For Yale Legacies, Pressure To Get In

It's not easy being a legacy.

According to the Yale Daily News, 1 in 8 Yalies is a legacy, or one whose parents graduated from the university. That these hopefuls take a shortcut into Yale, however, is a misconception. The school's dean of admissions, Jeff Brenzel, told the Daily News that the real issue is how legacy applicants commonly place extreme pressure on themselves to gain entry to Yale.

Senior Christopher Reid is one such student. The son and grandson of Yale grads -- and the brother of a current student -- Reid grew up dreaming of life in New Haven.

He was so determined to continue his family's tradition that he transferred to a private school in the sixth grade and switched his focus from tennis to squash because he thought his chances for recruitment were higher.

"I tried my whole life to get into Yale," the Pierson College senior and Rye, N.Y., resident said.

For fifth-generation legacy Madelaine Taft-Ferguson, the desire to attend Yale was practically innate.

"I knew I wanted to go to Yale from when I knew what colleges were," she said. "I always had the grades, and everything I had heard about it was lovely."

While Taft-Ferguson said her parents did not pressure her to apply to Yale -- in fact, they encouraged her to apply to other schools -- she said she often heard her parents talk about Yale in their everyday conversations.

However, even upon acceptance to the school, some legacy students still face social obstacles.

Avery Lanman '13 -- a native of Palos Verdes Estates, Calif., whose great uncle, William K. Lanman, is memorialized through Lanman-Wright Hall and the Lanman Center in Payne Whitney Gym -- said having a legacy connection made it difficult for people to see past his name.

The legacy admission rate for the class of 2013 bottomed out at 12.7 percent, the lowest in 13 years. In the 1980s, a quarter of the school's students were the children of alumni.

What do you think? Would you go to your parents' college? Or do you already? Weigh in below!

Comments

[dennissinned]

10:59 PM on 03/30/2010

"That these hopefuls take a shortcut into Yale, however, is a misconception" -- No, it's not. Just look at Dubya.

"...some legacy students still face social obstacles." -- Not Dubya.

[Blues02]

03:08 PM on 03/30/2010

LOL

no sympathy here.

[Knowbetter]

11:32 AM on 03/30/2010

It's tough being born on third base, huh?

No sympathy.

[zeppelingirl89]

03:27 PM on 03/29/2010

Moreover, why can't these precious little legacies go to state schools if they are having such a hard time matching up to Ivy League standards? I'm sure they could get in and many of them might even be able to pick up a few merit-based cholarships that they couldn't at the Ivies. Oh the horror of having to go to Penn State or UNC!!! What will they think at the Country club? LOL, this article totally failed to garner sympathy from me....As if I care that some rich kid had to learn to play squash, whatever that might be. Such a sharp contrast tp my public school where the most unusual sports were golf and cross-country, both of which received basically no funding!

[fem56]

11:56 PM on 03/29/2010

This article makes it sound like it is just about the grades but at a school like Yale the kids have to make the cut in so many different ways. Being a legacy may help them over the last little bit of the hump but that is about it. I know a legacy kid who just got into Stanford but I can tell you he is amazing and absolutely deserves it. Now there are schools where legacy can make a big difference but obvioulsy not at all.
Yes I was happy at a state school too.

[zeppelingirl89]

03:19 PM on 03/29/2010

What are these legacies complaining about? If they have the grades they'll get in like anyone else. They don't deserve anything special.

[00RM7]

01:26 PM on 03/29/2010

If you cant get in with grades, you can get in with money.
Jared Kushner (married to Ivanca Trump) got into Harvard after his father donated $2.5 million and his family did the same so he can get into NYU.

[JailNeoconVicts]

12:58 PM on 03/29/2010

I went to Harvard. Loved it. My son is top of his class, and won't even think of applying there. Go figure.

[helonias]

12:54 PM on 03/29/2010

George Bush graduated from Yale University. I earned a lot of "gentleman's C's," which means F's that are turned into C's for sons of prominent Americans.

[jsomerville5]

01:28 PM on 03/29/2010

Hey, at least Bush didn't get any D's as Al Gore did at Harvard: From news story:

At Harvard Mr. Gore's grades were for years lower than those Bush earned at Yale. Classmates remembered Gore, The Washington Post reported in 2000, spending "a notable amount of time" shooting pool, watching television and "occasionally smoking marijuana."

Gore (whose [confessional?] new book is titled "The Assault on Reason"), according to The Washington Post, "avoided all courses in mathematics and logic throughout college."

His grades at Harvard were pathetic, especially for someone who today holds himself up as the national arbiter of scientific issues. As a sophomore he got a D in Natural Sciences, and only a C-plus in another low level Natural Sciences course his senior year. In Economics — yet another field in which Gore has exhibited lifelong ignorance — he earned a C-minus.

For two of his four years at Harvard, Gore ranked in the bottom fifth of his class academically.

[helonias]

01:34 PM on 03/29/2010

But Gore wasn't in Skull and Bones right?

[helonias]

12:48 PM on 03/29/2010

And how many legacies graduate with gentleman's Cee's and get to play with Geronimo's skull.

Like the Bushes

[CarolinaDem]

12:43 PM on 03/29/2010

In the movie "In the Loop" the weasel of evil is shown carrying a racquet. The other character remarks that it's a squash racquet he's carrying, hoping to get in with the State Department elite. Old stereotype. But then only Yalies would notice that it's not a squash racquet but a racquetball flipper. Easier game.

[robnum1]

12:32 PM on 03/29/2010

Stanford is a better campus

[CarolinaDem]

12:29 PM on 03/29/2010

Just think how much they'll be willing to suck down in the corporate universe of Wall Street! Dedication, man, dedication!

[TheFabOne]

12:22 PM on 03/29/2010

Lemme see.........

Rich kids trying to figure out how to use their family name to maintain their position of privilege.............uh, yeah, that's a global catastrophe.

[anova9]

12:18 PM on 03/29/2010

... switched his focus from tennis to squash because he thought his chances....

OMG, what dedication! What pressure! Geez, I'm so lucky I had to pay my own way and didn't have the pressure of a family legacy!

[plaidsportcoat]

12:14 PM on 03/29/2010

My Yale legacy kid went to Brown and adores it

[CarolinaDem]

12:30 PM on 03/29/2010

Mine's at U of Chicago after having more fun in a month at UNC than I did the whole time I was in New Haven.