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How useful is the legacy status at Stanford? I know some schools give it a lot of weigh, e.g. UPenn.

How is it useful to the app? Why is a legacy status useful anyway? Is it because they want to develop connections with families and that they can have more family members in the same college?

Also, is legacy status useful for international applicants? Is legacy status more useful in EA or in RD or just the same?

By Celebrian23 (Celebrian23) on Wednesday, October 06, 2004 - 06:47 pm: Edit

stanford, out of all hyps offers the least benefit to legacy, how much less, i don't know

By Cren (Cren) on Thursday, October 07, 2004 - 02:33 am: Edit

how exactly does it help?

By Farmmom (Farmmom) on Saturday, October 09, 2004 - 01:23 am: Edit

This question has been answered on this board before but legacy status is basically used to tip the scales when admissions officers are trying to make decisions between very similar equally qualified applicants. Remember, they have to say "no" to roughly 17,000 applicants. My guess is that at least half of those are highly qualified so they have to find some basis for selecting one super qualified applicant over another.

The reason schools have legacy status is because they have already developed a relationship with the alum who previously went to their school. And when an alum's child wants to attend the same school as their parents that is sort of showing their family's loyalty to this alma mater. So when you have to say no to the child of an alum, that is kind of a slap in the face to the alum. The school certainly does not want to offend their own alums (who are potential donors!) so they try to give special treatment to the application of a legacy. That does not mean automatic admittance. It just means they will review the application carefully, give it their fullest consideration and will make sure they have clear reasons why they didn't select a legacy.

I believe roughly 75% of legacy applications are rejected at Stanford. It is definitely not a guarantee. But those statistics are still better than the odds for a non-legacy admit. I do not believe that EA or RD make a difference in legacy consideration but applications get a more thorough, fresher read than RD coz there are far fewer applications to go through and the readers are still fresh. So in some ways, the admissions team may have an even better chance to more carefully review a legacy application.

By Stanfordnualum (Stanfordnualum) on Sunday, October 10, 2004 - 01:55 pm: Edit

I don't know about Stanford, but I heard in the case of schools like Harvard, how much the alum contribute/donate to the school plays a big role. If your dad/mom or whoever is only on their mailing list and throws in $100 here and there occasionally, it's probably not gonna help you much. But if he/she's been a big donor, it's more difficult for them to say "no" to you. Amazing what the rich people can buy with their money!

By Ghostman (Ghostman) on Sunday, October 10, 2004 - 02:12 pm: Edit

at the same time, the poor people wouldn't be able to go on financial aid if the rich people didn't donate their money. it works both ways.

By Sakky (Sakky) on Sunday, October 10, 2004 - 04:00 pm: Edit

Stanfordnualum, the same thing is true of Stanford. Stanford admissions are also highly susceptible to money. You don't even have to be a legacy to buy your way into Stanford. Be honest with yourself. If I was to offer to donate a ridiculous amount of money to Stanford, enough money to erect, say, "Sakky Library", do you honestly think that Stanford is going to reject my child? Be honest with yourself.

As far as why schools enact legacy admissions, the reason has already been discussed here. It's all about money. Harvard has a $23 billion endowment, and Stanford has an $8 billion endowment, making them two of the most well-endowed (no pun intended) schools in the world. Hence, Harvard and Stanford have the financial resources to offer massive amounts of FA and/or quickly develop tremendously strong programs almost at a whim. Take the Stanford Hoover Institute for instance - one of the most prominent public policy research centers in the world, boasting several Nobel Laureates. Yet the Hoover Insitute is less than 50 years old. So how did it become so prominent, so quickly? Well, one reason is money - Stanford has the money to quickly build it to prominence.

So the real question is how did these schools get so much money? And the answer is simple - through alumni donations. Which leads to the next question - why are the alumni so willing to give so much money? And that has something to do with the legacy admissions process. It is by no means the only reason, but it is an important reason.

So in some ways you can see it as a deal with the devil. Yes, a school may end up offering unfair admissions to certain people. On the other hand, the school gets money through which it can then expand programs and departments.

By Cren (Cren) on Monday, October 11, 2004 - 11:49 am: Edit

So legacy is all about money and money and money. Now I get it why people say legacy status doesn't help much if you don't donate money.

To a certain extent, I think it's correct not to accept students on the basis how much they or their family donate; but really, without that sum of money, what about the poor students? Especially for those Need-blind scholarships offered?

By Nngmm (Nngmm) on Monday, October 11, 2004 - 01:01 pm: Edit

Students are not accepted based on how much families donate, but legacy status does give you slight advantage. The "extreme legacies" are exceptions to that rule - those are people who donate enough money to erect a building. There are not too many of them, so they do not really affect your chances for admission. But maybe you can "buy your way in", if you have $50,000,000 or so to spare.