The other big thing is that these schools want to admit people they know will matriculate (they don’t want to over enroll or under enroll). Presumably, legacy a

The other big thing is that these schools want to admit people they know will matriculate (they don’t want to over enroll or under enroll). Presumably, legacy applicants are statistically more likely to matriculate and hence there is a preference. When I was applying to schools, I remember reading that the policy UPenn used for legacies was that only those who applied early decision got any sort of statistical advantage over other candidates. If you weren’t ready to commit via early decision, your odds were the same as the general population.