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<p>This is true for Harvard, but I haven’t researched other schools. It was in a publication I linked, and I think it said they get one free ticket to events if they request it through the FA office, or something like that. I’m pretty sure the sporting events are free for everyone.</p>
<p>I just reread the article. You don’t have to have money to have soft skills (I had little money but pretty good soft skills, my S has the reverse) but I would not be surprised if there is research showing that networking skill and confidence is correlated (for whatever reason) with income. When you are financially on the edge, it is very easy to decide you don’t belong and drop out. Or to run into an emergency and not know that your school provides a safety net (if it does). Once I was visiting my old undergrad department after I got my PhD. A professor I worked for expressed surprise. He knew I had struggled financially and thought I had to drop out. I think it happens a lot. I persevered; as it happens I also had a social scene where I felt comfortable. </p>
<p>I wouldn’t be surprised if some rich kids face a challenge that they can’t cope with complex bureaucratic systems on their own because their parents have always done it for them. Of course, the parents of the rich kids are probably more likely to step in, whereas the parents of the low-income kids may not be as comfortable doing so.</p>
<p>Actually, good or bad, high SES actually correlates highly with the ability to negotiate these types of systems. Studies can’t figure out why, yet, but think part of it is attitude and knowing how because of seeing it growing up. </p>
<p>These kids ask the “right” questions the right ways because they expect answers and guidance.</p>
<p>eastcoascrazy wrote: talk is free. But you have to get to the place where you have the opportunity to talk first. Unfortunately, a college student from a poor background would never meet my neighbor for a chat at our mailbox. </p>
<p>Seriously? There are tons of places in an Ivy League setting where those opportunities are. We are talking about Ivy League and “rich” schools after all.</p>
<p>Okay, I’ll grant that your mailbox isn’t one of them, but there are other mailboxes on campus, professors, clubs, internship opportunities, labs, TAs , study groups, lunches, brunches (probably not a lot over breakfast), free seminars, campus events and that is only scratching the surface. As for frats, I have seen that some have dues waivers. </p>
<p>It is just silly to pretend that because someone found an opportunity because they did something that required them to spend money (hello Toads again), that that is the only or even the predominant way that people can make connections in an Ivy League environment.</p>
<p>I don’t think much talking goes on at Toad’s. It’s a divey dance bar. :)</p>
<p>Bay, both you and ProudPatriot started in with the sour grapes early in this thread. I don’t think anyone “jumped all over you,” but rather reacted to statements like this:</p>
<p>Yours:</p>
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</p>
<p>PP’s:
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<p>It’s not just lack of sympathy, but also resentment that comes through.</p>
<p>I’ll come back when I can stop laughing at “fancy meals” at Toads. Toad’s is a concert hall/club. Sticky beer floor. Not posh. </p>
<p>Look. I grew up the “poor kid in a rich town” (my dad being a Yalie who was a mere college professor and therefore we had less money) and my husband grew up the “elite kid” in an Appalachian town with great poverty. There are many ways that I turn out to be the advantaged one – you cannot underestimate the influence of expectations on a teen…if your friends and family think of college as a given and a “good” college as the entry ticket to a worthwhile adulthood? You will make different choices through your teens and 20s than a kid who grows up in a town where almost nobody goes to college and high school football is noticed by people who aren’t in high school themselves.</p>
<p>Nice, sally305, you paraphrased what I wrote. It was:</p>
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<p>I was responding to the palpable implications on this thread that the rich have it easy and the poor do not at these particular colleges. Some full-pay students work through college and don’t get the benefit of on-campus, high paying jobs that are offered to FA kids. And it is not true that FA students don’t get to go on study abroad programs at these school. Those are facts that need to be considered.</p>
<p>I am not surprised that you read resentment in what I write, because your dislike of the rich is evident in every thread pertaining to SES. There is so much bias and ignorance about what kinds of resources are available to all kids at these fabulous colleges.</p>
<p>[The</a> Posse Foundation](<a href=“http://www.possefoundation.org/]The”>http://www.possefoundation.org/)</p>
<p>I think the work of the above organization is highly relevant to this discussion.</p>
<p>Why is it that some posters think kids are complaining or whining? I never got that; they are suffering from a big dose of culture shock! I get many culture shock calls from DD who now attends a non-elite LAC which apparently has a lot of kids from highly affluent (to us) families. Our income is above the national median, but we live in a high cost area and DH is a blue collar worker, albeit a unionized one. With FA and merit aid, it was much cheaper for us to send DD to her college, especially since she will be able to get out in four years, unlike her friends who attend California’s publics and don’t feel they will be able to get the classes they need in order to graduate in four. Because she attended an urban high school, DD has seen the other side of income scale where a classmate’s refrigerator was empty because it was the end of the month and mom’s drug dealer boyfriend apparently hadn’t stepped up.</p>
<p>Just eating in the dining hall is not the answer. It doesn’t serve dinner on Saturdays! So birthday celebrations are generally dinner at a restaurant on a Saturday. I think DD just tries to order something small and skipped her friend’s celebration at a place that was $200/head. I didn’t know you could spend that much w/o alcohol. And because this is a LAC, not much entertainment is available on campus; kids go into the big city – which of course can be spendy. </p>
<p>DD’s solution is to make lemons from lemonade. She is trying to develop a campus book exchange system. Her other idea is to have a day where seniors can sell or give away their perfectly useable stuff when they graduate rather than trash it and contribute to landfill. She’s been involved in student government and the college president’s advisory committee so she seems to be in a position to get these ideas implemented. Oh, yes, and freshman year she decided she wanted a job at the career center so she would know about internships as they came in and so she probably attended more of their events than any other kid in her year. So guess where she’s working now?</p>
<p>As for Thanksgiving? Last year, I think she was lining up invitations during orientation.</p>
<p>[Rich</a> People Just Care Less - NYTimes.com](<a href=“http://mobile.nytimes.com/blogs/opinionator/2013/10/05/rich-people-just-care-less/]Rich”>Rich People Just Care Less - The New York Times)</p>
<p>“Tuning in to the needs and feelings of another person is a prerequisite to empathy, which in turn can lead to understanding, concern and, if the circumstances are right, compassionate action…Reducing the economic gap may be impossible without also addressing the gap in empathy.”</p>
<p>Bay, your post that I (fairly) paraphrased was #12 in the thread. It’s a stretch to say you were already annoyed by what you saw as “implications” that the poor have it easier than the rich at top colleges. I don’t pick up on any statements to that effect in posts #1-11.</p>
<p>Also, you just keep reinforcing the perception that you think the opposite is true with statements like this:</p>
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<p>So let me get this straight…a full-pay kid who works in college LARGELY BY CHOICE while the parents are supporting him with a $250,000 education is at an overall disadvantage to a poor kid because the poor kid has a “high-paying” job on campus? Do you have any idea what “high-paying” jobs on most campuses pay–$14, $15 an hour max? Is that really high-paying to you? And do you have any idea what a big deal it is for FA kids to be able to HAVE jobs (especially on campus, considering many cannot afford the cars that their wealthier peers can)? I honestly cannot believe that you would think your child, whose parents can write the check for a quarter of a million dollars for her college education, “deserves” a higher-paying, more convenient job than a kid who comes from a poor farm family or a low-income single-parent home or another challenging background. But apparently you do.</p>
<p>And BTW, I don’t “dislike” the rich. I dislike people whose values do not include compassion and support for the common good–like those cited in the Times article above.</p>
<p>Well, ccdaddio, maybe you should have more empathy, because right now I could laugh at your bumpkin insistence at referring to “fancy meals” at Toads! OMG, privileged peers! This silly dirty person thinks Toad’s is fancy! What a nouveau poseur!</p>
<p>You could be insulted, here, but then you’d have to admit that the social outsiders actually do face a barrier to success in high level peer groups.</p>
<p>Yes, $15 per hour is a very high paying job for a kid fresh out of high school.</p>
<p>I didn’t say my child “deserves” a more convenient job than a FA kid. What a crock. I was pointing out that it was harder for non-FA to get those jobs. Why is that so offensive to you. It is quite bizarre that a rich kid wanting a good job would make you so mad. I would have assumed that a rich kid not working would make you mad. I guess they make you mad either way.</p>
<p>Well, BossyMommy, first you put words in my mouth by claiming I said “fancy meals” at Toads.</p>
<p>Then you have these odd elitist statements about “bumpkin” and “dirty person”.</p>
<p>Then you pull it all together by claiming I should have more empathy?! You are funny.</p>
<p>I have empathy.
I just have a heck of a lot more empathy for people who don’t get a $240,000 tax free value of an education at a top university, than people who do, but are bummed that they have to eat for free in the cafeteria rather than get to go out to spend money at Toads.</p>
<p>OMG. This bickering is better than catching up on The Walking Dead!! Our familyis in the 1 pct and we have friends who are both richer and poorer than we are and so do our kids. f
I think money is as big a deal as you let it be… There are always free things you can do without spending money. Play a video game, learn how to play bridge, walk into town, take your dining hall meals outside. While I am really glad we’re not poor, I think letting money define your mindset or let the lack of money make you feel like an outsider is silly. In my opinion it’s not the lack of money that makes these kids feel like outsiders, but a lack of confidence in themselves and their worth.</p>
<p>It’s possible to make connections without money but it can also be harder to take advantage of them. </p>
<p>My DH and I went to the same school. He graduated PHK and landed a good job, but wouldn’t have been able to get to his job without a car, and with no credit didn’t qualify for a car loan. I loaned him the money for a car despite the fact that he was flat broke. A year later he was laid off, but because I had trust fund money coming in and could pay our rent in full, he could afford to be choosy about employment and took 3 months to land a great consulting job. Just knowing he had a fall-back (my family’s business) allowed him to take more risks in his career. When it came time to apply to graduate school I helped pay for his tuition. Now he’s a CEO making much more money than I ever could. Without the advantages my money provided he’d probably be a solid mid-level manager. Not a bad living but also not his full potential.</p>
<p>This is someone who, while poor, was raised by highly educated parents, so he had the advantage of knowing how to present himself in the world of privilege. Lacking that I think he would have struggled more.</p>
<p>I have to admit that I was envious of his WS jobs when we were in school. I had a much harder time finding a job. But then I didn’t truly need the money. For me it was about playing Miss Independent. He had no other option.</p>
<p>Some of you are really underestimating these kids. With not much in the way of help, they got to Harvard. Maybe, they don’t have the connections of their wealthy peers but they have the satisfaction of knowing they are earning their way.
That’s not nothing.</p>
<p>@ccdaddio -It isn’t completely tax free. Any student who receives room and board as part of his/her scholarship has to pay taxes on that money.</p>
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<p>Ah, but the two can be tied to each other. One of the advantages of having money is the sense of entitlement it brings. For instance, I’ve taught my kids that if you’re in a city and you need to use the bathroom you can go to a hotel. If you walk in like you’re a guest no one will question you even if you’re dressed in ratty clothes. Having had lots of experience with foreign hotels they have no trouble pulling this off. They know how to give off the appearance of belonging.</p>
<p>Someone up thread made reference to calling her school about setting up a program to help kids afford the basics, and acknowledged that the very fact she felt she could just pick up the phone and make that call was a mark of privilege.</p>
<p>[And yes, I recognize there can be great danger in that sense of entitlement…]</p>