How to respond when kid gets into school and is Legacy

[Anonymous]

As someone from the metro-NYC area, when I meet someone from the DMV I assume they are less qualified because it is a lot harder to get into top schools from NYC than DMV.

This is equivalent logic to what so many are saying here about unqualified legacies.

And I'm sure I'm ruffling lots of feathers. Even you TJ/St. Alban's/NCS types who think you are all that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As someone from the metro-NYC area, when I meet someone from the DMV I assume they are less qualified because it is a lot harder to get into top schools from NYC than DMV.

This is equivalent logic to what so many are saying here about unqualified legacies.

And I'm sure I'm ruffling lots of feathers. Even you TJ/St. Alban's/NCS types who think you are all that.

People from NYC are so geocentric. Literally no one thinks you or NYC are all that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As someone from the metro-NYC area, when I meet someone from the DMV I assume they are less qualified because it is a lot harder to get into top schools from NYC than DMV.

This is equivalent logic to what so many are saying here about unqualified legacies.

And I'm sure I'm ruffling lots of feathers. Even you TJ/St. Alban's/NCS types who think you are all that.

People from NYC are so geocentric. Literally no one thinks you or NYC are all that.

We are smart enough to use the word "literally" properly. Unlike you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As someone from the metro-NYC area, when I meet someone from the DMV I assume they are less qualified because it is a lot harder to get into top schools from NYC than DMV.

This is equivalent logic to what so many are saying here about unqualified legacies.

And I'm sure I'm ruffling lots of feathers. Even you TJ/St. Alban's/NCS types who think you are all that.

People from NYC are so geocentric. Literally no one thinks you or NYC are all that.

We are smart enough to use the word "literally" properly. Unlike you.

More NYers just bring a different equation to the table - $$$$. I remember you all at my HYP. You were the ones w buildings w your name on them. Impressive

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A significant number (but not all) of the legacies admitted either were a) over-qualified (if there is such a thing at the top schools), or b) were equally qualified and it was a tie breaker. The ignorant posters who act like all or almost all legacies got in solely because they were legacies are idiots. Full stop. Not that complicated. When I meet a legacy, I assume they were meant to be there because more were than weren't. If in conversation they prove otherwise, then I assume otherwise.

The stupidity around here never ceases to amaze me.

Not saying the legacies aren’t qualified, agree that most are equally qualified, but there are literally thousands of equally qualified unhooked kids who don’t get in . . Their chances are actually lower than 5% when you take out the 50% of seats essentially reserved for hooked kids. That is the point, it’s about whether OP should really be butt hurt that some kids are pointing out the obvious, that her kid had an advantage

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Yes, he's very lucky because that's what it is. Luck.

No, the point is he had a hook. That isn’t luck.

It’s luck to have legacy status.

It means the kid is lucky to have legacy but it wasn’t by luck he was admitted. He could say I’m lucky to have had legacy status but this doesn’t work:

Friend: you got in because you’re a legacy

Kid: I got in bc I am lucky.

He didn’t get admitted due to luck…he got admitted bc of legacy, which is a hook.

Kid got in because he’s super qualified AND lucky. Lucky to be a legacy that may have given him a slight edge over another kid.

No. He got in bc he was a legacy. It’s like saying a kid who got in ED to a school as a recruited athlete got in bc of luck. He is lucky but it wasn’t luck that got him in, even if he has good stats. He got in bc he is lucky, not bc of pure, dumb luck.

Kid was lucky to be legacy. And lucky that legacy helped.

Legacies aren’t getting in without hard work.

And not all well-qualified legacies get in.

You seem incapable of saying it. In general: Many more well-qualified legacies will be admitted over well-qualified non-legacies AND some legacies will be admitted over more qualified non-legacies.

“Many more”?
Based on what data?

How are you defining “more qualified”?

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/27/upshot/ivy-league-legacy-admissions.html

Quoting:

Yet the admissions advantage they get at many elite colleges for being children of alumni is far greater than that. They were nearly four times as likely to be admitted as applicants with the same test scores, according to the data, released Monday. And legacy students from the richest 1 percent of families were five times as likely to be admitted.

The new study was based in part on internal admissions data from several of a group of 12 elite colleges: the Ivy League as well as Duke, M.I.T., the University of Chicago and Stanford.

They also compared legacies’ chance of admission at the colleges their parents attended versus similarly elite schools. They found that they were slightly more likely to get in to the other colleges than applicants with the same test scores. But that was dwarfed by the advantage they got at the school their parents attended.

Some people will say, ‘Legacy preferences are justified not because of legacy per se, just because these are really good students,’” said John N. Friedman, an economist at Brown and an author of the new paper. “And it is true that they have slightly higher admissions rates at the other schools. But most of this is coming just from the pure legacy preference itself at their own school.”
It has been well established that legacies have an advantage in elite college admissions. But the new data was the first to quantify it by analyzing internal admissions records.

“This isn’t about unqualified students getting in,” said Michael Hurwitz, who leads policy research at the College Board and has done research on legacy admissions that found similar patterns. “But when you’re picking a class out of a group of 10 times more qualified students than you can possibly admit, then a modest thumb on the scale translates into a fairly large statistical advantage.”

This preferential treatment has nothing to do with an applicant’s merit,” wrote Lawyers for Civil Rights, which filed the complaint with the Education Department. “Instead, it is an unfair and unearned benefit that is conferred solely based on the family that the applicant is born into. This custom, pattern and practice is exclusionary and discriminatory.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:To the OP: please note that so many of these responses are clearly from people who do not have legacy status to offer to their kids.

The vast majority of legacies would be there anyway, or worst case it is a tie-breaker. There are a few well-publicized cases of kids who get a big boost from it. These tend to be filthy rich kids so it is very obvious.

If these kids are too dumb to understand it, let them live in their sad little world. Tell your child to hold their head high and know that they fully deserve to be there and not to care what these small people think.

+1 - people without legacy at top schools build it up in their minds into something it’s not. Most of my classmates’ kids are not getting into my college with it’s 4 % admissions rate either

+1

It helps but it’s still tough.

Not as tough as it is for non-legacies, right? It helps.

Slightly less tough.

It helps but it’s still tough.

Depends on school but for most top tier schools legacies have a 20-30% chance whereas unhooked have a 5% chance. . . It's a significant difference

Which school goes from 5% to 30%?

DP. Not sure what school is being referred to, but here is some interesting data.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/27/upshot/ivy-league-legacy-admissions.html

Wow. 4 to 5 times more likely?

“ New data shows that at elite private colleges, the children of alumni, known as legacies, are in fact slightly more qualified than typical applicants, as judged by admissions offices. Even if their legacy status weren’t considered, they would still be about 33 percent more likely to be admitted than applicants with the same test scores, based on all their other qualifications, demographic characteristics and parents’ income and education”

Reading further:
Yet the admissions advantage they get at many elite colleges for being children of alumni is far greater than that. They were nearly four times as likely to be admitted as applicants with the same test scores, according to the data, released Monday. And legacy students from the richest 1 percent of families were five times as likely to be admitted

And:
Children of alumni had a large admissions advantage. But when they applied to other elite colleges in the study, their admissions rates were only slightly higher than average.

Non-legacies: 9.5%
Legacies at the non-legacy schools: 11%
Legacies at their legacy school: 37%

+1. There is a huge difference between a 1/3 boost and a 4 or 5 times boost.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A significant number (but not all) of the legacies admitted either were a) over-qualified (if there is such a thing at the top schools), or b) were equally qualified and it was a tie breaker. The ignorant posters who act like all or almost all legacies got in solely because they were legacies are idiots. Full stop. Not that complicated. When I meet a legacy, I assume they were meant to be there because more were than weren't. If in conversation they prove otherwise, then I assume otherwise.

The stupidity around here never ceases to amaze me.

You can tell how unjustified an admissions benefit is based on how disproportionate the comments are defending it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As someone from the metro-NYC area, when I meet someone from the DMV I assume they are less qualified because it is a lot harder to get into top schools from NYC than DMV.

This is equivalent logic to what so many are saying here about unqualified legacies.

And I'm sure I'm ruffling lots of feathers. Even you TJ/St. Alban's/NCS types who think you are all that.

DS is a freshman at a HYP and has been underwhelmed by some of the students coming out of the NYC feeders.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As someone from the metro-NYC area, when I meet someone from the DMV I assume they are less qualified because it is a lot harder to get into top schools from NYC than DMV.

This is equivalent logic to what so many are saying here about unqualified legacies.

And I'm sure I'm ruffling lots of feathers. Even you TJ/St. Alban's/NCS types who think you are all that.

DS is a freshman at a HYP and has been underwhelmed by some of the students coming out of the NYC feeders.

I was just going to post the same thing. But they are impressively wealthy even to my DC private school kid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:These assumptions are hurtful and uncalled for, whether one’s a URM, legacy, etc. I hope parents aren’t openly speculating about their kids’ classmates’ qualifications at home, but that’s probably wishful thinking. Sometimes it’s the parents who are planting this attitude in their kids.

NP. I am sick and tired of this attitude that we have to pretend that there is a level playing field in admissions. There is not, and we will be better off as a society when we are honest about that. What you are asking for are lies, because you want the benefactors of the uneven playing field to continue to reap those benefits.

It is ridiculous that with all the data we have about admissions that show exactly how slanted that process is, we are supposed to prop up the obvious lie that admissions is level.

I’m personally done with this. All these lies do is perpetuate inequalities in society for the sake of preserving the egos of the already-privileged. I’m over it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A significant number (but not all) of the legacies admitted either were a) over-qualified (if there is such a thing at the top schools), or b) were equally qualified and it was a tie breaker. The ignorant posters who act like all or almost all legacies got in solely because they were legacies are idiots. Full stop. Not that complicated. When I meet a legacy, I assume they were meant to be there because more were than weren't. If in conversation they prove otherwise, then I assume otherwise.

The stupidity around here never ceases to amaze me.

Not saying the legacies aren’t qualified, agree that most are equally qualified, but there are literally thousands of equally qualified unhooked kids who don’t get in . . Their chances are actually lower than 5% when you take out the 50% of seats essentially reserved for hooked kids. That is the point, it’s about whether OP should really be butt hurt that some kids are pointing out the obvious, that her kid had an advantage

+1

The data is irrefutable at this point. There is no need to pretend otherwise.

[Anonymous]

College admission is not a meritocracy.

It doesn't pretend to be.

It is a "holistic review" which means colleges admit whatever and whomever they feel like.

Stop complaining about ED, athletes, legacy, FGLI, etc.

INSTEAD, Recognize its a rigged system and Figure out a way to leverage the completely unfair system to your kid's advantage.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Being stronger than your classmates is subjective. Our legacy was admitted SCEA a few weeks ago. His application was very strong, but others might think he wasn't as strong as some other kids. It doesn't matter.

I think "Thanks, I'm really lucky" is a great response. Honestly, I think his classmates are lucky that he won't be applying in the regular with them.



This is what we say. Kid got into a highly ranked school where dad went. We acknowledge that the legacy bump helped nudge him in. Life isn’t fair so why not be graceful and acknowledge when luck is in your favor. It isn’t putting down your kid by any means. There is a reason your kid decided to apply ED to this specific school - legacy advantage

[Anonymous]

Why can’t he be gracious and say something to acknowledge that legacy may have helped? He can shrug and say, “Yeah, I’m sure it helped, even if it’s not enough by itself without the other stuff like grades, etc.”

Congrats to your son, and please realize it’s spur grapes from students who aren’t lucky enough to have a non-merit-based small thumb on the scale. The system isn’t fair and that is what it is. Your son can be kind in this scenario and not take it personally.