<p>Does anyone know, roughly speaking (and given that the percentage will vary from school to school and year to year), what percentage of available spots end up being taken by legacy and/or sibling applicants?</p>
<p>The only school we investigated that made this information public (that I remember) is Westminster. In their case it is 29% <a href="http://www.westminster-school.org/podium/default.aspx?t=6876%5B/url%5D">http://www.westminster-school.org/podium/default.aspx?t=6876</a> . I don't know if this is lower or higher than normal, but I suspect that it is typical.</p>
<p>i think it's higher than the higher end schools...</p>
<p>In the post on the class of 2011, kirmum had this say about St. Paul's legacies:</p>
<pre><code> "The subject of legacies hasn't been discussed much here. I recently had a look at "The Record", SPS's yearbook of sorts for parents. It shows who made what honor roll, awards and it shows every legacy a student has going back to great-great-great grandfather and including sibs. I was shocked at the number of legacies. Astounded. It looked to be close to 50% with many, many having multiple legacies, they have a symbol for each."
</code></pre>
<p>It appears that it is higher at least at this "higher end school."</p>
<p>The Record of St. Paul's School is subject to misinterpretation depending upon one's definition of the term "legacy". The Record includes brothers and sisters, even those currently enrolled as students. St. Paul's School has approximately 25% legacies per class, several of whom are also athletes. For example, the graduating class of 2004 at SPS had 133 graduates of whom 51 have a "legacy" designation in The Record, but 35 of the 51 only have a brother or sister "legacy", some of whom were then also currently enrolled as SPS students. The Record is also subject to misinterpretation because academically awarded students also receive a "designation" mark next to their name in this SPS publication, and they are not necessarily legacies by any definition.</p>
<p>The original poster was asking about legacies and siblings. The 29% from Westminster is for both legacies & siblings. The estimate of 50% for SPS is for a very recent year. Per Garrity above, it was 38% in 2004.</p>
<p>Garrity -- Do you have ballpark numbers on this for any schools? You seem to know about the SPS record. Just curious. Thanks.</p>
<p>Legacy and siblings comes to less than 39% of the class of 2004 at SPS. Yes, I do have the data for over a dozen prep schools,but it is in various publications with different reporting methods, thus I am not to eager to dig it out and compute it as I have done for SPS. My point, however, is that the 50% figure is neither accurate nor reasonable. Some siblings are actually entering schools such as SPS during the same school year so that the 38.7% figure moves below 33% or more during a typical year. Andover, for another example, serves many diplomats who may send two children during the same year a non-US based assignment is received. The earlier posted 29% seems reasonable as a guideline, although personnally, due to yearly variations, if asked I would state 25% for the top boarding schools. For the class of 2003 at SPS it was 62 of 145, less than 43%, which surprises me. 57 of 133 for 2005. 42 of 134 for 2006, less than 32%.</p>
<p>Thanks, everyone. I was wondering, because in "The Overachievers: The Secret Lives of Driven Kids," the author writes about a New York City preschool where the admissions staff discovers that, for the following year, there won't even be enough openings to accommodate all the legacies and siblings, not to mention applicants with no affiliation. I'm glad to hear that's not the case for prep schools!</p>
<p>St. Lawrence University in rural, upstate New York is an example of a "college" that has trouble accommodating legacies due to a 42% increase in applications this year. The elite boarding school legacy % may be decreasing due, in part, to more international student apps. and recruiting to prepare students for the global economy. Also, legacies % is going lower due to increased financial aid and recruitment of low income students for various diversity objectives.</p>
<p>it's higher in terms of % at higher end BS becoz logically...a berkshire legacy, if accepted by hotchkiss, might go to hotchkiss instead of berkshire. There's an incentive. On the other hand, a hotchkiss legacy, if accepted by berkshire, would of course go to hotchkiss given that he's a legacy plus it's more prestigious (remember that a lot of people really dont get the concept of "fit" and still dive for prestige) and there are not many schools (if any) that are significanly "more prestigious"..therefore, the legacy would be the tipping factor for the kid to go...</p>
<p>In this year's 3rd form (9th grade) there appear to be 41 legacies of 108 students. Several more will appear as legacies in the next 3 years as siblings graduate.</p>
<p>WOW!!!! I AM naive! I did NOT know this was such a high percentage! From what I have been told, they look at you equally whether you are a legacy or not; and if you're applying for aid or not. I was hoping that was true. =/</p>
<p>i think SPS is an extreme case. They have a reputation of having A LOT of legacy like really A LOT.. but other schools are like that..tho not as extreme</p>
<p>I think we had as many as the others.</p>
<p>If we start with 40% legacies, then add 10% black and 5% hispanic, athletes, staff kids, friends and family of key people, I'm pretty surprised I'm here right now!</p>
<p>Where you don't want to be from: MA, NY, CT, CA, NH, NJ, PA, Hong Kong, South Korea, Canada.</p>
<p>Where you want to be from: WY, WA, Nevada, Missouri, OK, and surprisingly most of Europe.</p>
<p>Also Arizona. I noticed that, I believe it was at either Exeter or Deerfield, there wasn't a single child from Arizona.</p>
<p>No Way Man...my Friend Who Went To Andover Summer School With Me Is From Arizona And He's Now At Exeter....i M Pretty Sure He Hasnt Graduated Yet</p>
<p>Thanks for the additional input. From what SPSstudent says, it sounds like there are next to no openings for any unaffiliated white applicants from a less-desirable state.</p>
<p>Then I guess it wasn't at Exeter. I visited a few schools in a few days, and I can't remember exactly which school it was, but they had these charts of students attending. Anyway, it's underrepresented at all of them.</p>
<p>Not that it means anything, but if I recall correctly the Exeter video features a student from Arizona. Possibly two.</p>
<p>You could argue that they did that to really pitch Exeter to Arizonans. You could argue that that happened because Arizona has a pipeline to Exeter. Or you could argue that that's just how things fell into place by the luck of the draw.</p>
<p>Actually, there's another thing you could argue: You could argue that my memory of what's on that video is totally wack.</p>