<p>I mean, if I go to rice or Cornell, the schools I'm legacies at, it's not like my aprents are going to give any more money because I go there.</p>
<p>Seriously, why do legacies get such an advantage?</p>
<p>Of course, I could understand if the parents donate tens of millions of dollars to the school, if the son didn't get in, the school probably wouldn't receive the money.</p>
<p>But why do the schools give so much favor to regular joes who are legacies?</p>
<p>( Of course I'm not complaining about the advantages I get lol)</p>
<p>generally intelligence carries through the family. Say a harvard grad has a kid who is equally intelligent as their parent and, in admissions, is being compared to someone with similar stats. They will choose the legacy. Later when that harvard grad has a kid that kid will say that their grandparent and parent went to harvard...maybe i should too. and the tradition carries on.</p>
<p>
[quote]
generally intelligence carries through the family. Say a harvard grad has a kid who is equally intelligent as their parent and, in admissions, is being compared to someone with similar stats. They will choose the legacy.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>That argument doesn't make any sense. In comparison to a kid who has similar stats? This isn't about intelligence when you have so many qualified people competing for top tier colleges. It's about matriculation and how likely an applicant is to accept the offer from a school. If mommy went to Yale, the kid will probably also choose Yale over another school.</p>
<p>"Later when that harvard grad has a kid that kid will say that their grandparent and parent went to harvard...maybe i should too. and the tradition carries on."</p>
<p>Legacies don't receive enormous favor, they receive uniqueness. The dean at Harvard personally reads over every legacy app, whereas he most likely does not read over every non-legacy app. This uniqueness is very important at Universities where the majority of applicants are very competitive for admission with very similar stats because adcoms are looking for applicants that stand out, and legacy applicants do.</p>
<p>generally, they can rely on legacies to know their school and legitimately like it-whereas they might feel they are "just another ivy/top 20" to a similar applicant.</p>
<p>It's about money. They have the historical data and most families do give more when there is a family bond with a school.</p>
<p>However, average Joe legacies do not get nearly the leg up that legacies from generous families get at most schools. Many schools have formulas that take into account how many years your family made a gift.</p>
<p>Well, from my experience though, a lot of people apply to the school their parents went to so then they'd have a better chance of getting into somewhere good.</p>
<ol>
<li>In many cases, money has to do with it.</li>
<li>Perhaps an even bigger reason, however, is because if you're a Yale alum, you probably talk to your child about Yale ALL THE TIME. If you're a UW alum, you probably talk about UW all the time. Children of alumni know the alumni's school better.</li>
</ol>
<p>And Bescraze, legacies count for A LOT. Have you seen the stats? A girl at my school was so-so in terms of practically everything. And she ended up going to Stanford (this year's class was pretty heavy. One Yale/Havard, one Harvard waitlist and 5 John Hopkins). Why? Mainly because BOTH of her parents were Standford alums.</p>