Brown is kind of always having a moment. It's gotten even more popular than some of the other Ivies recently. In turn, this has driven down its already competitive acceptance rate. Right now, its acceptance rate sits at about 5%. It's harder than ever to get into Brown, but many alumni parents talk like their students will 100% get in because they are “legacies.” This always makes us a bit, to use an SAT word, ~trepidacious~. Legacy admissions are complex, secretive by design, and not the lock that many parents believe they are. So today we want to talk about what legacy admissions actually look like at Brown and what legacies can do as candidates to help stack their decks.
So what’s up with legacy admissions?
If you have googled around about Ivy Legacy admissions you have probably found a couple of things. Some think pieces, some court case coverage, and the biggest thing: blogs from test prep/college counselor sites giving specific legacy acceptance rates. First of all, we aren’t going to do that here. Mostly, because a lot of those sites are wrong or using older numbers. Colleges used to be more open about legacy numbers and have quieted down on them in recent years due to controversy.
The truth is that Brown has never really opened up about legacy admissions. They have never published data about legacy admissions. We think this is mostly because they don’t consider it that much. University Spokesperson Brian Clark has said:
“The consideration of legacy status is a very, very small consideration compared to other attributes... We don’t admit students based on categories, we don’t release application and acceptance data in a way that suggests we do."
So what does this mean?
Legacy status alone won’t get your kid into Brown. They have to be an unequivocally great candidate. This is more or less true at all schools, but especially at Ivy League schools. The highest legacy acceptance we have seen was from Harvard and Princeton several years ago and it was around 30%. Since then rates have fallen, but sometimes we use this 30% as a metric to show that while, yes, acceptance rates are higher for legacies, they are still quite low. The legacies that get in are great candidates outside of their status. Whether the school admits legacies at a higher rate or not, only the top tier of legacies get in. The rate fluctuates, but the strategy doesn’t. Your student has to be an amazing candidate.
What does your legacy need to do to be a great candidate?
Perfect grades
This is kind of a no-brainer, but we work with legacies all the time and they basically always have 4.0s or higher. Legacies often come from privileged backgrounds and that means parents who invest in education. This includes going to top high schools and getting a tutor if they need one to keep a high GPA. Your legacy has to compete against them. Your student should be taking the hardest classes and performing well in them. For the Class of 2026, 95% of accepted students were in the top 10% of their high school’s graduating class.
Score big
Just like hiring academic tutors, legacy parents routinely work with top SAT and ACT tutors to ensure their students have a perfect or near-perfect standardized test score. This is also important at Brown given The middle 50 percent of admitted students for the class of 2026 scored between 34 and 36 on the ACT or a 1500 and 1570 on the SAT. You might notice that part of the middle 50% got a perfect score on the ACT meaning the top 25% of admitted students received a perfect score on the ACT. We are sure that many of the legacies that applied are in that top 25%. This is all to say, your student needs great scores to compete.
Everything else
Legacies usually come with opportunities and connections. Brown knows this and wants to see interesting and engaging resumes. They want to see students who have articulated a passion and pursued that passion at the highest possible level. Having a great resume or application won’t make up for subpar grades, but with only a 5% acceptance rate, not everyone with good grades gets in. We often start working with legacy students in their junior years to help them build the kind of resume that gets students in before they even start thinking about essays and applications.
Consider applying early
Ok, this is a tip for everyone but especially for legacies. If your student is serious about going to Brown, they should apply early. While the overall acceptance rate at Brown is around 5%, that is actually made of two acceptance rates. Brown took around 34% of its class in the early decision round for the Class of 2026. The early acceptance rate was 14.6% and the regular decision acceptance rate was 3.6%. 14% is still low, but it's much better than under 3.6%.
This all can feel scary and overwhelming. If you were thinking that your legacy status was “going to get your kid in” learning that this isn’t the case can be difficult. We are here to help! Your student’s best shot at getting into their dream schools is working with a professional.
Reach out here!