Understanding Legacy Status for College Admissions

Understanding Legacy Status for College Admissions A college applicant is said to have legacy status at a college if a member of the applicants immediate family attends or attended the college. In other words, if your parents or a sibling attend or attended a college, you would be a legacy applicant for that college. Why Do Colleges Care About Legacy Status? The use of legacy status in college admissions is a controversial practice, but it is also widespread. Colleges have a couple reasons for giving preference to legacy applicants, both having to do with loyalty to the school: Future Donors. When a family includes more than one person who attended a college, its likely that the family has greater-than-average loyalty to the school. These positive feelings often turn into alumni donations down the road. This financial side of legacy status shouldnt be underestimated. University relations offices fundraise millions of dollars a year, and their task is easiest when alumni families are highly committed to the schoolYield. When a college extends an offer of admission, it wants the student to accept that offer. The rate at which this happens is called the yield. A high yield means a college is getting the students that it wants, and that will help the school meet its enrollment goals. A legacy applicant is coming from a family that is already familiar with the college, and that family familiarity and loyalty typically leads to a better yield than the general applicant pool.   Do Grandparents, Uncles, Aunts, or Cousins Make Me a Legacy? In general, colleges and universities are most interested in seeing if your immediate family members attended. For example, if you are using The Common Application, the Family section of the application will ask you about the education level of your parents and siblings. If you indicate that your parents or siblings attended college, youll be asked to identify the schools. This is the information that colleges will use to identify your legacy status. The Common Application and most other college applications do not have a space for indicating if more distant family members attended, although some will ask a rather open question such as Have any of your family members attended our college? With a question such as this, it wont hurt to list a cousin or aunt, but dont get carried away. If you start listing third cousins twice removed, youre going to look both silly and desperate. And the reality is that in most cases cousins and uncles really arent going to play a role in an admissions decision (with the possible exception of a relative who is a million dollar donor, although you wont find colleges admitting the crass financial reality of some admission decisions). Some Common Mistakes Related to Legacy Status Assuming your legacy status will make up for a mediocre academic record. Highly selective colleges and universities are not going to admit students, legacy or not, who are unlikely to succeed. Legacy status tends to come into play when the admissions officers are comparing two equally qualified applicants. In such cases, the legacy applicant will often have a slight advantage. At the same time, this doesnt mean that colleges wont lower the admissions bar slightly for legacy applicants from prominent and/or extremely wealthy families (but youll rarely hear colleges admit this fact).Using the Additional Information section of The Common Application to draw attention to a distant connection to the college. You should use the additional information section of The Common Application to share important information not reflected in your application. You could use this section to explain extenuating circumstances that may have affected your grades, or you might use it to present interesting information about yourself that doesnt fit elsewhere on the application. This type of information can enrich your application. The fact that your great-great-grandfather attended Prestigious University is rather trivial and is an ineffective use of your opportunity to provide additional information. Making monetary threats. For good or bad, a colleges interest in your legacy status is often related to money. Family loyalty to an institution often leads to alumni donations. That said, it will reflect badly upon you if you suggest that your parents donations to the college might end if you arent admitted. The college already considers such possibilities when making admissions decisions, and raising the issue yourself will seem crass.Placing too much emphasis on your legacy status.  Aside from listing family members who attended the college or university, you dont need to draw more attention to your legacy status. The focus of your application needs to be you and your merits, not those of a parent or sibling. If you try to overplay your hand, you may look either desperate or obnoxious.   These Factors Matter More Than Your Legacy Status College applicants are often frustrated by the advantage that legacy applicants have. This is for good reason. An applicant has no control over legacy status, and legacy status says nothing about the quality of the applicant. But be sure to keep legacy status in perspective. Some colleges dont consider legacy status at all, and for those that do consider it, legacy status is just a small factor in admissions decisions, Colleges know that being a legacy is a rather dubious distinction. When a college has holistic admissions, several pieces of the application will almost always carry more weight than legacy status. First of all, you will need to have a strong academic record. Without it, you are unlikely to be admitted whether youre a legacy or not. Along similar lines, SAT scores and ACT scores are going to be important unless a school is test-optional. Selective colleges will also be looking for meaningful extracurricular involvement, positive letters of recommendation, and a winning application essay. Legacy status wont compensate for weaknesses in any of these areas.