<p>College admissions is a totally unfair biased game which favors the wealthy. Wealthy kids can afford to get top-notch college counselors who charge literally thousands of dollars per client. Apparently, this person, Michele A. Hernandez was a Former Assistant Director of Admissions for Dartmouth College and now runs her own company to help students, rich students I shall say, to get into their top choices. For low and medium income students such as myself, how in the world do I and countless others compete against students in an unfair playing field?</p>
<p>i agree its a load of <a href="mailto:cr@p">cr@p</a>. the rich can afford $40,000 to work privately with her and get into their top college....what about us?</p>
<p>i wonder whats the % of people who *do * get in after workign with her</p>
<p>Well, that's capitalism for you.</p>
<p>You don't need to hire a college counselor to get into a selective college.</p>
<p>This service is a luxury and not a necessity. If some people choose to spend their money on this, so be it. Similarly, some people choose to spend $40 million on an apartment, and most other people can't afford that. Is that unfair too?</p>
<p>i say that 24/27 is not a good enough ratio for $40,000. i mean we have a higher percentage than that here at CC don't we ;) unlss those schools were uberreaches for whoever hired her. Which is probably the case because what person would hire a $40,000 if they already are val, 4.0 and 2400 and president of 5 clubs like 99% of CCers, no matter how rich they are?</p>
<p>I love this:</p>
<p>
[quote]
Finally, an in-depth guide of outstanding summer opportunities for high school students. Colleges care how students spend their summers. This exclusive compilation gives detailed information on the programs, activities, research opportunities, etc. that top colleges love.
[/quote]
It's an ad for a $249 program that gives you "summer options that will increase your chances of admission." that's disgusting</p>
<p>thank god for CC; i think CC acts just like a consultant :D</p>
<p>You can get into a good college without a consultant. </p>
<p>
[quote]
Last year 100% of my clients were accepted to the Ivy League Schools or top colleges like Stanford and Middlebury.
[/quote]
do most people know what middlebury is?</p>
<p>I view expensive consulting and CC like private and public universities: the consulting is the elite, overpriced form of help that can be found cheaper on CC (which anyone can have access to), and it's just as good. =)</p>
<p>yeah dude thats so unfair. my parents are struggling to pay the bills while there are kids who have the capital to pay someone to get them in.</p>
<p>I agree that colleges favor the wealthy and the privileged. Those who have the money and the resources are typically the ones who get into the elite schools.</p>
<p>Colleges and universities should adopt the idea of affirmative action. Affirmative action works to even the playing field for low - income students and under-represented minorities. Once colleges admissions is "fair" then affirmative action won't be needed.</p>
<p>They probably won't enjoy their education as much. Their college may not match as well.</p>
<p>BW</a> Online | July 7, 2003 | Needed: Affirmative Action for the Poor </p>
<p>Some colleges have been following up on this suggestion from 2003.</p>
<p>^^I'm a little puzzled. Top colleges have had preference for low income students from long before 2003....</p>
<p>^That's not true. That's never been true. Colleges prefer to have students who can pay their tuition; colleges prefer to make money. Every full-ride student is a $40,000/50,000 hole in a private school's wallet. Colleges give out a few scholarships to make themselves look good and perhaps help fill out their URM/athlete quotas in the bargain; colleges, like any other business (since colleges are businesses in America) have never LIKED giving away money when they could be taking it in.</p>
<p>And of course college admissions are unfair - isn't everything unfair to someone? But we deal with it the way people have always dealt with unfair things: we play the game as hard as we can, for as long as we can, and hope things turn out all right. Or we rewrite the rules - but that isn't an option to us.</p>
<p>^^College admissions is supposed to be need-blind. If this is not true, it certainly is one of the most colossal lies that the colleges have ever put forth. And first generation, low-income families are considered in the context of their circumstances (i.e., favored over wealthier families with similar or better stats/awards).</p>
<p>^^^College admissions in most top colleges are "need-aware", NOT need blind. "Need-aware" means that they are aware that you may require a large amount of money to go to their school. "Need-aware" means that they are allowed to reject you if they don't want to shell out $40,000 for you. </p>
<p>Just because you're low-income doesn't mean that MIT or Harvard wants to give you $45000 for tuition each year when they could take an upper-class no-aid-required kid with the same or better stats as you. Underdog stories are all well and good, but ultimately, lots of families who can afford to pay $50,000 a year are required for private universities to operate successfully.</p>
<p>They call themselves need-blind, not "need-aware." Maybe an adcomm person needs to participate in this discussion to put this to rest. But at least for MIT, a school which I have experience with, I think you are dead-wrong.</p>
<p>Anyway, what you say may be true of some private schools, but not those with endowments in excess of 20 billion dollars like the top private schools. Recently they have gotten very competitive with financial aid in an effort to recruit the best candidates. Also, the vitality of the top private schools depends on their prestige and the number of applications they recruit. In order to do this, there is an arms race with financial aid packages. If this is just deception in that they have a cap on the number of underpriveledged students they can take, then again this would be quite a lie.</p>
<p>For the top schools, I think the tuition is paltry compared with the amount donated by VIPs. I think one of the reason they admit actors and children of powerful people is to replenish there coffers (even in cases where they are not outright development cases.) The children of doctors don't get that kind of consideration. What they get is they are expected to get 2300+ SAT scores, perfect grades, etc. because they are "priviledged."</p>