[pknomad]

I don't feel like that's too surprising. There is that saying "the apple doesn't fall far from the tree." It reminds me of this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kqi_6v2RGB0

Essentially a high school student (now a college student @ MIT) solved a conjecture on distribution of Carmichael numbers. The parents of the high school student also happens to be first rate mathematicians.

I went to a southern ivy and many of the legacy students that I've met were children of doctors, lawyers, business executives, etc and grew up in a very fostering environment where they were exposed to how to behave in such an environment. I don't think it's too surprising that children would also excel like their parents.

[hgsgm]

There's not what's happening. What's happening is (made up numbers, relative proportion a true)

1000 ALDC students qualify. 200 admit.

1000 non-ALDC students qualify, with equivalent resumes. 50 admit.

Thus it's easier to get in at ALDC, all else equal, and les qualified ALDC displace "overqualified" non-ALDC, or if you believe their qualifications are truly equal and those 2000 students can't be compared to each other, ALDC get loaded dice for the random selection.

[pknomad]

What's ALDC? (a quick google search gets me Abby Lee Dance company which I presume is incorrect)

[deely3]

From other comment: [A]thlete, [L]egacy, [D]ean's interest list (i.e children of big donors), [C]hildren of faculty and staff