It is summertime in Palo Alto, and though the weather outside is a beautiful 75 degrees, high school students who once leisurely passed their summers lounging by the pool or skateboarding are instead sharpening their resumes by taking on activities likely to enhance their upcoming college applications.

For top students, summer is marked not as a time of leisure, but as the time to illustrate one's unique passion to admissions officers. Every activity, every class and every test counts towards getting a leg up in the competitive world of admissions at top universities. For those applying to Stanford, some Palo Alto students may have a leg up in the process.

Information obtained from two former admissions officers at Stanford University gives a deeper insight into who is eligible to receive preferential treatment, what that preferential treatment entails, and who has direct access to the decision makers. Despite common perception, enrollment applications received at Stanford from children of alumni - known as 'legacies' – are treated differently than those received from children of faculty and donors. While all receive preferential treatment, legacy or even double legacy status does not put a student in the same category as children of faculty or children of top donors.

"It is important not to muddy the waters between these groups," said Marci Reichelstein, a former Stanford Admissions Officer and owner of a college admissions consulting company. While a legacy student gets extra points in the admission process, according to Reichelstein, children of faculty are given a "golden halo" and processed differently.

"There is a different evaluation mechanism and funnel," said Reichelstein.

An advantage of this funnel includes a direct line to the Dean's office, which allows faculty to get in direct touch with senior admissions officers to lobby on their children's' behalf.

Reichelstein stressed that this direct line was not a guarantee of an admission. Stanford's admission rate for the Class of 2016 was 6.6 percent, according to statistics released by the Office of Undergraduate Admission.