<p>My friend and I arguing about this earlier. </p>
<p>Does it help you in college admissions if you are rich, even though theres no legacy, donations, or any of that sort of stuff involved???</p>
<p>i highly doubt it</p>
<p>well, i guess there is the aspect of more opportunities being available to you if you are rich, but besides than, nothing much</p>
<p>statistics show that it most definitely helps out in two areas.</p>
<p>The first area is most obvious -- for college that are not need-blind, the person who does not apply for FA is a better candidate. For all colleges, the "list" of schools does not include money as a deciding factor, thus schools that might have been cut from the list of a student who did need aid would be left on the list of the student who is full pay. This could very well lead to admittance to more colleges and a better selection when it comes time to pick your college.</p>
<p>Money also makes a huge difference in the college admissions prior to submitting the application. money usually means better housing situations, steady income, better school choices, money for extracurricular activities and enrichment, money to pay for tutoring, test prep, etc. Money to visit colleges in order to show interest and make a better choice. kids in better schools are generally around other kids who are also interested in attending college -- so you have peer motivation to do well in school. better schools offer more extracurriculars and sports, more opportunities to excel. Better schools offer more motivated teachers, usually have better equipment and supplies and the focus is on college prep not on meeting the minimum standards to be accredited.</p>
<p>This is a generalization -- there are plenty of bad schools in wealthy areas and plenty of good schools in poor areas -- but the generalization is true. money does give kids a real advantage in college admissions.</p>
<p>We were purely talking about the actual admissions decision. So that wouldnt include being able to pay for an SAT tutor or stuff like that. I guess what it comes down to, is if theres two similar applicants, except that one can easily pay while the other would have to take out loans, get aid etc, which one would they take? Would they take the rich kid, or decide some other way that wouldnt involve income?</p>
<p>at need blind schools if you have two kids with identical stats, the decision would be made based on something other than money. It might be their EC's, teacher recs, school they attended, state they live in, etc. most likely a combination of all those.</p>
<p>many schools are not need-blind and in those admissions cases, the full pay student is usually picked over the need student if stats and everything else are identical.</p>
<p>money can also come into play when a student is waitlisted -- when they make those final decisions to admit students off the waitlist, they often have already allocated their aid to admitted students and are looking for full-pay kids to pull off the waitlist.</p>
<p>thanks. That makes sense.</p>
<p>It's kind of a disadvantage, in my thinking, haha. I'll explain:</p>
<p>If a rich kid does something amazing, nobody cares. He/she probably got mommy or daddy to help, and it isn't that great.</p>
<p>If a poor kid does something amazing, EVERYONE cares. Hallelujah! This person is awesome! Let's give this guy a scholarship! Etc, etc.</p>
<p>As such, accomplishments by poor people are considered to be cooler.</p>
<p>By the way, if that sounded anti-rich, I apologize. I do mean it in jest ;-)</p>
<p>Nope. It in fact hurts you. You are expected to achieve at a higher level because of your greater access to resources. So - given that you are wealthy, make sure that you've got some nice awards to grab some attention. Just going to school and getting As aren't good enough if you're rich. </p>
<p>^ Accomplishments like All-State, science awards, or writing awards or just great academic performance is really 'cool' for poor applicants in the admissions process because they achieved far beyond what their resources would normally allow them to achieve.</p>
<p>Depends on how rich. IF you are Bill Gates rich, I'm sure it will be an advantage. If you are just fairly wealthy, it could even count against you.</p>
<p>Being rich enough to donate a million to Harvard most definitely helps (btw, those are called "development cases").</p>