<p>Read </p>
<p>[Harvard</a> announces sweeping middle-income initiative — The Harvard University Gazette](<a href=“http://www.hno.harvard.edu/gazette/2007/12.13/99-finaid.html]Harvard”>http://www.hno.harvard.edu/gazette/2007/12.13/99-finaid.html) </p>
<p>very carefully to see what the status quo was before the recent announcement.</p>
<p>The students that I think that Harvard’s stopping EA will help are the low income, first generation college, students who aren’t at prep schools or other top high schools. These students don’t have the sophisticated GCs to tell them about EA or the advantages to applying to more than a couple of colleges. These students also would not be applying to a dozen colleges, but possibly just to Harvard, state flagship and nearby mediocre state U.</p>
<p>Seriously this makes no sense. Everyone who scores above a certain percentile on the PSAt gets mail from top schools (even low income students <em>gasp</em>). They should know thier options. And seriously if you can’t look up whether Harvard has a program like EA on the internet or by even calling them, you seriously don’t deserve to go to Harvard or any other top school in the first place.</p>
<p>"Seriously this makes no sense. Everyone who scores above a certain percentile on the PSAt gets mail from top schools (even low income students <em>gasp</em>). They should know thier options. "</p>
<ol>
<li>Many low income people move a lot, so may not get the mail from colleges.</li>
<li>A low income person who may be a first gen HIGH SCHOOL grad being raised by a single and uneducated grandmother may not know any college grads except their overworked, underpaid teachers. They may not even have college students in their family or neighborhood. Harvard and Yale may be viewed by them as being of similar ranking as their local community college.</li>
</ol>
<p>As for knowing about EA and being able to make long distance calls to universities, the students may know next to nothing about the application process. If you come from a background of college educated relatives and attend a school were a high proportion of students go on to college, it probably is hard for you to imagine how little knowledge about college students have who don’t come from a background with the advantages that you take for granted.</p>
<p>You also may think that low income kids are getting lots of help from GCs, but if the low income kids are in a school with a high proportion of low income kids, the GCs are overwhelmed with helping students who have legal problems, who are homeless, etc. Being very academically successful at a school can mean graduating from h.s. and going to the local community college. The GCs aren’t likely to be knowledgeable about things like the options at places like Harvard.</p>
<p>I am low income and everything, but I still think harvard and princeton should have kept the early plans
and seriously who hasn’t heard of harvard…seriously</p>
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<p>I think this is exact case at my high school. Most of the GCs are preoccupied with making sure that every student will be able to graduate on time and we do have a handful that are homeless or independent. Although I am not technically low-income anymore, I am first generation and until I came to CC, I had never heard about early action or early decision ever before. Our senior GCs did not even mention EA or ED until about two months ago when they sent out a quick “college tips & reminders” bulletin, and that would not have given me enough time to apply early anyway. In short, I do think getting rid of early action/early decision does make it fair for everyone.</p>
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<p>How true…but you gotta take the test. How many low income students are taking the PSAT? </p>
<p>Keep in mind, too, that many folks that live outside the upper middle class suburban bubble zone don’t have extended networks telling them about the best college application strategies. Their GCs are probably pushing good old state U as the “success” choice. Ivy caliber kids in lower income settings are pretty rare, so folks in their environment don’t have much experience in this zone.</p>
<p>Google:</p>
<p>Seriously, who has not heard of Harvard? Indeed. But what most people may have heard is that it is very selective and very expensive. Not much more than that. Not exactly an encouragement for low income students to apply. That is why part of the HFAI involves recruitment.</p>
<p>In a positive note, drop EA/ED should also help to ‘weed’ out some weak legacy, celeber, etc. applicants.</p>
<p>If you inspect those addmission data (%EA/ED, %RD, overall%) you would find there are big difference % between EA/ED and RD in all ivies (I forgot if Stanford has big different or not). However MIT, Caltech, the %EA and %RD almost the same. </p>
<p>For years people have been saying the big difference % between early and regular because early applicants pool is stronger, but if this is the case you would expect MIT and Caltech also have a higher EA addmission rate than the regular. But they don’t.</p>
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<p>That may well be true. However, the problem is with the definition of “stronger.” If the emphasis is purely on academics (eg, GPA and board scores) then it is easy to evaluate the strength of different pools. But we know schools try to lock in some applicants early. It would appear that likely letters are being used still, and not just to recruit athletes but other desirable applicants as well. Sports teams and orchestras still need to be filled, alumni placated, donors wooed, diversity of all kinds promoted. I do not anticipate that the elimination of EA/ED will eliminate the hooks/tips currently in place.</p>
<p>see post #17</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/435880-ed-no-longer-advantage-2.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/435880-ed-no-longer-advantage-2.html</a></p>
<p>deleted .</p>
<p>I know the arguments. They’ve been quoted very widely but they rely principally on GPA and board scores to make their case. As I hinted, strength is a more subjective yardstick. Those most likely to be admitted early include applicants whose strengths are not necessarily measured by GPA and board scores but who are extremely desirable, such as recruited athletes and stellar artists. I do not see the hooks given to such applicants disappearing, nor the preference given to facbrats, donors’ kids, etc… Indeed, I would assume courting donors will need to remain a top priority.</p>
<p>What I see is that the top and bottom 25% will remain the same in terms of both stats and composition. It’s the middle that is most likely to be affected by the end of EA and the expanded finaid.</p>
<p>If Harvard and other top schools really wanted to recruit disadvantaged students they would keep EA and encourage such students to apply EA. I still maintain that abolishing EA will only further “advantage the advantaged.”
Even a brilliant impoverished student desired by Harvard would want also to apply to at least state U – mulitple applications, multiple deadlines, complexity. These are the real barriers that allow the networked, well supported and savvy applicant to have an advantage. This is another intervention that will backfire and have the opposite of the intended effect. jmho</p>
<p>For Harvard’s take on the advantages of abolishing EA, see:
[Talent</a> scouts — The Harvard University Gazette](<a href=“http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2007/12.06/99-admissions.html]Talent”>http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2007/12.06/99-admissions.html)</p>
<p>low income, disadvantaged kids already get a boost. take for example, the kids with no college grads in their family, get extra points when applying. a few years ago, one girl from ga posted on vandie’s site that she got into vandie with a 24 act and a 1540 on the 2400 SAT. She was also hispanic. I call that getting an advantage. and there is no question that the kids from the million dollar incomes get a boost. whether it is legacy or money for prep courses all through the top notch private schools they have attended. But what about the kids from homes that make enough to have a good life but not enough for these expensive schools. i guess i am tired of hearing about the free ride to all of the kids from both ends and none of the ones in the middle have a chance. my kid is always saying we are damned no matter. we make enough to pay a fortune in taxes and have no chance for aid. So we, the middle class, go to our state schools while the lower and upper go to oos or private. And those that can’t get into their state schools go to the least expensive oos that they get into cause adding another 45,000 to their expenses is out of the question.</p>
<p>sour grapes, yes.,</p>
<p>
Actually, the evidence is that low income or being first generation college gives no boost in and of itself. URM? Yes. URM that is low income, first generation, yes, because of URM status. White, low income, first generation? No boost. </p>
<p>There may be individual colleges that are exceptions to this, but I am not aware of any hard data to support any claims of preference based soley on income or generational status.</p>
<p>Just because colleges ask for information like first to go to college does not mean they use the information in a favorable way in making admissions decisions. Much of what is actually done in admissions is in conflict with what is said to be done. Take the high admit rates for early applicants. For years, adcoms said this was because the early pool was better. Research published a few years ago showed this was not true, even while the colleges were making the claim.</p>
<p>It was this revelation that raised my cynicism about admissions lore and practices to new highs. After all, top colleges study these issues extensively. For them to not know how the early pool compared to the regular pool is hard to imagine - it would be totally irresponsible to not know. Spread this among a dozen or so top universities, and one can only conclude that all of them could not have been irresponsible on the same issue at the same time. So one can only conclude that these places are less than forthright about their admissions practices.</p>
<p>Interestingly, the same lack of candor extends to a number of admissions practices, including legacy preferences.</p>
<p>NMD:</p>
<p>My question is: Granting that EA is worth 100 points on the SAT; is EA admit due to EA as such or to legacy status, or being a recruited athlete or a donor’s kid, etc…?</p>
<p>If the latter is the case, these advantages will not disappear.</p>
<p>As for low SES whites not getting a boost, I realize that anecdotes are not data. I will always remember, though, a young man from Appalachia who was one of two from his whole community to attend college, the first ever. The other one went to Princeton. That was back in the early 1990s.</p>
<p>Marite, </p>
<p>Avery et al’s work looked at unhooded applicants, and found a benefit comparable to having scored 100 more points, using SAT score as the best analogy. The actual benefit was a bit more complex, as you can imagine.</p>
<p>Whether or not this benefit endures I cannot say. But the evidence was striking and in such conflict with then current adcom pronouncements that I continue to be amazed.</p>
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<p>A different data set from Avery’s data set, with data leading to the same conclusion, is discussed in </p>
<p>[Amazon.com:</a> America’s Untapped Resource: Low-Income Students in Higher Education: Books: Richard D. Kahlenberg](<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/Americas-Untapped-Resource-Low-Income-Education/dp/0870784854/]Amazon.com:”>http://www.amazon.com/Americas-Untapped-Resource-Low-Income-Education/dp/0870784854/) </p>
<p>which I am reading at home just now. Yes, the correct factual statement is that there is no evidence–yet–that any college has succeeded in giving a boost to low-income or first-generation applicants. Most Americans, according to polling data reported in the book I’ve just cited, would be glad to see a system in which that happens, but the college admission system as it has existed up till now has rather favored more advantaged students.</p>
<p>The UCs do, in fact, give low income boosts to kids of all races and ethnicities. It’s how Cal and UCLA end up with ~33% Pell Grantees year after year.</p>