Reply to NYT: "Peak College Admissions Insanity"

Forum Index » College and University Discussion

Reply to "NYT: "Peak College Admissions Insanity""

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]No, it isn’t. I know legacies at Cornell, Brown, Chicago and Yale after not getting into Princeton. [/quote]

Princeton is in the worst possible place with legacy. The numbers are something like

1/4 legacies get in

1/40 non-legacies get in

The alumni community thinks legacy is worthless, because most of their kids get denied. Meanwhile everyone else can see that if you aren’t a legacy you’re in a much worse position. [/quote]

+1000 Yes your legacy kid may not have gotten in because when admission rates fall to 3 pct it is hard for anyone to get in. But legacy  kids still have a much much better shot than the kid who isn’t genetically blessed with an elite school alum parents.  [/quote]
You are assuming that legacies and non-legacies, on average, have the exact same qualifications otherwise.[/quote]

Nowhere in the prior posts does it say that legacies and non legacies are exactly the same.  But if your argument is that because your legacy kid or some other legacy kid got rejected that legacies are no longer a big hook, that’s not an evidence based argument.  [/quote]
My argument is that we have no idea exactly how big the legacy hook is, because the statistics you love to cite don't take into account that legacies as a whole are likely coming from families with more money. Which means better test scores, more extra-curriculars that create other hooks (i.e., recruited athlete in niche sports), etc.  In other words, legacies often have at least some other big hooks or other qualifications too that explain why they're being admitted at a higher rate than non-legacies.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics