A college applicant is said to have legacy status at a college if a member of the applicant’s 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.

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, you’ll 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 won’t hurt to list a cousin or aunt, but don’t get carried away.

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 is most likely to come into play when the admissions officers are comparing two equally qualified applicants.

Using the “Additional Information” section of The Common Application to draw attention to a distant connection to the college.You should use this section of the 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 doesn’t 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.

Placing too much emphasis on your legacy status. Aside from listing family members who attended the college or university, you don’t 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.

THESE FACTORS MATTER MORE THAN YOUR LEGACY STATUS

Some colleges don’t 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, these pieces of the application will almost always carry more weight than legacy status:

• A Strong Academic Record
• Meaningful Extracurricular Involvement
• A Winning Application Essay
• Positive Letters of Recommendation
• Good SAT or ACT Scores (except for test-optional colleges)

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