Aha moment - I know 7 current Ivy League students, and all of them happen to be legacies

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[Post New]07/08/2023 07:43
quote
Anonymous
With all of the discussion of legacy admissions in the wake of the recent Supreme Court decision, I was kind of pondering how much of a difference legacy status makes.

My DS and DD are current college students, and so I've been aware of where their friends go, and where my friends' kids are going to college.

I realized that, of the 7 current students that I know at Princeton and Harvard, they are all legacies. (I just realized that I also know 2 current Cornell students, both of whom are legacies.)

Granted, I know lots of friends who attended Ivy League colleges and whose kids did NOT get in, despite the kids being top students.
Also, the students that I know at Princeton/Harvard/Cornell are definitely top students, hard workers, and good people in general. They are qualified to be at these colleges, for sure.

This is an anecdote of course, but it was kind of eye-opening to realize that extent to which legacy matters.

As an aside, I take some comfort in knowing how much progress Harvard has made in admissions just since the 1960's. I know someone (with whom I went to graduate school) whose mother and all aunts and uncles (5 in total) all went to Harvard in the 1960's. My friend kind of laughed about it later, as he realized that not all of his aunts/uncles were top students by any means - decent but not high-achievers like today's applicants need to be. They were all legacies, and it was a done deal that they would get admitted at that time. By the 1980's, it seems like that extent of obvious legacy admissions was not as widespread.

Idea from the Financial Samurai blog: For those students who attended an Ivy League college and who are NOT a legacy -- to get full credit on your resume for getting admitted without a hook, write "not a legacy" next to your college name.
[Post New]07/08/2023 07:46
quote
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:With all of the discussion of legacy admissions in the wake of the recent Supreme Court decision, I was kind of pondering how much of a difference legacy status makes.

My DS and DD are current college students, and so I've been aware of where their friends go, and where my friends' kids are going to college.

I realized that, of the 7 current students that I know at Princeton and Harvard, they are all legacies. (I just realized that I also know 2 current Cornell students, both of whom are legacies.)

Granted, I know lots of friends who attended Ivy League colleges and whose kids did NOT get in, despite the kids being top students.
Also, the students that I know at Princeton/Harvard/Cornell are definitely top students, hard workers, and good people in general. They are qualified to be at these colleges, for sure.

This is an anecdote of course, but it was kind of eye-opening to realize that extent to which legacy matters.

As an aside, I take some comfort in knowing how much progress Harvard has made in admissions just since the 1960's. I know someone (with whom I went to graduate school) whose mother and all aunts and uncles (5 in total) all went to Harvard in the 1960's. My friend kind of laughed about it later, as he realized that not all of his aunts/uncles were top students by any means - decent but not high-achievers like today's applicants need to be. They were all legacies, and it was a done deal that they would get admitted at that time. By the 1980's, it seems like that extent of obvious legacy admissions was not as widespread.

Idea from the Financial Samurai blog: For those students who attended an Ivy League college and who are NOT a legacy -- to get full credit on your resume for getting admitted without a hook, write "not a legacy" next to your college name.



This has been my experience. I think I only know one classmate whose perfect-stats kids got in.
[Post New]07/08/2023 07:49
quote
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:With all of the discussion of legacy admissions in the wake of the recent Supreme Court decision, I was kind of pondering how much of a difference legacy status makes.

My DS and DD are current college students, and so I've been aware of where their friends go, and where my friends' kids are going to college.

I realized that, of the 7 current students that I know at Princeton and Harvard, they are all legacies. (I just realized that I also know 2 current Cornell students, both of whom are legacies.)

Granted, I know lots of friends who attended Ivy League colleges and whose kids did NOT get in, despite the kids being top students.
Also, the students that I know at Princeton/Harvard/Cornell are definitely top students, hard workers, and good people in general. They are qualified to be at these colleges, for sure.

This is an anecdote of course, but it was kind of eye-opening to realize that extent to which legacy matters.

As an aside, I take some comfort in knowing how much progress Harvard has made in admissions just since the 1960's. I know someone (with whom I went to graduate school) whose mother and all aunts and uncles (5 in total) all went to Harvard in the 1960's. My friend kind of laughed about it later, as he realized that not all of his aunts/uncles were top students by any means - decent but not high-achievers like today's applicants need to be. They were all legacies, and it was a done deal that they would get admitted at that time. By the 1980's, it seems like that extent of obvious legacy admissions was not as widespread.

Idea from the Financial Samurai blog: For those students who attended an Ivy League college and who are NOT a legacy -- to get full credit on your resume for getting admitted without a hook, write "not a legacy" next to your college name.



This has been my experience. I think I only know one classmate whose perfect-stats kids got in.



Other than Ketani Jackson Brown's kids, but obviously that's a special case (on top of the fact that her husband loved to share that he was 6th generation Harvard).
[Post New]07/08/2023 07:54
quote
Anonymous
Only people who went to Ivies from our uber competitive suburban school were URM and legacies. Only one from top 10 was accepted in an Ivy and with no financial aid, their upper middle class family was expected to pay $80K+ which they couldn't because they had other kids and old parents back home to support.
[Post New]07/08/2023 07:55
quote
Anonymous
My son is a recruited athlete and all the kids I know that got into Ivy schools are recruited athletes.
[Post New]07/08/2023 07:57
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Anonymous
No financial aid is another way to maintain quota system.
[Post New]07/08/2023 08:04
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Anonymous
The three Brown admits from DS’s private (in Providence) this year were faculty kids. One also has a sibling there.
[Post New]07/08/2023 08:05
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Anonymous
It's not going to change people. Sorry LOL.
[Post New]07/08/2023 08:07
quote
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:It's not going to change people. Sorry LOL.


Did anyone say it would? The theme of this thread is “the moment the scales fell from my eyes.”
[Post New]07/08/2023 08:30
quote
Anonymous
OP, same experience for me. All the kids at Ivys that I know are legacies, also very smart. Off the top of my head, I know 2 legacies at Harvard, 3 at Yale, 2 at Princeton, 1 at Dartmouth, 1 at Cornell, 1 at Duke.

There is one family I know that’s an exception. Their three kids are currently at Harvard, Yale and Brown and they are wealthy white kids. Parents went to lesser SLACs. I am not sure what the story is there.
[Post New]07/08/2023 08:31
quote
Anonymous
Funny how we go back to anecdotes when the legacy data is published.

These great kids rejected by ivies will go on to do great things and lead great lives. I am sure they got into great schools.

The workforce has sorted this out so the school means less these days. Look at state engineering grad outcomes versus Ivy humanities.

Let’s not loose site of the forest for the ranking obsessed trees.
[Post New]07/08/2023 08:33
quote
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:OP, same experience for me. All the kids at Ivys that I know are legacies, also very smart. Off the top of my head, I know 2 legacies at Harvard, 3 at Yale, 2 at Princeton, 1 at Dartmouth, 1 at Cornell, 1 at Duke.

There is one family I know that’s an exception. Their three kids are currently at Harvard, Yale and Brown and they are wealthy white kids. Parents went to lesser SLACs. I am not sure what the story is there.


The same story as the legacies: It’s right there in the bolded.
[Post New]07/08/2023 08:34
quote
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:The three Brown admits from DS’s private (in Providence) this year were faculty kids. One also has a sibling there.

Faculty kids and athletes are a major hook (fist on scale) with way more influence on admissions than legacies (a finger), and yet legacies continue to get most of the post-Supreme Court Decision attention. Wake up people.
[Post New]07/08/2023 08:36
quote
Anonymous
High stat DC got into an Ivy this year.
-not a legacy
-not an athlete
-not an URM
-not a faculty kid
-public school (not TJ)
-no crazy national/international awards
Just got super super lucky.
[Post New]07/08/2023 08:40
quote
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:High stat DC got into an Ivy this year.
-not a legacy
-not an athlete
-not an URM
-not a faculty kid
-public school (not TJ)
-no crazy national/international awards
Just got super super lucky.

Cornell?
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