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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous] :!: [quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Though I consider myself at this point more than informed when it comes to college admissions, I wasn't quite prepared for the extent to which Harvard and Stanford cater to legacies and donors, at least at our top private, and at least in the early round. It is eye-opening. If you are the very top in a top private (think Dalton/Andover/Harvard-Westlake tier) and unhooked, you target mid-tier Ivies, not HYPS. There are just too many well-connected legacies who are also contributing a lot, active in alumni circles, have already sent other siblings.... these kids are typically but not always strong students, rarely the very top. These families know how the game is played and have been setting this outcome up for a decade, since elementary school. If you've seen it, you know.[/quote]

+10

At my private, not nearly as good as those, and outside metro DC, I watched the valedictorian and other very top academic students get denied from H while a mediocre B student with deep monetary hooks (father was Harvard law and father was a consistent significant donor to H for decades; the accepted student did not have great ECs and was not on any athletic team) get accepted.  Now, H probably considered the accepted student “good enough” academically, but clearly H were not choosing the strongest academic applicants from that private given the strong prospect of ongoing substantial donations.  [/quote]

Weird, our academically rigorous Baltimore private always gets the top few unhooked kids into H/Y/P.   The hooked kids also get in.  I think both these responses are tainted by sour grapes.[/quote]

I guess your rigorous Baltimore private doesn't have the kinds of legacy and donor families that elite privates have.[/quote]

Definitely have our share of legacies, and my parents  donated two scholarships to my brother’s school long after he graduated.  Perhaps we’re a little more sophisticated here than you’d like to think
  
Sorry you were disappointed in your kid’s acceptances but the bitterness is a bad look.[/quote]

LOL my unhooked kid was admitted to an Ivy in mid-December. I can assure you I know what I am talking about.
Enjoy your rigorous Baltimore school and stay safe![/quote]

Cornell or Columbia?[/quote]

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