Family Connections – A Big Factor in Gaining College Admissions

If you have a family member who has completed college at a particular university, count yourself lucky if you are applying there too. Unfortunately, the same does not apply for people who have no family connections with the university that they wish to go to.

According to a study by Michael Hurwitz, who is a doctoral student at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and conducted this study among 30 of the most likely to be selected colleges in the country, those with family connections to the college are at an advantage when it comes to gaining admission into a college that their family went.

What makes this fact even more conspicuous is that if your Dad or Mom graduated from a prestigious university, it was seven times more likely that their children would gain admission there as opposed to others who don’t have connections at all.

However, if it was a grandparent, uncle, aunt and so on and forth that graduated from this university, the candidate was only twice as likely to be admitted as opposed to those who have no such legacy connections.

While earlier research did not necessarily reveal the impact of these ‘family connections’, this study has brought this issue up again since this advantage is offered to those who are already advantaged not necessarily taking the individual’s merit into consideration.

And while those with high SAT scores and the legacy advantage were almost guaranteed admission into these top schools, the likelihood of this factor playing a role in admission were varied from college to college.