<p>I will be a Junior at George Mason University (got a late start!) when my teenage twins are applying to college. My daughter is very interested in GMU. How much would it help boost her application that I am a student there? I am performing extremely well academically, if that makes any difference.</p>
<p>My son is a straight "A" student hoping to get into MIT - a real challenge, we know. Will it make any difference that my dad was a professor there? No one in the family attended as a student.</p>
<p>MIT does not consider legacy, but I think your daughter is in luck. I don’t know about faculty brats, or in this case ex faculty brats, I doubt it will help.</p>
<p>George Mason is a huge public university, and it accepts about 2/3rds of its applicants. It’s only 40 years old, so it is really just encountering its first wave of legacies, and trying to take advantage of the fact that its first alumni are now in their most productive years. I imagine that unless there is some terrible problem with the application – a serious criminal record, SATs below 450 on multiple tests, stuff like that – legacy applications would have about the same success rate as a Shaquille O’Neal slam dunk.</p>
<p>As for MIT – I wouldn’t be surprised if being the grandson of a professor, the child of a daughter with an “interesting” career trajectory, was in fact a little boost. Not if the grandfather only taught at MIT for a few years in his youth, or visited there a few times, but yes if he was a long-term tenured prof.</p>
<p>IF there’s a way to note it, they’ll notice. Then decisions will be based on his own merit and ability to thrive and contribute. What is sometimes helpful is if S in any way worked with GF, can show the influence and experience- that legacy. But it’s still “show, not tell.” Has he been inspired to action, had the mindset honed, because of the relationship- or is he green? Ie, still rests on the applicant.</p>
<p>Also agree that sometimes a parent in college is interesting.</p>
<p>Um, wouldn’t the biggest boost from having a parent in the same college (as a current student) be from the totally awesome and unique essay that could be written about that?</p>
<p>Stanford does care about legacy, but so many legacies apply they could fill a class with them. Our daughter, a high-stat legacy, was rejected, but at least we were forewarned: the admissions office sends all Stanford alums whose kids are applying a letter telling them how even though they consider legacy status, their darling offspring are still highly unlikely to get in because the acceptance rate is so darn low.</p>