First try on SAT 1410 (that was with no prep, have taken a course and will hopefully raise score once results come back), GPA 3.9 W. (I’m not sure how much this matters but I was NMSQT commended this year for my 1450 psat score) I know both of these are definitely below average for Brown, however being that I had a grandfather and father that attended Brown, do I have a shot?
May want to reconsider your user name if you want thoughtful responses.
I thought my username was appropriate to describe my attitude towards high school and it is reflected in the fact that I scored in the 99th percentiles on the PSAT yet my GPA is at or below average.
In college admissions that is what’s called an underachiever. Regardless of your stats or legacy status I would fear that attitude will undermine your applications.
Top tier schools have an abundance of applicants with great grades, scores and ECs. The one common denominator amongst those accepted is intellectual curiosity and a great attitude.
My job as an applicant is to highlight strengths and hide weaknesses. Obviously I won’t write “highschoolblows” on my Brown application and I’ve already begun planning on including in my admissions essays subtle hints towards reasons my GPA isn’t on par with my testing scores that would lead them away from the conclusion of laziness. Portraying myself as a hard working individual shouldn’t be the hard part as my ECs would prove that. My main question is will being a double legacy be enough to counterbalance my 3.9 GPA. By the time I apply my SAT will be on par or above the average at Brown hopefully.
Not sure grandparents count as legacy at Brown, you will have to research that.
More importantly, what is your unweighted GPA? You can not hide that, and Brown will calculate that. Do you have any Cs? What has been your course rigor, % or # of honors and AP courses?
Grandparents count,although not to the same extent as parents.
http://www.browndailyherald.com/2014/04/14/students-question-use-legacy-admission/
Double legacy is not more valued more than single legacy.
The quote above should also answer the question posed by the OP.
I don’t think legacy is going to counter balance any glaring weakness. Where does the 3.9 W put you roughly in class rank, top 5%, top 10% or lower? Remember, even if Brown puts legacies in a special bucket, you will likely be competing against high achieving legacies. Double legacy also does not give you double points. Are your father/grandfather active alumni, i.e. volunteers, consistent and or substantial donors? That may get another note in the file.
Grandparents count of course! Legacy = familial descendant of former student. Brown has an overabundance of perfect stats applicants. Legacies need to be close to admissible on their own these days. (depends if you are an Obama type legacy (Harvard of course) or John Brown …or John Smith…LOL) I would focus on raising your SAT to the average or above of admitted applicants to Brown. Honestly evaluate the rigor of your coursework thus far. If its been tough stuff then that helps your story as would a better SAT.
The class of 2021 at Brown had the following acceptance rates based on class rank:
Valedictorian 19%
Salutadicorian 14%
Top 10% of class 10%
2nd tenth% 2%
While not answering your legacy question directly, this should provide context for admissions norms. As others have referenced there are children of people who went to Brown and generous and committed development department legacies. I suspect the former serves as a modest tie breaker at best while the latter can make up for application deficiencies in a meaningful way.
Good luck.
My only C was AP Calc.
I don’t think that’s true.
Maybe this is what you meant and it’s just a semantics issue, but Llegacy status will not turn a kid from “not admissible” to “admissible.” Brown has more admissible applicants than spots so legacy can be the reason someone gets in over someone else but it’s a minimal boost and will not make up for lacking bona fides to justify admitting the student regardless of legacy status.
Let me rephrase.
Like our children, we love all our legacies equally. 
So in the non-existent arithmetic equation for admissions, I do not believe that double legacy = single legacy*x or that DL = SL^x, unless x is extremely close to 1. But I’ll be happy to have a source prove me wrong.
Of course you have a shot! I think it depends what else is in your file. Are you a nationally ranked gymnast, etc? You also can’t get in, if you don’t apply.
Why would the application ask you to mention all of them if there’s no difference between 1 and more than 1?
A couple decades ago an admissions director told me that double legacy had a higher acceptance rate than single legacy, and gave me the numbers. But that was in the 1990s. I believe there is still a boost to double legacy, although not as high as before.
I’ve known double legacies who got in, and those who didn’t. Some of the ones denied were highly qualified. I know a quadruple (or maybe even more, I think several generations of grandparents were Brown alums) who didn’t get in – that dad was not pleased.
However, none of this matters if you aren’t competitive. With your GPA and SATs, you’re not in the top tier. So legacy won’t help unless you add another tip factor, like athletics or huge donations.
You know more about Brown than I do @iwannabe_Brown , but AFAIK, they don’t. The general section, which is used for all colleges, asks for parents’ education, but the Brown-specific page asks nothing. As examples from other colleges, Columbia asks:
And, oh by the way, Columbia only considers parents in the legacy definition, so why ask about the other relatives?
Princeton asks:
Brown (and Harvard for that matter) asks: - crickets - there is no section.
Now perhaps one might wish to infer something based upon questions asked (or not asked), but I personally prefer not to make inferences. So my own guess, without any evidence to the contrary, is that a second alum might add a feather to the scale - if that. YMMV.
We know from the Harvard litigation documents that Harvard codes applicants for “double legacy.” The coefficient for double legacy in the regression estimates is positive and approximately 25% above the coefficient estimated for legacy alone.
From this, I conclude that double legacy does make a moderate, positive difference at Harvard, and I bet at Brown too. Obviously, no one knows for sure.
At least at Harvard, if an applicant is within the range of admissible (say, roughly top half of the applicant pool on basic academic measures), then legacy and double legacy are enormous boosts to the applicant’s chances. There are few hooks stronger.
I’m happy to concede that probably carries over to other schools too, in the absence of a Brown-specific answer. I’ll confess that I have not spent much time analyzing the lawsuit documents. But I know that there are others who can come up with the relevant statistic when needed, as happened here