Legacy Opportunities

Answered

It solely depends on the college you are applying to. About 33% of Harvard enrollment is legacy so you know that being a legacy at Harvard is a huge boost. I would say that if you are a legacy at Harvard, you get 5-6X boost. I know a couple Harvard legacies that would have otherwise been rejected at all the other 7 Ivys and been lucky to get into NYU or UVA if it weren't for their legacy connection. I think the acceptance rate at Yale for legacies is close to 30% while its normal acceptance rate is a little less than 5%. So that's a 6X boost.

And if your parents went to Amherst College, JHU, MIT or Caltech, there is no legacy bump whatsoever. Other top colleges like Tufts are looking to move away from legacy admissions as well.

While Harvard is absolutely the worst abuser of legacy admissions, other Ivys and Elites are less problematic. Columbia has a 5-7% legacy rate while Cornell has a 15% legacy rate and most t20 colleges fall into the 10-15% range.

Legacy admissions to me is more problematic than any affirmative action controversy. If Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, Brown eliminated legacy admissions, then the makeup of incoming first years would be more equitable and fair.

I see in the future the elimination of AA and Legacy admissions but more reliance on picking diversity from both a low income and first gen pool versus race.