We were recently talking with a UC Berkeley staff member who said, “Well Berkeley doesn’t do legacies, but who the heck knows what’s going on at Stanford?” Well, we do… To be fair, we make it our business to know everything there is to know about admissions at top schools, and recently, due to a California law, we know quite a bit about legacy status at Stanford. We work with children of alums all the time and the same sort of questions come up again and again. So today we wanted to break down some of the most asked questions when it comes to being a legacy applicant at Stanford.
How does Stanford define ‘legacy?’
Stanford defines legacies as “the children of Stanford graduates at either the undergraduate or graduate level.” It’s a pretty straightforward definition. However, they track something else in tandem which is a little more unique… or rather it’s more unique than they admit it. They also track non-legacy donors. They say, “With respect to philanthropy, Stanford does not document in admission files the donor status of all applicants’ families. However, some applicants’ files may contain a notation about their family’s giving.” We know it sounds a bit like an oxymoron, but they need to say that they do this given a 2019 California law that deals with college bribery because they consider donations as a factor (at least when it is for large amounts.) However, they also say in their materials the vast number of tracked donors are also alums.
How many legacies are on campus?
Pre-Class of 2023, Stanford didn’t publish how many students were legacies. Mostly, because they weren’t forced to. Since the law in California now says that they must, we get a lot more data post-2019.
Something they always post with this data, however, are two other points of interest. They always show that their percentage of first-generation college students is around the same number or (usually) higher than the above two numbers combined. They also always post the following sentence, “The number of applicants who did not meet the institution’s admission standards that apply to all applicants, but who were offered admission: Zero.” (More on what that means later.)
These numbers are pretty standard in the industry, but we have a feeling that they might start to try to keep them closer to 12% than 16%. This is because they are now legally bound to release this information and keeping it around 13% looks better in their reports since it is fairly industry standard.
However, this doesn’t answer maybe our most asked question by parents, “what is the acceptance rate for legacies?”
This is a harder question to answer than we would like. Schools really guard this information. Mostly because legacy admissions can be controversial and colleges like to keep this information under lock and key. We talk to admissions officers all the time and they rarely share this kind of information. The last time Stanford even hinted at what their legacy acceptance rate was in 2013. This data is thus slightly too old for us to trust currently, but at the time the Stanford Mag said, “The percentage of alumni children admitted to Stanford is roughly three times the overall percentage of acceptance: somewhere in the mid to high teens. Nevertheless, there are many more 'no's' than 'yesses' each year.” At the time, Stanford had an acceptance rate of around 5.5% meaning the legacy acceptance was around 16-17%. Now the acceptance rate is around 3.9%.
Ok, but will my kid get in?
The short answer is maybe. Even in 2013, not all legacies got in… most didn’t if only 16% got in. That means, around 84% didn’t. It’s a pretty shockingly high number, plus Stanford has only gotten more competitive. If your kid is serious about going to Stanford, the only strategy is to have an amazing application. Being a legacy will help their application be as strong as it can be, but it’s not enough.
Remember that statistic, “applicants who did not meet the institution’s admission standards that apply to all applicants, but who were offered admission: Zero?” What they are saying here is that no legacy or donor status will get an unqualified applicant a bid. Being a child of an alumn or a big donor (or both) might help a student's chances if they are already a good candidate, but won’t if they are not qualified.
Stanford has a holistic review process that “considers all of the achievements and attributes presented by each applicant to the university, including academic excellence, intellectual vitality, extracurricular activities, and personal context.” This means even kids of legacies and donors need to have great grades, test scores, activities, and essays. Most legacies don’t get in, so your child needs to have a great application amongst the legacy pool. In our professional opinion, we always advise, with a school like Stanford, to work with a counselor. We work with legacies every day and often even alumni parents don’t know what makes a great application.
Great applications aren’t easy. You want to push your student to have creative and dynamic essays and know the tricks of making their resumes shine. It's these touches that will make them stand out in one of the most competitive applicant pools in America.
We know this can be a stressful time and we just told you all about how something you might have thought was a done deal, isn’t. (We are sorry about that, but we wouldn’t lie to you.) So many qualified applicants apply to a school like Stanford because it is a great school. We help all of our students stand out in that crowded field regardless of legacy status. However, we would be lying if we said legacy status doesn’t help, if only a little at top schools.
Need help applying to Stanford? We do it every season! Reach out here.