<p>^ I really don't want to apply somewhere where I'm at a disadvantage against legacies.</p>
<p>No educational institution (that I know of) is immune from the needs of alumni loyalty and development (fundraising) needs. Some institutions may give more legacy preference than others. SOme institutions may not be very attractive so the idea of legacy status holds little weight too (i.e. they are unselective in admissions).</p>
<p>I’d say every single one of the top 100 schools have some level of consideration for legacy status – it varies from institution to institution. It’s a reality you need to accept unless you want to apply to the very unselective (80% admit rate) schools.</p>
<p>At the ultra selectives, no one’s odds are good. My HYP alma mater sent a letter to alums describing the current admissions landscape – prepping us so if Junior gets rejected, we dont’ get too angry. LOL</p>
<p>If you don’t want to apply somewhere where legacies are given a boost I’d suggest your local community college. </p>
<p>Seriously, what a dumb reason not to apply somewhere.</p>
<p>No college has a true merit system for admission (regardless of legacy} since, even without a legacy consideration, there are factors considered other than grades and test scores. Many public universities actually do not consider legacy as a factor simply because they have too high a percentage of applicants who could claim it but then for most such schools it is not that difficult to gain admission anyway.</p>
<p>I don’t think it’s dumb at all. I think it’s very reasonable for someone who doesn’t want to play this sick and twisted admission game to apply, and go, to their state school, which likely DOES admit on largely a meritocratic basis.</p>
<p>It’s an foolish question b/c “merit” or “best” in in the eye of the beholder. If a sch wants gender parity it my give a preference to male applicants (or to female applicant, in the case of engineering/tech schs). If a sch want to field a footbal team, which requires more members than many indiv sports, it will give a preference to males who play that sport. The same is true for musicians and the sch orchestra. And racial diversity. And geog diversity. And the list goes on.</p>
<p>It’s not just a matter of private colleges building a community (and giving preferences to achieve that goal), but students and families are looking for a particular experience. If for example, students and parents prefer coed schs w/ fairly equal numbers of male and female students, then applicant families shouldn’t complain about the sch’s pref to what would otherwise be the under-represented gender. And if students feel that the presence of athletics, theatre and the arts enhance the community, they ough not complain about the sch efforts to “recruit” athletes, thespians, musicians and artists.</p>
<p>And what about finances? Could any sch really aford to admit a class of highly-talented students, none of whom could afford full-tuition? And who’s to say that a student athlete is a weaker candidate than a student w/ no ECs, but .25 higher gpa?</p>
<p>Grow up!</p>
<p>The UCs do not consider legacy. </p>
<p>Some on here are assuming by “true merit” the op means only considers grades and test scores. That wouldn’t be my definition of a true meritocracy, but if that’s what you are looking for you might try looking outside the US.</p>
<p>I heard somewhere that MIT is closest to a meritocracy.</p>
<p>^I’d guess that Caltech is closer, though I’m not sure.</p>
<p>
no it’s not. they consider essays, ECs, and other things that aren’t objective. for example, kids who don’t “show interest/passion in the sciences” are often rejected no matter how good their scores are.</p>
<p>
when people say that they want college admissions to be merit-based they are almost always saying that test scores and grades ought to be only the determining factors. besides what else could colleges based on merit consider? grades and test scores are the only things that are objective.</p>
<p>
blah, blah, blah… this doesn’t even matter at all. just apply where you want to go and, if you’re smart, you’ll hopefully get in. if that’s not a good enough answer for you, don’t apply anywhere in the US because pretty much every college considers legacy status. and honestly, your thinking is a little bit flawed. say that you applied to X school and got rejected while someone else who was a legacy got in. how do you know and what makes you think that that person “took your spot?”</p>
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<p>There are numerous stories of kids whose main focus in high school was NOT math or science- a few of the bloggers are among them. I agree that MIT definitely looks at things other than scores, but it certainly seems to be working well for them. I don’t think anyone could argue that a single person who was admitted doesn’t deserve to go there, plus a few who didn’t make the cut.</p>
<p>Regarding MIT and legacies, it makes no difference. The only special treatment legacies get is that their application is read by the dean of admissions after a decision has already been made, and very rarely is a committee’s decision overturned and/or sent back to committee.</p>
<p>Obviously I’m biased, but I would definitely say MIT is the closest to a meritocracy in admissions- you can’t just be good at math or science, you’ve got to be an awesome person, too.</p>
<p>Deep Spring College. (Try and top that).</p>
<p>CalTech, MIT, UChicago(no legacy boost, only a waived app fee), Deep Springs - all pretty good I would suppose.</p>
<p>The claim of Daniel Golden </p>
<p>[Amazon.com:</a> The Price of Admission: How America’s Ruling Class Buys Its Way into Elite Colleges–and Who Gets Left Outside the Gates: Books: Daniel Golden](<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/Price-Admission-Americas-Colleges-Outside/dp/1400097975/]Amazon.com:”>http://www.amazon.com/Price-Admission-Americas-Colleges-Outside/dp/1400097975/) </p>
<p>is that Caltech comes closest to the ideal of pure meritocracy in admissions. Note that Caltech is a Common Application college, which means it still reserves the right to consider diversity factors (as it defines them) and other issues besides test scores and grades.</p>
<p>There’s no such thing as a " true meritocracy". At some point, subjective factors have to be accounted for.</p>
<p>It seems ridiculous for people to expect colleges not to accept legacies at a higher rate than regular applicants.</p>
<p>Accepting Legacies = More Money</p>
<p>More Money = Better School</p>
<p>Seems pretty obvious. At some point it has to come down to money, or else they can’t provide a quality education to anyone, regardless of merit.</p>
<p>MIT, Caltech, Olin, and Deep Springs don’t favor legacies.</p>
<p>MIT does read the application over again if it is from a legacy, but they have reported that they never have reversed a decision after doing this.</p>
<p>Not having legacies/development admits is not the only criteria of being a meritocracy, of course. Taking everything together, I would say Caltech is the only meritocraticracy among the big name schools. It is not completely objective, but they try to take the smartest people they can get whose focus is math, science, or technology. No other big name school can say they go for the smartest people they can get, period.</p>
<p>If a school makes admissions decisions based solely on grades and ECs, they would not need an admissions team. They would have admissions.exe.</p>
<p>MIT is far from being a meritocracy. They even say that legacy and race are considered.</p>
<p>[MIT</a> Office of the Provost, Institutional Research](<a href=“Home - MIT Institutional Research”>Home - MIT Institutional Research)</p>
<p>The only real meritocracies would be those that are completely objective – in other words, schools that use stats only (Cal States come to mind).</p>
<p>Yeah but if you are an MIT legacy and suck at math and science, you don’t get in. Likewise Caltech. </p>
<p>Admissions to top art schools of course are based on subjective review of portfolio, and legacies might get a closer look, but unless you endowed the new library, you probably aren’t getting into RISD if you aren’t good at art.</p>
<p>I mean, forget legacies. Look at the recruited athlete who gets into an Ivy with crappy grades and 1200 SATs. The adm process isn’t fair, no one said it was, but there you have it.</p>