In reply to: Legacy applicants at ND are 2x more likely to be admitted posted by NavyJoe
However, I believe that to the extent an apples-to-apples comparison is possible, if two applicants have the same credentials, the legacy candidate is going to have a greater chance of admission. I am skeptical that the bona fides of the legacy pool are statistically superior to those of the non-legacy applicant pool to justify the 2x admission acceptance rate.
I doubt ND can, or would, offer more granular data than that.
As others have said, one explanation would be that high achieving legacies tend to apply to Notre Dame at a higher rate than the high achieving general population.
One factor that might be relevant is that I'm pretty sure the "bubble" is rather "deep". That is, there is a large number of applicants in the range from just below to just above the cutoff for admission. Thus a slight advantage to anything (including legacy status) could lead to a significant change in the mix of accepted applicants.