Harvard is, well, Harvard. As one of the most famous universities in the world, offering degrees that many see as golden tickets to a prosperous future, they definitely don’t need us gassing the school up. And they aren’t wrong. Going to Harvard offers students access to a learning experience, community, and, perhaps most importantly, network, that is only available at a handful of schools in the world. But you almost certainly know this, as you have a parent (or two) who already went to Harvard.

When your parent applied, the acceptance rate was likely over 10%. For the Class of 1995, Harvard set a record low acceptance rate of . This is almost laughable today. Today, the Harvard acceptance rate about 3.5%, being just below for the Class of 2027 and just over 3.5% for the Class of 2028. This isn’t to denigrate your parent’s hard work getting into Harvard, but it’s a different game these days — and legacy admissions has never been a more important tool to use, if you can, as an applicant.

In this post, we’re going to break down what legacy applicants to Harvard need to know — and do — to make the most of the advantage legacy provides. Ultimately, below is what you need to get into Harvard.

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First, let’s look at the landscape of legacy admissions at Harvard today.

What’s going on with Legacy Admissions?

Harvard has had when it comes to admissions scrutiny. Harvard isn’t alone, though. Legacy admissions, or the practice of giving a boost to applicants who have a close family relation (most often a parent) who is a graduate of the college, is under fire. Some colleges have with legacy admissions altogether, but others are doubling down, arguing for why legacy admissions is actually a crucial piece of their holistic process towards building a first-year class each year. Harvard falls into the latter camp. At Harvard, legacy matters.

The media, and , has focused on Harvard, which continues to practice legacy admissions, when covering the legacy admissions debate. Harvard admissions data released during the 2023 affirmative action case that “legacy applicants were nearly six times more likely to be admitted than the general applicant pool.” The BBC , too, that “while only 5% of applications,” come from ALDC students (legacies, athletes, relatives of donors, and children of faculty and staff), “they make up about a third of acceptance.”

This preference towards legacies is, as we’ve said, contentious. Students on the Harvard campus against legacy admissions, citing the same critiques as those outside of the Harvard bubble, namely that it threatens further entrenching norms on campus towards wealth and privilege. However, Harvard has argued that legacy admissions play a real purpose. By growing the number of families with multi-generational connection to Harvard, they strengthen the community, “” among the alumni network, and deepen their fundraising pool. And note that the vast majority legacy students who apply still do not get in, though. Legacy is not an easy route to acceptance. Harvard may give legacy applicants additional consideration, but they don’t waive their high expectations.

This is our take for Harvard applicants with a legacy edge in a nutshell. Yes, it is true that legacy admissions for perpetuating inequality by giving a boost to the most privileged. This critique has merit, but it’s not the point of this post. Legacy admissions is a real thing, and Harvard does give particular consideration to legacy applicants.

When we work with legacy applicants, it would be malpractice if we �徱��’t help our students get every admissible advantage they can such that when their application comes to the table, they are as likely as possible to get a yes. This is even more important when we’re talking about a school like Harvard with a miniscule acceptance rate and nearly impossibly high standards.

What Should You Do?

As we’ve said already, legacy isn’t an automatic acceptance at any school and especially not at Harvard. There are too many applicants for Harvard to simply say yes to legacies. What being a legacy does do, though, is give an applicant additional consideration. It’s the applicant’s job, then, to make sure that what the admissions officials are considering is super strong. It’s the parent or family member’s job to increase the impact of the legacy connection. Everyone has a job to do, and the best time to start is now.

For the Family Member: The family member who attended Harvard absolutely must be involved with their alma mater if they want the full power of a legacy connection to apply. This means attending alumni events in your region, volunteering with the school or supporting reunion planning, and, of course, donating. Yes, money does come into play here. Engaging with Harvard as an alumni donor does impact the way a child’s application will be read. This is because a key reason why Harvard offers legacy privileges is because building a history of Harvard in a family increases the odds of significant donations over time. This is not romantic, and can feel sort of yucky even, but it’s true.

For the Applicant: As the student actually applying to Harvard, there four main ‘buckets’ you need to be focused on. Each of these is crucial, and you cannot focus on one to the detriment of the others and actually get in.

Grades

First, grades. To get into Harvard, you need to have exceptional grades. This should be unsurprising, but remember that they look at your track record over time. They want to see high grades throughout high school but, if there is a low grade freshman or sophomore year, the admissions officers want to see bounce back. If you got knocked down, they want to see that you jumped back up.

Ultimately, your grades also need to build to a crescendo. Of accepted first-year students for the Fall of 2023 who attended high schools with reported GPAs (over 99% of applicants), over 93% had a GPA at or above a 3.75. 74% had a perfect 4.0. The average GPA overall was 4.2…average.

Class Rank of the Class of 2028

You also need to be great at everything, but to have a focus. By this we mean that you need to be developing an academic passion that can be seen on your transcript not through a jump in your grades in the courses you like but through electives or additional advanced courses in the subjects you are most passionate about. Accepted students for the Class of 2028 intended fields of study that are fairly equally distributed, so legacy applicants don’t need to apply any particular strategy to what they focus on except to follow and develop an academic passion that is authentic to them.

Scores

Harvard requires applicants to submit an ACT or SAT score to meet their testing requirements, but they to apply. For a few years over the COVID pandemic, this requirement was waived, which has resulted in some recent statistics that are not necessarily fully representative. When scores weren’t required, of accepted and enrolled students submitted them, and they submitted them because they were confident in them.

With the caveat that those COVID years scores may be misleading given the SAT/ACT waiver filter, we advise our legacy students aim for an ACT of 35 or 36, and an SAT score of at least 780 for each section. These are hard scores to get, but Harvard is a hard school to get into — so it’s fitting.

Extracurriculars

One of the most common weak spots that we see for hopeful Harvard applicants is in what they do outside of class hours. If an applicant has exceptional grades and scores, and is a legacy, but doesn’t appear to be following a passion beyond the structure of school, the application falls flat.

Prospective legacy applicants to Harvard absolutely must be actively engaged in the field or fields they are drawn to before applying. This means getting internships, securing shadowing opportunities, leading relevant clubs, volunteering for connected nonprofits, and even getting low-paying summer jobs. If you are a humanities person, you can lead a book club, intern with a publication, and volunteer shelving books at your local library. No matter what you love, you can apply this same logic, deepening into your interests to emphasize your passion on your application.

Apply Early

We’re going to be blunt. Legacy only matters at Harvard if you apply early. The overall Harvard acceptance rate is miniscule, only but the number that is most impressive is actually the yield rate. Of 1965 students offered a seat in the first year class for Fall 2023, 1645, or nearly 84%, picked Harvard. This is despite Harvard not offering a binding early admissions option. Instead, they have a Restrictive Early Action program that means that the applicant clearly prioritizes Harvard, making it their only early application ().

Harvard pulls off an 84% yield rate through two mechanisms:

Brand Value. Harvard is widely regarded as the crème de la crème of universities, and a Harvard degree can, indeed, be lifechanging and career launching.
Filtering. Harvard is very good at filtering for applicants who aren’t just qualified, but who are also passionate about attending Harvard. Legacies who don’t apply early don’t check the passion box and are unattractive to the college as options, as Harvard knows they may be being used as a back-up to a preferred Early Action or Early Decision college.

When you’re ready to apply, legacies need to apply early — but there’s a lot to do before the application goes live. Getting into Harvard as a legacy requires active effort from both the parent and the student. So, start now.

Getting into Harvard is hard. students pull it off.