> the success of your lineage will be automatically secured.
At least at Harvard, this is very much incorrect.
The legacy admission rate is 30-something percent iirc. Much higher than the general population, but far from guaranteed or “secured”.
A few other notes:
- just because someone is a legacy and was admitted, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they were admitted because they were a legacy. That percentage is much, much lower.
- I also don’t think that legacies having a higher admission rate is that surprising. There is a certain type of applicant that elite schools prefer. If someone has cracked the code on that type, it’s not that difficult to shape your kid’s environment in such a way that they end up as this type. FWIW, “helicopter mom” type of stuff, while it works sometimes, is definitely not the best way to do this.
- Cal Newport has written two or three books on excelling in high school and how to be a strong applicant to an elite university. They aren’t how-to books (the specifics will change based on context), but he shows healthy ways to be awesome.
- for those looking for a “how-to”, my quick and dirty comments are: send your kid to a good Montessori school, have them do activities like one does in the scouts at a high level (like Eagle Scouts), and play any sport at a competitive level (ideally national or international, but regional is ok for competitive sports). For the last one, there is room to be creative — I met someone whose dad was the national small bore hunting pistol champion several years running. I wonder how competitive the youth division is.
> just because someone is a legacy and was admitted, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they were admitted because they were a legacy. That percentage is much, much lower.
Lower, but I don't know about "much, much".
The baseline acceptance rate is below 4%. Legacy applicants are probably better on average, but the gap between 4% and 30% is enormous.
The rate of applying is low enough that the baseline acceptance rate doesn't tell you anything. With acceptance rates of 4% and 30%, Harvard could be admitting legacies by a lower standard, or a higher standard, or exactly the same standard. If you don't know what the pools are like, you have no way to tell.
Note that if (1) your goal is to admit everyone above a certain quality threshold, and (2) you aren't able to measure quality with perfect accuracy, then the correct thing to do is to hold legacies to a lower standard. Because they have better parents, they regress to a higher mean than random applicants do.
At least at Harvard, this is very much incorrect.
The legacy admission rate is 30-something percent iirc. Much higher than the general population, but far from guaranteed or “secured”.
A few other notes:
- just because someone is a legacy and was admitted, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they were admitted because they were a legacy. That percentage is much, much lower.
- I also don’t think that legacies having a higher admission rate is that surprising. There is a certain type of applicant that elite schools prefer. If someone has cracked the code on that type, it’s not that difficult to shape your kid’s environment in such a way that they end up as this type. FWIW, “helicopter mom” type of stuff, while it works sometimes, is definitely not the best way to do this.
- Cal Newport has written two or three books on excelling in high school and how to be a strong applicant to an elite university. They aren’t how-to books (the specifics will change based on context), but he shows healthy ways to be awesome.
- for those looking for a “how-to”, my quick and dirty comments are: send your kid to a good Montessori school, have them do activities like one does in the scouts at a high level (like Eagle Scouts), and play any sport at a competitive level (ideally national or international, but regional is ok for competitive sports). For the last one, there is room to be creative — I met someone whose dad was the national small bore hunting pistol champion several years running. I wonder how competitive the youth division is.