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Anonymous
| Thank God. |
Anonymous
We second that! |
Anonymous
| I third that! |
Anonymous
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The reasons for legacy admissions: it builds school loyalty among alumni; it fosters school morale on campus; and it does produce higher alumni donations, especially in the years just before the legacy child applies and in the years following acceptance -- donations do drop off among alumni whose children were rejected.
The truth is that most legacy admits are as qualified or more qualified than most non-legacy admits, but people tend to notice the outliers. Also, if people are judging legacies by their scores, as one PP was doing when she posted that legacies are admitted with scores that would get regular applicants rejected, they are not looking at the whole applicant. Scores and grades are not the entire package, and parents who don't understand that are sorely disappointed by college admissions results. |
Anonymous
And let's not forget that if Mommy and Daddy went to Princeton, sure, their kid will be a legacy applicant if he chooses to apply to Princeton, but HE ALSO WILL PROBABLY BE PRETTY DAMN SMART ANYWAY and could probably get in on his own. |
Anonymous
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Sidwell Class of '10 parent here. Some athletics info here (provided by my son):
In terms of sending students to schools for athletics, here is Sidwell's class of 2014; student-athletes will play varsity sports for these schools: (These are not athletes who are planning to just try out. They have either been recruited and supported in admissions or guaranteed a roster spot by the coach.) Boys: Amherst, WashU (2), Wesleyan, Princeton, Army, Swarthmore, Denison, Duke Girls: Brown, Haverford, Villanova, Wellesley, Dartmouth, Brandeis, Williams (2), Colgate, MIT, UColorodo-Boulder As for other "big-3" schools, I think St. Albans takes the overall prize for athletics/college athletes. GDS has some great athletes but doesn't compare too favorably on the college-athlete front. Sidwell's strong point is boys soccer (#1 in Washington Post, nationally ranked), as it has had at least 4 recruits each year to play in college from the classes of 2007 thru 2010. St. Albans' lacrosse college-bound athletes are impressive: many each year play at Ivies and NESCAC schools, and sometimes even Big East or ACC. |
Anonymous
| *Colorado |
Anonymous
| I underrepresented the percentage of legacies admitted to PU -- the Daily Prince reported 42% !! in a recent article about legacies |
Anonymous
| I failed to add that that is 42% of legacies who applied to PU -- got in. That was said to be only 2.5% of the entire class of 2013 |
Anonymous
| You mean 12.5% of the class of 2013? |
Anonymous
If your kid is not a student with a hook, do not send it to a school like Sidwell. Only so many per school are admitted, and the unhooked pay the price The unhooked student might have gotten in had he/she been to a no-name-brand school |
Anonymous
Based on what? The assumption that if Mommy and Daddy never attended Princeton, you will PROBABLY NOT BE PRETTY DARN SMART ANYWAY??? |
Anonymous
At this point it is largely geography and if you are from DC/NYC/Boston the road is tough and you need a hook. |
SAM2
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I think this point is true, and people often forget it. For whatever reason (genetics, SES, interest in education, nature/nurture, etc), children of well-educated parents score higher on academic measures than others. When people think of legacy admissions to colleges, they most often think of the offensive example where a marginally qualified (or even completely unqualified) student gets admitted through legacy preference and huge donations. That surely happens in some cases and is very memorable. But I think that in many legacy situations, the legacy applicants are just as qualified as the rest of the applicant pool. Here is a link to a study that examined (among other things) the impact of legacy status on admissions at highly-selective colleges: http://fwd4.me/OFj . The authors found that while legacy applicants make up less than 4% of the applicant pool, they are twice as likely to be admitted as non-legacies (50% of legacy applicants admitted vs. 24% of non-legacy applicants). See page 1425. However, the average SAT score for legacies is actually slightly higher than for non-legacies: 1350 for legacies, and 1332 for non-legacies. See page 1430 (last full paragraph on page). And here is a follow-up study by the same authors, which tries to predict what would happen if admission preferences were removed: http://fwd4.me/P8d . The table at pages 299-300 summarizes the results. "Simulation 2" predicts what admissions would look like if admissions preferences for athletes and legacies were removed. The odds of admission for legacies definitely would drop significantly. Instead of admitting 47% of legacy applicants, colleges would admit only 28%. However, even without any preference, legacy applicants still would be admitted more often than non-legacy applicants, based only on merit: 28% admission rate for legacies vs. 22% for non-legacies. Thus, if all legacy preferences were removed, only about 60% of the legacies currently being admitted would be admitted. So at least according to these studies, the legacy benefit is real and significant in admissions. However, the majority (60%) of legacy applicants would be admitted regardless. And legacy applicants actually represent only about 3.1% percentage of the applicant pool (page 297). So that suggests that "less qualified" legacies make up only 1.24% of the total applicant pool, and only 2.6% of admitted students. To me at least, that means that while I might not agree with colleges giving legacy preferences, the actual likely harm to my non-legacy child's chances of admission are pretty small. |
Anonymous
Unless of course your goal is to provide your child with the best education possible in your eyes, and are not as concerned with college admissions. |