Lookee: roughly 2x the number applied from publics as privates and roughly 2x admitted. Roughly 37% of public hs admits matriculated. 40% of admitted from privates matriculated.
Athletic achievement is fine by me for pro sports. Or high level sports camps. College starts with academics. Yes, I object to converting the standards for athletes to sports ability. And run through the coaches, not adcoms. To me, other than the high performing academic/non-sports ECs athletes, it’s a no-brainer.
I don’t denigrate stats/studies. Not at all. But I believe some use these as a replacement for a deeper view. And sometimes go off track.
The Amherst info is from the Annual Report to Secondary Schools.
@MWolf - yes, it was an interview with the author that I read and it was very interesting.
So even though people here are giving stats about private school versus public school applications and acceptances, the point is that these stats are misleading. So ok, more kids are accepted from public schools - but these are not poor neighborhood publics - they’re the monied suburban ones. The low SES kids are coming from the privates - these kids are a safer bet for elite schools and have the bells and whistles that come from attending private schools. These students will have a much easier time adapting also.
Again, when you just look at the % of prep kids in the enrolled class, what you see is the kids who chose to enroll. That’s something of a wild card, personal choice, not an indication the elites consciously build a class of prep kids.
Legacy and any influence from mega donors isn’t what posters should be worried about, if their kids will apply. You should worry whether you and your child understand what they do look for. Not just high stats, club titles, awards, 500 hours at the dog shelter or doing whatever you proclaim a “passion” for and avoiding what they want to see.
Since “Legacy and any influence from mega donors” are actually significant parts of what “they want to see”, and which are unearnable by students who do not inherit such attributes, it should not be a surprise that outsiders view their admission criteria with cynicism.
UCB, I’m sorry so many posters believe " “Legacy and any influence from mega donors” are actually significant parts of what “they want to see.”
It’s so incomplete and based on opinions and fears. Maybe some that have little to do with college. And I’ve been saying for years, that the perfect storm of lots of uber donors with hs seniors applying is small. While the amount they need to donate is huge. And that they’re vetted before applying, etc, etc.
Legacy preferences are much more numerous than donor relations and therefore a much larger effect in crowding out other applicants. How are they anything more than additional unearned inherited privilege added to usually existing advantage?
Seems like colleges could just drop legacy preference and make most of the related cynicism go away.
Lookingforward- I agree with many of your posts. But you undercut your own arguments when you post this:
“Again, when you just look at the % of prep kids in the enrolled class, what you see is the kids who chose to enroll. That’s something of a wild card, personal choice, not an indication the elites consciously build a class of prep kids.”
You are going to show me the college counselor at Andover who tells a kid "I know you prefer Denison or Trinity or Hamilton-- but humor me and apply to Yale. Then once you get into Yale, you can turn them down and go to “fill in the blank known safety school for prep school kids”. Or the college counselor at St. Paul’s who tells a kid “we know you’d prefer Holy Cross- but do grandpa a favor and apply to Harvard, just to see if Legacy really is a thing. And we’ll support you 100% when you turn down Harvard.”
No. This doesn’t happen. For lots of reasons- the biggest being that prep school college counseling is a big deal and very expert and their biggest contribution is to eliminate bunching- i.e. make sure that once the dust settles, everyone is at their first or second choice. Even when that means telling the kid who is hellbent on Dartmouth that he should start loving Franklin and Marshall (because he ain’t getting in to Dartmouth) and making sure that the kids who ARE applying to HYP et al really are the top students in the class. Because if they aren’t, their list starts to shape up with Lehigh and Denison, not Amherst and Williams.
The second biggest reason this doesn’t happen is because the colleges track their yield very carefully. When a kid turns down Harvard it’s to go to Stanford or MIT. When a kid turns down Columbia it’s to go to Brown. Etc . We would ALL know about it if all of a sudden kids were turning down Princeton for Northwestern or turning down Harvard for Earlham. Yes- every year a couple of outliers, and virtually always a kid turning down a generous need based package for a full ride (which of course is the point of places like Wash U even offering the full ride- to get the kid to turn down Harvard.) But a prep school kid turning down HYP to go to Beloit or Skidmore? You’d know about it.
There are oodles and oodles of fine students who have no interest in HYP et al. And many of them are at private schools. But their lists reflect their interests- the Parochial school kids are applying to Notre Dame and Georgetown, Holy Cross the match, Providence the safety. They aren’t saying “what the hell” and adding Harvard just so once they are accepted they can turn it down because they REALLY preferred Villanova.
So guess what- the % of enrolled prep school kids actually reflects the proportion who were admitted. Because if they are turning down Yale it’s to go to Harvard, so they STILL show up in someone’s stats as a “top school admit who went to prep school” even if it’s not one particular top school.
Yes, you can apply to x elite and then choose Harvard, when/if it comes through. Or apply to Davidson, but really be gunning for Stanford. Or Duke. Or want to continue the family tradition to Notre Dame. No tippy top prep GC is limiting students to one top college.
Yes, the upward preference is known to elites, a concern. Not every kid in the Amherst table matriculated.
But the implication from some on this thread is that elites intentionally choose wealthy kids, to be elitest. My point was (has been) that many factors apply. And one cannot view the admit factors/priorities from the numbers of wealthy vs poor who do matriculate to an elite.
Why not eliminate legacy? I’ll admit, I have a Why Bother?" feeling. Much is made of their supposed admissions advantage, but the kid still has to come through with a solid full app, no rookie mistakes. We know H, eg, rejects about 2/3. I know not all legacies are wealthy. And that not all, regardless, are qualified. It’s not an auto admit. Plus, plenty of legacies have one parent who attended, but the other parent may offer legacy elsewhere, equally desirable to the kid, maybe moreso.
Otoh, athletic pull… Over time, on CC, I’ve wondered why so few worry about those numbers, whom the borderline or underqualified athlete admits are crowding out.
I wish my alma mater (Brown) would eliminate legacy. I have lived through so many admissions cycles (and listened to my classmates complain) that I have come to realize that at least at Brown, legacy by itself is virtually meaningless. You won’t even get a glass of water on a 95 degree day when you show up with your kid to take the tour (ask me how I know.) It is barely a blip for a kid whose only “secret sauce” is legacy. I’ve got classmates whose kids ended up at Wellesley and Penn and Columbia where they didn’t have legacy status- so the kids aren’t exactly dumb- and still got either the kind waitlist (you can wait a long time) or the less kind rejection.
Mom is a United States Senator? Legacy counts assuming the kid has the goods. Dad is a Pulitzer prize winning playwright? Legacy counts, assuming the kid has the goods. Mom teaches HS science and dad is a social worker? Absent something else- sorry kid, there were too many other qualified candidates this year.
I think (at least speaking for Brown) that legacy has fallen to the bottom of many other strategic priorities. And since one of those strategic priorities is to focus on URM’s, particularly from parts of the country where kids don’t typically aspire to a college like Brown, and another is first Gen kids (where the “smart kids” in the class go to CC to become a dental technician) I can hardly complain that I’ve interviewed a bunch of really nice, bright kids who have a parent who is an alum who get rejected.
So yes- get rid of legacy already. You’ll identify the daughter of the United States Senator on the nice line which asks “What does Mom do?” and assuming the kid has the right stuff, you get to admit her anyway. But why set up the expectation among your “average” alum, who loves the college but doesn’t bring big bucks, bragging rights, or some form of celebrity-- that there is a finger on the scale???
Athletes- I dunno. I find it hard to get worked up over them. Don’t know why.
@Blossom - Seeing the same thing at Cornell. Legacy, even for very involved alumni, doesn’t seem to move the needle. High profile/big donor seems to be necessary. We have also seen our committee members’ kids rejected and then attending other Ivies, including HYP, so they are well qualified applicants.
Momofsenior- thanks for pointing out the fallacy of the “involved” alum. I forgot to mention that part!!! For most of my classmates, our involvement is organizing stuff. Symposia, Author Talks, Annual Fund events, a nice afternoon for admitted seniors before decisions go out. Reunion planning. Interviewing in parts of the country where alums don’t congregate-- especially at high schools which don’t send a lot of kids to four year colleges. So yes- we think of ourselves as involved.
Did any of us endow a new neuroscience lab? Kick off the last capital campaign? Be on the President’s committee to evaluate the new campus master plan and figure out where the $ will come from to turn the campus carbon neutral after the rehabbing and construction and infrastructure initiative is done?
No we did not. I have observed the same things at Cornell (several family members) who have volunteered happily (out of love for the institution) but not at the mega/celebrity level!!!
The fact that a good portion (often the majority) of qualified legacy applicants are not admitted does not mean legacy offers little advantage. Instead all relevant studies or related analyses I have seen show a large legacy advantage at many highly selective colleges, particularly when the applicant applies early. Note that I said “many.” There is a good amount of variation among specific highly selective colleges, including some that do not consider legacy status in admission decisions. Quotes from some of the numerous available references are below;
https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/btl/files/michael_hurwitz_-_qp_12-12-09.pdf – Looks at 30 “elite colleges.” Compares admission results for students who apply to multiple “elite” colleges – whether they are more likely to be admitted to colleges where they are a legacy over similarly selective colleges where they are not a legacy.
http://public.econ.duke.edu/~psarcidi/legacyathlete.pdf – Based on public information listed from the Harvard lawsuit sample. It controls dozens of relevant variables including the specific ratings given by admissions readers. In short in looks at the relative legacy benefit among applicants who have comparable academic/EC/personal/… ratings, comparable stats, same non-legacy hook status, etc.
Legacies do tend to be substantially wealthier than the overall class at “elite” colleges, and below median income legacies are almost non-existent in the classes of many highly selective colleges. This type of legacy preference obviously worsens the SES distribution for the full class. For example, some numbers from the most recent Harvard freshman class survey are below.
Parents make >$500k (top 1%) – 46.4% of legacies, 26.3% of athletes, ~12% of non-legacies
Parents make <$80k (bottom 60%) – ~1% of legacies, 11% of athletes, ~34% of non-legacies
How do you know that the difference is in who the elite schools are favoring in admissions, rather than differences in who is applying? As I’ve stated many times through this thread, few high achieving lower income kids from non-selective public HSs apply to selective colleges. If few apply, few will be admitted. The high achieving lower income kids who apply to selective colleges generally have different backgrounds, including the private HS example you mentioned.
For example, the Hoxby study I’ve linked to multiple times in this thread shows that one of the strongest predictors of whether a high achieving lower income kid applies to selective colleges (achievement typical) or only applies to non-selective colleges (income typical) was attending a magnet HS. All (within percentage rounding limitations) of the magnet kids were “achievement typical” who applied to selective colleges, even though most non-magnet high achieving lower income kids did not apply to selective colleges. Magnet low income kids are far more likely to apply, so low income admissions are especially common among at magnet HSs. Other strong predictors of low income high achievers applying to selective colleges include living in a city, attending a private HS, and being Asian.
The reasons for this relationship are complex and multifaceted. I expect some of the lack of applications among students from lower SES public HSs relate to lack of awareness that “elites” may be less expensive than non-selective alternatives. Some of it relates to influence from peers, community., and family. Some of it relates to HS quality issues including poor academic options and lack of quality advising. Some of it relates to needing or wanting to stay near home. Some of it to not having the expectation that attending an “elite” is a golden ticket to something that cannot be obtained from a non-elite college.
If you believe what they put in their common data sets, about 30% of public and 57% of private non-profit colleges consider legacy in admissions. But 88% of the USNWR top 25 national universities and 92% of the USNWR top 26 LACs consider legacy in admissions.
The last time I checked, Michigan was one of them, but only for out of state. That makes sense to me. Do you have examples of publics considering legacy for in-state applicants?
The “out of state legacy” may be in reference to Virginia, where https://uvamagazine.org/articles/college_bound_and_determined (from 2009) says that “one’s legacy status doesn’t carry the weight that it once did for in-state students. For out-of-state students, a legacy status puts them in the in-state pool, where their odds are better.” More current information from Virginia’s web site is at https://alumni.virginia.edu/admission/ but does not appear to mention in state versus out of state specifically.
Wisconsin considers legacy both in and out of state. Overall legacy admit rate (and yield) is significantly higher than the averages (data not broken out by in vs out of state), see last page of report here: https://uwmadison.app.box.com/s/a6924b0oncjo12hq7kjzdvl6c4yirjob