Hacker News Reader

Comment by MiroF | Hacker News Reader

People without merit getting admitted to top law schools because of legacy/donors happens, but not nearly as much as some people seem to think. Legacy admits are not necessarily without merit.

My guess is that most of the low merit admits are people with significant political influence that the school thinks it would be beneficial for law students to network with (people like Hunter Biden who went to Yale law, Tiffany Trump, etc.) Those people are never going to get close to an actual clerkship though.

Could those downvoting explain why?

View on HN

> Tiffany Trump

... who went to Georgetown law (typically in the 10-20 rank range).

Note that this is the best she could do when her father was running for president.

I'm not claiming it's a deterministic process, but it is worth noting that Gtown is the best in DC

To followup: based on the average GPA of Georgetown Law admits, Tiffany Trump would have had to make the UPenn Dean's List to have a competitive GPA. The list is public.

She never showed up on that list. Ergo, she did not have a competitive GPA. It's possible she may have had a good LSAT, but she would have needed a very high score to offset the low GPA.

As Georgetown Law appears to have been the most prestigious law school that would admit her, this suggests she was a "legacy" admit (meaning, admitted due to her parents or application sponsors rather than on her own merits).

FWIW, I completely agree that she was admitted to Georgetown (and probably Penn, for that matter) for reasons other than academic prowess.

I only highlighted her name to demonstrate that celebrity and money can only get you so far. Georgetown is a perfectly fine law school, but it’s a far cry from Harvard or Yale law schools.

That's not what a legacy admit is defined to be.

That's exactly what a legacy admit is defined as. What non-standard definition are you using?

"Legacy preference or legacy admission is a preference given by an institution or organization to certain applicants on the basis of their familial relationship to alumni of that institution."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legacy_preferences

Legacy admissions usually refers to admitting a student because they're related to alumni of the same institution. Which Trump went to Georgetown?

Eric Trump.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com