<p>thank you byerly for fully stating what I was trying to say. again, i'm not trying to point out a "nefarious plot" of the admissions committee, just simply to admit to students what seems to be true by the statistics. just like byerly said, of course 33% is not 100% and no one is claiming that, but it is SIGNIFICANTLY higher than 10%, and there has not been any conclusive evidence to show that the legacies' applications are that SIGNIFICANTLY better.</p>
<p>kath06- it is not shocking, but i still find it annoying when representatives try to claim that the ONLY reason for the higher rates is the quality of applications. the fact that they all do this (and many believe them) is what's shocking.</p>
<p>Admissions claims that being a legacy is not a hook, that legacies have better stats than average applicant, which justifies the 3x boost.</p>
<p>While this may be a true statement on the surface, it is a blatant misuse of statistics.</p>
<p>If being a legacy is not a hook, then legacy statistics need to be compared to other NON-HOOKED applicants, not the entire pool. Don't show me that legacies have slightly better stats than a pool of students that includes many with unique talents or qualities. Show me that legacies are superior to the other BWRKs. </p>
<p>I don't expect these statistics to released anytime soon.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I strongly disagree with bandit_TX that someone with a C average and low SATs will get in if his/her family has donated 7 figures.
[/quote]
Do you seriously believe that any Resor would be denied admission to Yale? It didn't happen last year and they certainly had their chance.</p>
<p>Tactics22--You say, "Show me that legacies are superior to the other BWRKs." </p>
<p>You make a good point, BUT your argument assumes that being a legacy and having some other hook are mutually exclusive. In any event, it would be interesting to measure how otherwise unhooked legacies fare as opposed to BWRKs. That would be an apples to apples comparison. Another apples to apples comparison would be to look at the admission rate of other (non-Yale) elite school legacies who have applied to Yale versus the rest of the applicant pool, hooked and unhooked. Looking at this subset of applicants would clearly eliminate the effects of being a Yale legacy. If what mensa160 said upthread is true, that elites breed elite, then you'd expect a higher admissions rate for all children of elite college grads, not just Yale.</p>
<p>bandit_TX--I do seriously doubt that totally unqualified applicants are admitted because of large parental donations. I'm not familiar with the Resor name, but I'm assuming by your reference that it belongs to a family who made a multi-million dollar donation. Please fill me in on the details.</p>
<p>Anyway, where do you get your information that a Resor with a low (not just comparatively low) GPA and low SATs was admitted last year? I'm not doubting your statement, merely wondering where you got the detailed information on an applicant's resume. The mere fact that an applicant's family gave a lot of money does not mean that the applicant is prima facie unqualified.</p>
<p>bandit_TX writes, "Do you seriously believe that any Resor would be denied admission to Yale? It didn't happen last year and they certainly had their chance."</p>
<p>Are these the Resors you're talking about? It looks like they fall into the recruited athlete category as well. For those who don't care to read the article, it's about a young woman who is taking time off from Yale after her freshman year because she made it on the women's national team for hockey (20 of the 24 members on that team will compete in the 2006 winter Olympics). The article states that her father, siblings, and cousins attended Yale and it sounds like most of them played hockey there. Don't tell me the only reason she got in was because she was a legacy. She is obviously a superstar in her own right. And I bet she had more than a C average.</p>
<p>Tactics22--Even if this isn't who bandit_TX is talking about, it goes to my point that there are legacies, I'd wager more than a few of them, who also have extraordinary hooks.</p>
<p>it's also the name, and the family. At HYP you have a lot of legacies that are hooked not just by their own accomplishments, but because their families are prominent.
At Yale, Bush's daughter ('05), Gov. Howard Dean's daughter ('06),Tom Friedman's daughter ('07), Gov. Pataki's daughter ('07) are legacies plus. Many legacies apply early, too, and so have that advantage in admittance as well.
Hey, that's life, guys. It's not a level playing field. Find your strengths and make the most of them.</p>
<p>My mistake- Friedman is not an alum, but a graduate of Brandeis.
Kids from prominent families probably have an even higher admit rate than legacies.</p>
<p>My point refers to otherwise unhooked legacies. I still claim that admissions officers knowingly misuse statistics in trying to defend their policy. Please note that I'm not criticizing the policy, I just wish they would be forthcoming and either provide the correct statistics that show that alumni children are superior or admit the real reasons for the hook.</p>
<p>No question that it's easy to lie with statistics. It would be fascinating to see how admission breaks down by a variety of subgroups at schools of varying degrees of competitiveness. Short of the government's involvement, as suggested by Byerly, it'll never happen and not just because schools don't want how they treat legacies to be revealed. I think it is very worthwhile to debate whether legacy children should be given any preference, how much schools should be willing to compromise an applicant's academic profile for his/her athletic ability (I think it is a real scandal where colleges accept students they know will never graduate), what to do about overrepresented minorities who appear to be held to a different standard than everyone else, etc. Even if the government forced schools to release this information, you wouldn't see the intangibles, the extracurriculars, and the essays that cause one candidate to be accepted and another denied admission. The only way any of us will ever get a true picture of how competing interests play out in admissions decisions at any one school is to be an admission officer there--something a lot of CCers would theoretically love to do.</p>
<p>My guess is that most adcoms secretly resent alums (bear in mind that few alums could possibly be as sweet and unassuming as northstarmom and Byerly), or more precisely, pressure from alum groups. Given the discretion inherent in their job, they can make whatever adjustment they want and get away with it. This largely nullifies what I call the "same school" legacy advantage, i.e., yale-parent's kid applying to yale. The true legacy advantage is to have been raised by elite parents. If statistics were ever released, they would show that a Yale legacy has a huge advantage at Yale, and an equally huge advantage at HPS et. al.</p>
<p>Resor family has funded the Stanley B. Resor Chair in Economics. Not all of the Resor's are hockey players. Do a Google on Resor and Yale and prepare to read for awhile. One of the Resor's was in my D class last year (no atheletics and not a top student). I speak from experience. Don't get me wrong, the family has an extraordinary record for over a century at Yale, but not all fall in that category. In my experience, there are legacies that will not be deferred under almost any circumstance.</p>
<p>In general, legacies are raised with far more assets available than the average high school kid. That doesn't mean they are necessarily smarter or better prepared or harder working than a kid that did it on their own. But the nod will go to the legacy if they are equal, and some, but certainly not all, legacies will be admitted with lower scores if the family is influential enough. If the family has not contributed to the school, that legacy is worth far less.</p>