do college admissions get ugly at the Big3 when all the parents are Ivy grads?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So your inference is that the 2 legacy aren't smart or as smart as the others. In these cases, you would be wrong. Those kids would have gotten in on their own merit, irrespective of legacy status. It is really an offensive concept the inference that these kids would not have been admitted otherwise.

It simply is not true that legacy didn't help them over the line. They are literally in a different pile. Plenty of just as smart, non-legacy kids don't get in. Every year. Legacy matters. Own it. It does not mean they aren't qualified; it means they had a hook that other qualified kids didn't have. Without legacy, they may not have been admitted, just like all the other geniuses and valedictorians who got rejected.

Add in when BOTH mom and dad went to Yale. Smart kids usually follow. They are also very well resourced. But the parents are not the problem. They are the solution. More and more generations of multiple high achieving parents are going to become the norm. They should be the norm. Rewarding “the unhooked” who work hard and become the hooked over time is the way it should be. Expect every unhooked kid who gets into a top tier school now to be married to another high achiever and producing high achievers in the future. For all the unhooked who don’t get in, watch them do well at very good undergrads and then get into great grad schools and fight hard to get their kids into the top schools down the road. Strivers as far as the best can see!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So your inference is that the 2 legacy aren't smart or as smart as the others. In these cases, you would be wrong. Those kids would have gotten in on their own merit, irrespective of legacy status. It is really an offensive concept the inference that these kids would not have been admitted otherwise.

It simply is not true that legacy didn't help them over the line. They are literally in a different pile. Plenty of just as smart, non-legacy kids don't get in. Every year. Legacy matters. Own it. It does not mean they aren't qualified; it means they had a hook that other qualified kids didn't have. Without legacy, they may not have been admitted, just like all the other geniuses and valedictorians who got rejected.

Add in when BOTH mom and dad went to Yale. Smart kids usually follow. They are also very well resourced. But the parents are not the problem. They are the solution. More and more generations of multiple high achieving parents are going to become the norm. They should be the norm. Rewarding “the unhooked” who work hard and become the hooked over time is the way it should be. Expect every unhooked kid who gets into a top tier school now to be married to another high achiever and producing high achievers in the future. For all the unhooked who don’t get in, watch them do well at very good undergrads and then get into great grad schools and fight hard to get their kids into the top schools down the road. Strivers as far as the best can see!

The thing is everyone has a hook. It could be legacy parents. it could be being an URM. It could be being from Alabama (even if you are the white child of two doctors). It could be being on the sailing team. I personally am OK with getting rid of legacy admissions, but there would still be a lot of hooks that don't necessarily have a lot to do with merit and that advantage wealthier kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:But legacy matters, right? It matters in private school admissions (legacy of that school and/or a highly-ranked college/uni). It matters in college admissions. As a PP said, there are plenty of equally qualified applicants who don’t get the legacy thumb on the scale. If these smart legacies were in the same bucket of unhooked applicants, their odds would be lower.

Who gets into the schools with no legacy hook?

Legacy does not matter nearly as much in college admissions as it does in the small and insignificant world of DC area private schools. Seriously get a grip.
If the kid is a super star and has legacy status that might help, but it doesn't just "get them in", like in private K-12 schools.
The world is a big place.

You are misinformed. Their application literally goes in a different pile so yes it does help them because they are viewed in a completely different way as pp said. They are clearly smart but so are thousands of other kids that don’t get admitted with same stats.

[Anonymous]

There are more legacies applying from public schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: I play it cool with gmail and just let it slip occasionally that I went to college near Boston.

It's "I went to college in New Hampshire" for me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So your inference is that the 2 legacy aren't smart or as smart as the others. In these cases, you would be wrong. Those kids would have gotten in on their own merit, irrespective of legacy status. It is really an offensive concept the inference that these kids would not have been admitted otherwise.

It simply is not true that legacy didn't help them over the line. They are literally in a different pile. Plenty of just as smart, non-legacy kids don't get in. Every year. Legacy matters. Own it. It does not mean they aren't qualified; it means they had a hook that other qualified kids didn't have. Without legacy, they may not have been admitted, just like all the other geniuses and valedictorians who got rejected.

if there are two exactly equal kids, then yes, the legacy will get the bump. But unless your family has a library named after it, legacy otherwise, really doesn't matter.

[Anonymous]

Four generations at Exeter and then Harvard. Not going to rock the boat.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So your inference is that the 2 legacy aren't smart or as smart as the others. In these cases, you would be wrong. Those kids would have gotten in on their own merit, irrespective of legacy status. It is really an offensive concept the inference that these kids would not have been admitted otherwise.

It simply is not true that legacy didn't help them over the line. They are literally in a different pile. Plenty of just as smart, non-legacy kids don't get in. Every year. Legacy matters. Own it. It does not mean they aren't qualified; it means they had a hook that other qualified kids didn't have. Without legacy, they may not have been admitted, just like all the other geniuses and valedictorians who got rejected.

if there are two exactly equal kids, then yes, the legacy will get the bump. But unless your family has a library named after it, legacy otherwise, really doesn't matter.

So it does matter but it doesn’t?

Of course it does.

[Anonymous]

It potentially matters in a small percentage of circumstances. Try to understand nuance.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It potentially matters in a small percentage of circumstances. Try to understand nuance.

So we agree. It matters.

[Anonymous]

It's not a binary question. On a scale from 1 to 10, IMO it matters like a 2 or 3. But my guess is that you'd pick a higher number, so we don't actually agree.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's not a binary question. On a scale from 1 to 10, IMO it matters like a 2 or 3. But my guess is that you'd pick a higher number, so we don't actually agree.

PP you are non-sense.

[Anonymous]

If your last name is Trump and you are applying to Penn, you will get in and earn a degree.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There are more legacies applying from public schools.

Well there is "legacy" and "legacy donor".

[Anonymous]

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Legacy doesn't go that far anymore, and so what you see at the Big 3 schools is a lot of "grooming" of kids (tutoring, test prep, travel sports) to have the right profile. For Ivies that's superstar academics (top 3-4 kids in the class), or excellent stats plus recruitable athlete, or excellent stats plus URM, or excellent stats plus parents have mega-millions. I can't think of a single Ivy admit at my kid's school last year who didn't fall into one of those categories.

Do you really think there are only a small handful of kids from "big3" schools that go to Ivy's? Because that really wouldn't be close to accurate. More like 25-35% of the class, and that is before you get to NESCAC/Stanford/Chicago and other top schools.

Lol. What year are you posting from? It's not 35% of the class. And HYPS are often one each, per school.

Perhaps not 35% of the class but definitely more than 1 HYP per school. I see about 4 to 5 to Harvard, I’ve seen 8 to Penn, etc.

what school is this?

Enquiring minds want to know.
Not NCS or STA over the past 2 years as I've seen both these lists each year. It's 0-2 to each of HYPS and Penn per year.
I don't think it's GDS. They get a few Harvards each year but last year was only 2.
Is it Sidwell? Again, I don't think so.

I think your estimates are 5-10 years old.

Yes. It’s Sidwell.

How many Sidwell kids were accepted into Harvard in class 2021?

2020 was 4: 1 URM, 2 legacy, 1 plain old smart kid.

4 plain old smart kids. One is an athlete, but she literally could have picked any school in the country.

2 smart. 2 legacy.

2 smart. 2 smart and legacy,

FTFY

The legacy was/is also an athlete.