<p>This local kid did something pretty amazing, even by CC standards:</p>
<p>
[quote]
Lloyd Chen can't afford the $70 for a high school yearbook. His family can't pay for a graduation party or a trip abroad.</p>
<p>But the Laguna Creek valedictorian has something his fellow graduates don't: nine full-ride offers to elite universities.</p>
<p>The Elk Grove teen graduating today with a 4.79 grade-point average achieved the rare feat of acceptance by all nine schools to which he applied: Stanford, Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, UC Berkeley, UCLA, UC San Diego and UC Davis.<br>
<p>Note that “full ride” is not quite, as far as money from the schools is concerned – Harvard’s minimum net price is $4,600, while Stanford’s minimum net price is $5,000, which are assumed student work contributions for those who qualify for their maximum financial aid. UCs’ minimum net prices on need-based aid would be about $8,500 unless reduced further by merit scholarships (e.g. Regents’ at Berkeley could bring it down to $0 for a student who would otherwise get maximum financial aid).</p>
<p>Of course, the Gates Millenium Scholarship that he got would likely cover whatever the schools did not.</p>
<p>The impression this article gives is that this student received merit scholarships to these schools…nope.</p>
<p>I wish they had concentrated on his great academic record and his ability to get ACCEPTED at these schools which have very generous need based aid. He sounds like a terrific kid…and he sure has great options!</p>
<p>Great kid. The Gates does indeed make it a free ride wherever he was accepted. No need to worry about work study and summer earnings. His only cost might be a winter coat!</p>
<p>I thought the Gates scholarship was a full ride to the school of his choice. The fact that he won’t use all of it doesn’t mean he didn’t win it.</p>
<p>The Gates is a LAST DOLLARS scholarship. It covers any demonstrated need that was not covered by grants. It does NOT replace the college grants.</p>
<p>It no longer covers 100 percent of graduate school nor all majors.</p>
<p>And when Xiggi says LAST he really means last or in son’s case ZERO. Son was a gates winner and his chosen school is a no loans school. Still had summer contribution and work study BUT he had three other outside scholies and they more than covered the workstudy and summer contribution with money still leftover. School “expanded” his COA to include a school issued laptop, books, more for transportation and a “winter” wardrobe. School did not want to adjust his grant lower so they also included summer “research” funds or summer school tuition elsewhere since school does not offer summer school. And they did, he took 3 summers worth of classes, somewhere else. So Gates paid zero.</p>
<p>Valedictorian with straight A grades in the most rigorous available courses in high school plus some local college courses may be relatively common among applicants at the super-selective schools. But it is probably much rarer to see such a student from a genuinely poor family (as opposed to the “middle class but won’t get financial aid” families).</p>
<p>I am not that surprised. The top kid of our high school very often gets accepted to ALL ivies/top schools he/she applies. It is the case of top stats PLUS a compelling story coming from a poor town/bad HS. It seems that every school wants this kid. I also have to add that in our town the top kid is never just a “blah” student. I am not sure how the heck that happens but year after year a kid surfaces up that makes us scratch our heads.</p>
<p>Edit: Town is poor and diverse on all counts and HS limited. With blah, I mean just top stats. There is always a story and a “weird” achievement. Same kid in an elite HS I think still would have made it to a top college but maybe not to ALL.</p>
<p>am9799, every year a kid from your HS gets accepted to Yale AND Princeton AND Harvard AND Standford AND MIT AND Berkeley AND UCLA AND USC AND Davis? It’s the clean sweep that makes this amazing to me, but maybe this is commonplace. (I guess UCSD was his safety. :p)</p>
<p>I don’t know why it’s necessary to discuss the meaning of “full ride”. Regardless what it means, this kid got the best financial aid package and money is the least he should worry about.</p>
<p>I was most impressed by the writing style Chen used in his essay: “Throughout my life, I’ve learned to grow up without luxuries…I don’t need fancy clothes. I don’t need expensive SAT classes. I don’t even need a father…I have something more valuable than luxuries: the foundation to grow and prosper…My circumstances have not brought me down, but instead, have made me stronger.”</p>
<p>So many students use overly complex sentence structures and obscure vocabulary in their essays in an effort to impress the reader. Chen’s style was refreshing.</p>
<p>Another eye-opener in the story: When Chen had to attend a distant school for the first year of his IB program, his mother would drive him there (a 38-mile round trip) and wait at the school the entire day because she couldn’t afford to make two trips!</p>
<p>Elk Grove is not generally a poor town, except perhaps by the standards of this forum where many seem to assume that you have to be ineligible for financial aid (i.e. $200,000+ household income) to be “middle class”. (It is not generally a wealthy town either.)</p>
<p>Per capita money income: Elk Grove $29,188, California $29,634
Median household income: Elk Grove $78,564, California $61,632
Persons below poverty level: Elk Grove 8.8%, California 14.4%</p>
<p>On the other hand, the student himself came from a low income family.</p>
<p>Elk Grove high school appears to be above average statewide (rank 7 on 1-10 scale), but slightly below average compared to similar schools (rank 4 on 1-10 scale), in API scores:</p>
<p>I.e. not a bottom-of-the-barrel high school, but not an elite one either. Perhaps it may be considered a “bad high school” compared to the ones that forum members are used to, where 99% go to four year colleges, including dozens to super-selective schools, etc…</p>
<p>Great story, thanks for the link! It was refreshing to read about a kid rewarded for hard work and ability without the laundry list of exotic EC’s.</p>