So, jg, you think that GWB got into all the schools based on his own merits? I kind of double his SAT too — isn’t a lot of it vocabulary? I won’t question GWB’s ambition and persistence, though. The fact that not all legacies are pursuing high offices / in Ivy leagues doesn’t mean that it isn’t a significant factor. They might just not want to.
“The Wall Street Journal recently put a statistical face on alumni clout in admissions. Children of graduates make up 10 to 15 percent of incoming classes at most Ivy League schools, according to the Journal. Harvard accepts 40 percent and Princeton accepts 35 percent of legacies but only 11 percent of all applicants. The University of Pennsylvania rakes 41 percent of legacy applicants yet only 21 percent overall. At Notre Dame, nearly a quarter of students are children of graduates. ” — this is from a 2004 article from Washingtonia.
