But lots of ambitious kids applying to elite colleges do indeed know who our billionaires are, and follow intensively the doings of their tech billionaire heroes. Hastings is very prominent.
This is the temper of the time.
To the extent that people know Reed Hastings, they may misidentify him as the founder of Netflix.
I think you’re out there a little with the Reed Hastings reference, and I’m about ten minutes from Netflix HQ. The general public will associate his wealth with the Stanford CS Masters, not his undergrad. If he had not gone to Stanford and he came to SV from Bowdoin, that would be different. Of course Bowdoin should promote that, but billionaires are a slippery slope, at some point you’re going to run across Tennessee State (Oprah), U of Nebraska (Buffet), U of Arkansas(the Walton clan) before you get to Princeton (Bezos) and the dropouts (Harvard, UIUC, Reed when Jobs was living).
1 Like
The test scores of Bowdoin applicants who apply with test scores are likely in line with those of Williams (Bowdoin’s 1340 includes all matriculants, including those who applied TO). As we also know, test scores are not necessarily indicative of academic strength, nor are they indicative of ultimate college success. Interpreting class of 2025 test score data is going to be nearly impossible if schools don’t release the proportion of matriculants that applied TO (which they have no reason to release).
2 Likes
maybe.
But he’s been all over the news in recent years, with very large, splashy, high-profile education-related gestures including (2017) his $5 million gift for THRIVE, a program that will “provide for the development of a new program at Bowdoin College to substantially transform the college experience and improve the graduation rates” of low-income, first-gen and underrepresented minority students and his more recent $120 million gift to HBCUs.
He’s more associated with education than any of the other billionaires, esp because he actually wanted to transform education back in the day, even going back to school to get a degree in Education.
He was appointed president of the California Board of Education in 2001 by Pay-to-Play Davis but subsequently quit in disgust at the mismanagement and craziness of CA public education.
Yes, Mwfan1921 nails it.
Pretty soon, SAT scores will be as misleading to us parents trying to gauge prestige / desirability as the colleges’ reported admit rates and non-ED adjusted Draw Rates are now. We need a better metric that is harder for the colleges to manipulate.
So where is the OP going? I tried to scroll back through this thread to get back to the base discussion and gave up. It’s just a bunch of adult posters arguing with each other about metrics that no actual kid is going to bother with.
7 Likes
Bowdoin parent here. As for the draw rate, I think Bowdoin (and likely other schools with high draw rates) know how the choose the kids who fit the school. Bowdoin seems to have a very specific type of student and you can see what they are looking for when you read their supplemental questions. I also saw a virtual event back in 2019 where Whitney Soule (dean of admissions) showed a venn diagram that showed “head” and “heart” and where they intersect is where the ideal Bowdoin student lies. It seems true from the kids who S19 knows and the kids we have met. Those are some wicked smart kids who are also nice people. Not a lot of swagger going on there.
6 Likes
Bowdoin sent mailers that had his name and that he founded Netflix to my son, they were showing students you can do anything with a liberal arts education.
My son applied and was accepted, but decided on another school due to $$. He was sad because Bowdoin was his favorite school out of all the ones he applied to. The staff and students he interacted with were very friendly and welcoming.
2 Likes
Lots of colleges have CEOs etc. among their alumni. However, one CEO of a major company among the alumni does not mean that a student at the college should assume that they have more than a tiny chance of becoming a CEO of a major company.
2 Likes
Of course, just agreeing that they do let students know of him and others. I can’t remember any names but I do remember Netflix.
2 Likes
Wow. I’m surprised the money wasn’t there at Bowdoin. They meet full need without loans.
1 Like
They do, but every school calculates need differently so you can end up with very different offers.
3 Likes
Hm still surprised. Most people I know found Bowdoin to be one of their very best financial offers!
3 Likes
I’m not surprised. Goes back to what I said upstream:
3 Likes
I love this sentence…
2 Likes