@outlander545
From what I understand the “being poor” is calculated based on the zip code since annual income is not reported on the common app.
I also don’t trust colleges to say they are truly need blind.
Btw what is the percentage of people who go to each school for free?
^^Solid advice.
At the MIT info session I attended, from the director of admissions: “If we wanted to, we could accept a freshman class of only perfect SATs, but we don’t. We look for other things.”
Side note: MIT is one of the few elite schools where they imply that interviews matter. They say that ten percent of applicants who have an interview are admitted versus one percent who don’t have an interview.
At least in the minds of Yale students there is a difference. On the Yale tour someone asked, “Why Yale rather than Harvard?” The tour guide replied, “Harvard students are proud of being at Harvard. Yale students love Yale.”
On the Harvard visit I did get the sense that the attitude is “Hey, we’re Harvard, and we don’t have to care what you think.” At the info session they showed a video in which a student exclaimed thst he was using the exact same sink as FDR. It certainly looked that old, and I turned to my son and said, “Here they can get away with charging you $60k a year to live in slum-like conditions.”
But it is a crap shoot, and I mean that literally. I have no doubt that if they put the names of all the high stats applicants in a hat and picked the names of the freshman class out of that hat, you would have just a reasonable student body as the one chosen by care and deliberation.
There’s an NPR piece about the Amherst admissions process in which they say that what they wind up with often has a random feel to it, and they themselves can’t often explain why they picked one applicant over the other. The director said that the arbitrariness should actually be reassuring to those rejected, meaning it really doesn’t mean you were not worthy.
“Behind The Scenes: How Do You Get Into Amherst?”
http://www.npr.org/2011/03/28/134916924/Amherst-Admissions-Process
Public schools are notorious for rejecting out-of-staters because they are too poor, and UCs are well-publicized in this regard. This is an important factor to take into account when looking for matches and safeties.
To clarify: My point about the SAT scores was that in my opinion getting a 2300+ and still wanting to study more and go for a perfect score doesn’t make sense to me. There are so many better things you could be doing with your time. My point about correlation vs. causation is that people see that 50% of 2400s get into X Institution or something and assume that if they get a 2400 they would automatically have that kind of chance to get in, when in reality having a 2400 is only correlated to the fact that the people that have those scores tend to have awesome awards like Olympiad titles or something which makes them much more desirable.
@bomerr - With a quick google search you can find much more “___________ financial aid stats”
" More than 65 percent of Harvard College students receive scholarship aid, and the average grant this year is $46,000. "
Average Stanford grant (from their common data set) : $44,043
Princeton- “No Loans: In 2001, Princeton became the first university to offer every aid recipient a financial aid package that replaces loans with grant aid that students do not pay back.
Approximately 60% of students receive financial aid…
An average grant of over $40,000: In 2013-14 the average aid grant covered 96% of tuition for undergraduates
75% of students graduate debt free”
Not applying for financial just doesn’t make sense. These colleges have such huge endowments that they are willing to spend big in order to get the people they want to attend.
And also @ bomerr need-blind means they don’t factor your ability to pay into the decision making process. They figure out you are poor later when you turn in your FAFSA and CSS profile and they give you aid based on your need.
@outlander545
When I got into UC Merced last year, I got 0 in school grants. When my 2 black friends got into UCLA, Berkeley and USC, they both got a 100% full-ride. Likewise my hispanic AB 540 (aka illegal alien) friend got a full ride to UC Irvine. Without being a URM, my chances of being given a good scholarship go down drastically.
I’m not a math major but if I was, I could explain to you how universities are fudging those numbers to make them seem better than they really are. Actually I do know one way. Looking at the average acceptance rate of students who applied with aid to students who applied without aid.
like i said, i don’t trust them to be truly need blind.
@moscott
You said of the OP
That is not contradictory in the least, because in visiting one is exploring where one might want to apply and his advice was that, since they are in fact qualitatively different, one wouldn’t apply to all of them, which is in fact what happened, he eliminated some from consideration. It is perfectly reasonable to start out with the thought “I want to look at many of the schools with the most academically accomplished students because those are my peeps” and then narrow it down as you see certain aspects of a school that don’t fit, even though the students there are just as academically capable as at another school you do find great. But how do you know without research which school falls into which category, and visiting is certainly a form of research.
I don’t think colleges would ever post those numbers and I think if they did and there was a large discrepancy that it would show that the game is rigged to the wealthy in the first place, not that the colleges want people who can pay full tuition. The wealthy have the money to get the best education and tutors to get the best SAT scores and the opportunity to have the ECs that those colleges look for in the first place. They tend to be better qualified because of their money and opportunity. Middle and lower class people in general are less likely to know about / apply to those top schools and they tend to have lower test scores and not as good ECs. Elite colleges recognize that, but an applicant still needs to be qualified to get accepted. A $45,000 dollar scholarship is a drop in the bucket to Harvard who has a 36.4 BILLION dollar endowment. UC Merced is probably not need blind or need based so you can’t compare that to Berkeley who meets on average 98% of an admitted student’s need.
@outlander545
And part of the reason I was probably rejected from Berkeley was the fact that I would receive financial aid. Interesting fact about that, out of all the people who applied from my school to Berkley-Haas last year, the only person to get in was an international student who would pay OOS price.
BTW I know plenty of very rich kids who are lazy and don’t try in school. Wealthy people have better test scores because people who are smart don’t like being broke. They go make money. Then they pass their DNA and wealth to their kids. So wealth, intelligence, and beauty end up coalescing.
Regardless If 45,000 was a drop in the bucket to Harvard, i.e. didn’t matter, than they wouldn’t increase tuition decade after decade. **Clearly tuition matters. **
I was just trying to point out that they are willing to give aid. I do not know a lot about the california system, but what you said about that international student could be true. OR it could be correlation/causation. He could have had awesome ECs or written great essays but all you see is his money and conclude that is the reason why he got in. We just don’t know. For me personally, all I am trying to say is that I researched some of the top colleges (although none of them were in California) and their financial aid programs and I concluded that not applying for financial aid would not make sense for me financially (I was looking at them because they were great schools and had great financial aid) and that it wouldn’t improve my chances of acceptance. If you have a different conclusion, that is fine. Have a happy new year!
Berkeley may met 98% of the need, on average, but the last 2% is accounted for by non-athlete OOS…
Keep it on topic, people. Which is the 7 point opinion list of the OP. - FC
@fallenchemist
My point is/was that they espouse to other prospective students that …“brand is not everything…” yet ALL of the schools visited/listed were Ivy & MIT. If brand is not everything then where are the other colleges visited or considered? Especially since others may have been better “fits” if they had visited.
@moscott
I cannot speak for the OP, but I can read his post #8 which is what you are referencing. He NEVER said those were all the schools he visited, researched or applied to. He was making the point that the Ivy-type “brand” is insufficient to characterize a school, that they are still different places. He only said that he visited those schools, not that he ONLY visited those schools, and he said it in a very particular context. You read way too much into that.
@micmatt513
I disagree, a 2200 is a stellar score!
The average in the U.S. for 2013
Critical reading:497
Mathematics: 513
Writing: 487
@fallenchemist
??? The OP specifically states in bold " The name/brand is not everything". Yet the only colleges mentioned throughout are Ivy and MIT and MIT the chosen college.
So if I write a post stating that the name/brand is not everything when looking to buy a car and I only test drive Acura, Infinity, Benz and Lexus and choose a Lexus then I’m not really living what I preach so to speak. Seems contradictory (to me) to state name/brand is not everything and then end up choosing MIT?!
@moscott
I won’t argue this with you further, because what he said in post #8 had to do with saying that he visited several Ivies and found them to be different. It has nothing to do with his statement about name brand not being everything, they are two entirely different points.
He didn’t ever say he ONLY visited these schools. He could have visited 20 other non-Ivy type schools and it wouldn’t be relevant to his point in post #8, and he is under no obligation to list his itinerary or research otherwise in order to make the statement he did about brand names. The fact that he doesn’t mention other schools doesn’t mean they didn’t exist for him during his research, whether he visited them or not. He never said he only test drove those cars, to use your analogy. He was making an entirely different point that although they are all luxury cars, Acuras, Infinitys, Benzes and Lexuses can be differentiated. You are trying to use post 8 to say something about his statement, when they are not actually even related. It is clear to all who read the posts.
Really?? You can think name brand is not everything when buying a car and still buy a Lexus because you genuinely think it is the best car for you. It doesn’t make the general statement at all contradictory, or even hypocritical.
@moscott and @fallenchemist
Hi, OP here (and I am a she not a he)-
As I said there are exceptions to every rule. As I stated earlier my college search was limited by financial constraints so going OOS was not a feasible option for me unless the school had great financial aid. I researched the top 20 computer science schools and Ivies extensively and found that out of all the schools I visited/researched in state and out of state that 3-4 fit my desired criteria. I applied to 3 schools- 2 safeties and MIT EA and I started my Upenn application before my MIT decision came out.
No…Overall I think the post is excellent and agree with almost everything you stated. My only “issue” was that you seemed to make a point(in bold) about name/brand not being everything and then ending up at MIT(congrats btw). Now if you listed all those Ivies and MIT and stated name/brand is not everything and ended up at a state college the story would have been ideal lol.