn, Dartmouth, Brown, Stanford, Duke, Columbia–all schools where I personally know kids who walked in for under a million–would be in that category for most.</p>
<p>The book also has detail. If I remember correctly, Ralph Lauren was courted by Duke, gave half a million and that was it. Kid enjoyed Duke.</p>
<p>Would love to see any sources that contradict this.</p>
<p>Some of the same things could be said about MIT, where there have been a number of cross-admits with Harvard. In fact, I’d say that many of the students accepted at one top school are also accepted at other top schools. Which makes identifying the single factor that is a hook or tip very difficult. Another complicating factor is EA/ED/SCEA. By Dec. 31, S knew he was accepted at Harvard and did not send in other applications. The only exception was Stanford whose deadline was two weeks earlier. He got in, despite having no connection whatsoever with Stanford, and not even visiting.
With RD and multiple applications, it is easier to see if a student, despite legacy status, was accepted on his/her merits or not.</p>
<p>hmom5;
I’m surprised that the schools are so cheap as to let less qualified applicants in for a mere half million. When was that?</p>
<p>In the last year. I’ll will also bet a million looks pretty good to HYP this year from a high net worth donor with the promise of more to come. Just another part of the college game–they can only gess how much they’ll end up with.</p>
<p>hmom5:</p>
<p>Ralph Lauren’s children went to Duke in 1989 and 1992. One must assume that there were other donations before last year’s!</p>
<p>Yes. a million looks good–but only with more to come. On its own, not so much. A new faculty hire at the junior level costs a lot more than a million.</p>
<p>Anyway, donors are different from legacies. And both are different from athletes and URMS. The number of donor kids on any campus is incredibly small. And paradoxically, these donors are making it possible for colleges to be meritocracies for a much larger number of low income and middle-class applicants. It’s their money that fund scholarships.</p>
<p>As long as we accept students being given a boost in the name of diversity, I don’t see why anything is wrong with admissions for donations. Think of this group as adding to the diversity - “those who have a million to spare”. Colleges like to give students the opportunity to interact with people from country X or race Y - it’s as valid to say they’re giving them the opportunity to mingle with this class of students that the average kid won’t run into every day.</p>
<p>As a bonus the million today and possible multi-millions in the years to come will go a long way in helping to subsidize college for others.</p>
<p>I think in the Wall Street go-go era, there were many more development kids than most understand. Indeed they are different than legacies, but again, I’ve personally seen tremendous overlap. In fact, I’d have to say that up until a year ago, for a decade or more, the “should we give the million” conversation was going on in a lot of high net worth households.</p>
<p>My favorite story is of clients of mine–2 business partners who met at an ivy and had to decide whether to buy their kids’ way into same college. One did, with a cool million. The other decided not to. His DS wasn’t even sure he wanted to attend. Both kids got in for the class of '13. IMO, neither would have gotten in without being a legacy/development. They had median stats, but were not top students at their high schools. </p>
<p>Technically, only one was development.</p>
<p>The second partner, who decided not to buy in, just endowed a chair. His love of the school was reignited with his DS there. I’m sure there’s a fat file in development that gave high odds to this happening. And the kid has only been there a few months.</p>
<p>Elite colleges pay much more than lip service to academic merit. After all, their patrons need exceptionally smart people to make their complicated companies and the financial system run. But they also want to provide their own above-average children the imprimatur of a Ivy (or equivalent) diploma. Some 10 or 15 percent of places at top colleges go to Hispanics and African Americans. Probably double that (most of the balance of the Hernandez 40% ^^) go to affluent white kids based in part on all sorts of discriminating factors other than strict academic merit. What many of these these kids seem to prize in the most selective colleges is a “networking” advantage that has little to do with the intellectual mission of a great university. They don’t pursue academic careers at nearly the rates as graduates of some schools that are somewhat less selective, or much less selective, especially in regard to admission hooks and “stories” (not just Chicago but also schools well down the pecking order).</p>
<p>The problem comes down to supply and demand. Virtually all of the country’s most selective liberal arts colleges and universities were built before 1900. A Vanderbilt, a Rockefeller, or an Ezra Cornell would reach a point in life when he realized he had more money than he needed, then establish a university with some of the surplus. Since then, the country’s population has doubled; people who in the past would have been farmers and mechanics are now “knowledge workers”; but the number of elite universities is almost exactly what it was 100 years ago. If the wealthiest Americans could not so easily buy their children seats in the best colleges (directly, or indirectly by providing extracurricular selection-and-filtering advantages), maybe they’d be investing more of their money to build new ones. Or they’d accept a rate of taxation for education that begins to approach what now goes into wars fought by other people’s children.</p>
<p>Of course it is likely that the many well-qualified kids being rejected from uber-selective schools are raising the level of education at the schools that do accept them. However, they often contend with larger classes and above all less financial aid (leaving them burdened with debt for years) compared to kids who are only marginally more qualified (or in some cases less qualified) where it really counts.</p>
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<p>And yet even if this above statement is true, Harvard still has better stats than UChicago with respect to the middle 50 percentile of SAT scores.</p>
<p>Chicago Harvard</p>
<p>CR 660/770 700/800
Math 650/760 700/790</p>
<p>This difference probably reflects the greater desirablity to attend Harvard. So despite its being less of a ‘meritocracy’, Harvard still manages to assemble a more impressive class stats-wise because of its desirablity. </p>
<p>I’m sure that Harvard could get its middle 50 percentile scores higher. So suppose Harvard changes its admissions practices and choose the best candidates based on numbers (and other Ivy League schools maintain their current admissions practices). In the short term, Harvard’s middle 50 percentile scores would go much higher. But then, in the long term, would it remain as desirable? And if it didn’t remain as desirable, wouldn’t it get less accomplished applicants and ultimately the profile of students, stats-wise, wouldn’t be as good?</p>
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<p>I am surprised by this statement. The intellectual mission of a great university is not just to turn out people for academic careers. The jobs are just not there. When my H got his Ph.D. in physics from Harvard, in the post-Sputnik era, 600 people applied for an entry level position at a Tier 3 school!
The job of universities has always been to turn out well-educated graduates who may go on to academic careers-- or not. Networking does not just happen at top national universities. It happens at state universities as well. </p>
<p>hmom5: I am pretty sure that in the go go years, there were plenty of people eager to buy their children’s ways into selective schools. And there are still people able to do so. But they still represent a tiny minority of students at any campus. And their money makes it possible for low income and even middle class students to attend the top universities. Unlike when I was in college when scholarships were far less available and the colleges far less economically diverse than they are today. I doubt that the donors’ kids are numerous enough have an impact on admissions stats of a particular college–other than making it possible for more students to attend their college.</p>
<p>skrlvr:
I would not want to use SATs alone to compare the student bodies of Harvard and Chicago. Some areas of excellence, such as in the arts, are not captured by SAT scores. And even in pure academic terms, GPAs are said to be deemed more significant. The students at Chicago I’ve known are just as good as those at Harvard.</p>
<p>hmom: You certainly know a lot of high rollers. In my neck of the woods, many kids apply to Ivies, but very few get in, and alumni children have no edge at all. They are routinely rejected by mom/dad’s alma mater. Yale, Harvard, and Penn have been especially cruel. Zero legacy admits to Yale and Penn, and the only Harvard legacy who got in came off the Z-list. All of the kids who have been accepted to HYP have been recruited athletes or straight-ahead academic admits. I see absolutely no evidence that legacy provides an advantage at HYP and its brethren. I will grant you that alumni children have a hook at Notre Dame, a fact that was clearly documented in the Price of Admission. Your quote from Michele Hernandez, in which she lumps together legacies with members of URMs, development cases, and recruited athletes, is, to me careless language – and she offers no data to support her conclusion that legacies are hooked at uber-selective schools.</p>
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<p>I worked on Wall Street for 3 decades. Enough said?</p>
<p>There is no doubt that all legacies are not seen equally. Money and power talk.</p>
<p>Maybe Michele will way in, she does once in awhile.</p>
<p>Maybe she can disaggregate the 40% non-academic admits into the different categories so that we can all learn how many admits would not have been admitted had they not been legacies. It should be easier to do than to assume a priori that an admit was also a legacy, ergo s/he was admitted because s/he was a legacy.</p>