| Agreed. People think legacies are guaranteed admits, and they are not. Legacies get rejected very often (e.g., ~67% at Harvard). There are many advantages to having a parent who is an alum: 1. Probably smart. 2. Probably knows something about how to get in via academics and extracurriculars. 3. Might be a gifted athlete who was recruited and knows how to share these gifts with their child. 4. Might understand some of the fundamental rigors of an elite education and shares that with their child regardless of where said child actually attends school (interestingly, an elite kid with great pedigree at a shitty school has a huge advantage in admissions). Add some or all of these things together, and you get a high school kid who will probably have an above average application and should probably get accepted more often than the general population. While there are some legacy admits who are accepted on the margin and would not have gotten in without being a legacy, I think the number of these folks is relatively small. The overall
legacy applicant pool is very strong. |