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<p>A farce? </p>
<p>I have the greatest difficulty in following the spirit of your post. Why do you make a distinction for STEM majors? Since when is a pre-requisite to “pretend” to major in a STEM area to apply to the Gates scholarship? </p>
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<p>The statement about NOT wanting to go far away is true. This happens in Texas where top ranked students do not use their wildcard to attend UT or Texas AM. For some, it is a lack of desire or the brute reality of finances. </p>
<p>Yet, the key should be that it is choice made by the students, and not the result of poor, incomplete guidance by the adults around them who failed to make the choice possible in the first place by laziness or lack of attention. </p>
<p>Not to mention continued efforts to discourage students to pursue avenues that are novel to such adutls. </p>
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<p>Ahh, the conspiracy theory. Perhaps Oliver Stone could make a movie. :D</p>
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<p>Love to see a source, any source, to support such a ‘thesis’.</p>
<p>Beyond thesis, let’s look at the facts. Only a few handfuls of colleges meet full need. And those colleges are the hardest to get into, with a low probability, AND require a lot of GC time for a newbie.</p>
<p>When you have 300-400-500 students to counsel, as a GC, you just have to be practical. Sure, that one diamond in the rough may get into prestigious NE college on a full ride, but at what cost to your time and the opportunity cost to be helping the other advisees get into local state U.</p>
<p>What becca calls a conspiracy, I call a practicality. Beyond that, if someone wants to work and live in, say, Texas after graduation, going instate is a no-brainer. </p>
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<p>Hunt, but they do not go searching for low income diamonds. For perspective, look at the travel plans of the recruiters from tony NE colleges when they hit the big cities such as LA or SF. No where to be found is a open house/recruiting night in South Central LA. Instead, the tony schools setup in a nice private or top-end public high school. (IMO, if they really wanted to recruit low income kids, they go to their high school.)</p>
<p>Technical issues appear to derail this thread. Check! </p>
<p>“I know a woman who now has a Masters from Johns Hopkins, but did not go to college straight from high school because neither her parents NOR ANY HIGH SCHOOL TEACHER suggested that she apply to college.”</p>
<p>My half-sister has a master’s degree from Johns Hopkins, and her mother (our mutual father is deceased) didn’t encourage her to go to college at all. It just wasn’t on the radar screen; when it was, it was UMBC because why would anyone go away to school?? I think some of you are kind of being wilfully ignorant in not understanding that for a heck of a lot of people in this country, college is not the grand sleep away experience it has been for many of us. </p>
<p>While I think others can try to convince anyone they want to go to any school, I do find this concept too paternalistic for my tastes. And, the focus on distance is missing a bigger point for distance is a proxy for something else much deeper, culture.</p>
<p>The question I have is, “Why the automatic assumption that someone who is low income, low information, rural etc., has this innate desire to be around people who attend elite colleges and would automatically benefit from being around such people?” </p>
<p>My spouse does not fit any of these targeted categories and 30-years ago when she told her grandparents she was going to the #1 school in the country, her grandparents’ (extremely educated, accomplished and powerful people) first sentence was, “How are you going to like such a place? It is so…”</p>
<p>My point: culture matters more to the super-majority of people, much more than where one receives an education. And it explains why if one ventures on to an elite college campus (even non-elite ones) during the school year and go to the library and dining hall and observe, you see the students self-segregated into groups, which mimic from where they are. Elite schools are just not important to many, as compared to maintaining cultural ties. </p>
<p>"@oldmom4896: My high school actually had a single lunch period where students were allowed to eat anywhere in the building. I brought my lunch from home so I never once set foot in the cafeteria. But I can say right now that a nerd table would not have discussed something like Doctor Who, never elite colleges. By virtue of being the highest achieving student at my school, I more or less was the nerd king (even if I don’t quite fit the stereotype). Yet until the second half of my junior year, I didn’t know about elite colleges, and neither did anyone else.</p>
<p>Sometimes, the smartest kid at our school will apply to Vanderbilt. Sometimes. The GCs said that last year was unusual in that we had four applications; in the past, the number had never exceeded two–and usually it was one or zero. Beyond Vanderbilt, nothing exists."</p>
<p>Oldmom. You are from NYC. No matter what your socioeconomic background (which I have no idea of, of course), you are in the part of the country that worships, reveres, cares about these schools. These types of schools just aren’t as thought about in other parts of the country, even at “nerd tables” – except in certain higher-socioeconomic bubbles. I understand given your background why you might think the “nerd tables” would have been all over the Ivies / etc, – I get it, I’m from the east coast myself – but this is a regionall, not a national phenomnenon.</p>
<p>“Your stories illustrate precisely how difficult it is to extract potentially able students from places where the culture doesn’t value the high academic achiever. Ignorance and fear. And I’ll beat on my tom-tom a little more and say that one of the reasons that people fear the Ivy’s and other big time academic places is that they hear their own cultural drumbeat (mightily reinforced by the national hobby of success bashing) about the places being filled up with arrogant trust fund party guys and gals, and conclude that they won’t fit in.”</p>
<p>You’re not getting it. It’s not that “I’m afraid of the Ivies, snobby rich Yankees, too hard for me.” It is “what’s the relevance - I can see plenty of doctors / lawyers / businessmen who went to my state flagship, what are these places necessarily going to do for me that I can’t get at my state flagship”? It’s not MY point of view, but it’s not an uncommon point of view. You want to assume it’s fear when it’s really just irrelevance.</p>
<p>“When you have 300-400-500 students to counsel, as a GC, you just have to be practical. Sure, that one diamond in the rough may get into prestigious NE college on a full ride, but at what cost to your time and the opportunity cost to be helping the other advisees get into local state U.”</p>
<p>This is a VERY VERY VERY important point. To expect the GC in the rural high school in Nebraska to know a lot and / or spend the time helping the valedictorian get into an elite school … it’s not the right judgment call for HIM to make when he’s got all these other kids to help. </p>
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<p>Technical issues…or a spammy poster…</p>
<p>There’s another thing I wanted to mention before this interesting thread got derailed. In a diverse school community with kids from a variety of different backgrounds, I have found that I have to “check” myself when talking to some of the kids who I suspect might not be college bound. My daughter and her friends are all seniors this year–but I don’t automatically assume they are all planning on college after high school. When I see these kids bagging groceries or working at the mall, I am careful to ask “what are you thinking about doing after graduation?” rather than anything specific about college. There is no shame in going into the trades or working for a family business or joining the military. Everyone has different dreams.</p>
<p>Someone made the point about parents being the driving force behind getting information to high achieving, low income students. I think this is critical. It’s actually kind of nice to get emails from colleges wanting parents to be involved.</p>
<p>For my high achieving firstborn son, the fact that I was involved is the reason he is where he is, mostly. We are not super low income, though this year, we will qualify for some Pell Grants.</p>
<p>I graduated from the local state uni (after 7 years, 3 colleges, and working mostly full time) and got two teaching credentials from there, as well, when it was <strong>cheap</strong> to attend. My dh didn’t finish college and is a delivery driver.</p>
<p>We decided it was more valuable for me to stay home, even though it dropped our income from 80K to 50K at the time. My oldest son was incredibly needy and challenging. Around age 3, knowing one other person who was homeschooling, (no one in our very working class neighborhood at the time even knew about homeschooling; this person was from church), we decided to take the plunge.</p>
<p>What I did that helped: I realized my son was really different than most kids we knew as he was doing things like multiplying, dividing, square roots, etc., by age 4. He was also <strong>super</strong> active/adhd. No school around here would know what to do with a kid who was doing algebra in 2nd grade, so I knew it would not work to put him in school.</p>
<p>I got online for the first time when he was 4 (16 years ago) and searched around for other kids like him. I found some lists for gifted kids and I cried. Finally, I found people who knew what I was dealing with. My online communities were a lifeline to me.</p>
<p>Through them, I connected with a variety of organizations that support highly gifted kids. Through those connections and other connections, we had a joyous time homeschooling this lover of learning. I followed his lead and let him fly.</p>
<p>What was different for us than many others on this thread is that we live in a large city, so opportunities such as math circle, free orchestras, community college, and home school classes abound. He did it all and loved it.</p>
<p>However, we were still looking at his attending Christian colleges such as Grove City and Taylor Univ. all the way through his sophomore year. I had never heard of places like Penn or even Princeton until that year. Again, through my online connections and through the fact that my son had taken all the community college math and physics classes mid-way through his soph year, made he and I realize that we needed to be looking at selective schools that would offer him a challenge. The local state college did not offer enough challenge since he had taken the hardest u/g physics class (a senior level class) during his junior year in high school. He also had decided he didn’t want to go to a UC-too big for him.</p>
<p>At that point in his junior year, we began to look at other schools. We visited Penn and Princeton during his junior year (flights were ridiculously cheap at, I think $178 round, and we stayed with friends we met online). During his senior year, he was flown to MIT for a program (and I think I learned about it on College Confidential). In October of his senior year, MIT got on the list.</p>
<p>My son was most fortunate to be accepted to all his schools including Penn, Princeton, Vandy, MIT, Mudd, Caltech, and WUSTL. He chose MIT and I can say without hesitation, that, while I never wanted him 3000 miles away, he chose well and will graduate debt free thanks to their generous need-based aid and his yearly corporate NM scholarship.</p>
<p>I can also conclude that it is very likely his attending MIT has given him some astonishing opportunities he never would have had if he’d gone to San Diego State. He has been interning for a company that will likely hire him at a 6 digit figure to start, which is just beyond our comprehension.</p>
<p>I guess my point is, these top schools, for the right student, offer amazing opportunities, not only because of their incredibly generous need-based aid, but because of the connections.</p>
<p>Just as I took the first step in getting online and seeking out info, I also learned a lot via my online connections.</p>
<p>Our income is dropping significantly this year, and that will mean I will be working more and may not have the time to invest for my other children. <em>That</em> might be one of the points to think about for schools-how do you help educate the <em>parents</em> who don’t have time because they are both working full time trying to put food on the table. We had the “luxury” of only having one full time income and one very part time income.</p>
<p>My son’s friends at the math circle always teased him for being from “the other side of the tracks”, but it didn’t bother my son, just as it doesn’t bother him that the majority of his classmates are more well off than he is. With his current work ethic and income, he can pay for his last two years of college (since we don’t have any more money for that), graduate debt free, give money to the church, and still have plenty to help others and live off of.
He is also responsible and independent.</p>
<p>I attribute this to his going away to MIT. He would not be where he is today without these challenging but beneficial experiences. </p>
<p>The ACT people did a survey that found the median distance from home 2012 ACT-takers went to college was 51 miles. For first-gens, the median distance was 24 miles. High scorers went a little farther–median distance for those scoring 33-36 on the ACT was 170 miles, and I’d be willing to wager that a large fraction of those are attending their state flagship. Very few people see a need or feel a desire to go to a faraway college. Nor should they be ridiculed, looked down upon, or pitied for it. It’s not necessarily a function of low information; for many, it’s a perfectly rational choice. Most won’t get into elite colleges even if they applied. And the high achievers often have perfectly satisfactory local options. I know some absolutely brilliant local kids who attend the University of Minnesota’s Honors College, and they love it. Others prefer a smaller school, so they apply to our fine local LACs like Carlton, Macalester, St. Olaf, or (relatively nearby) Grinnell. A fair number attend the University of Wisconsin, on balance a somewhat better school than the University of Minnesota (though statistically they’re actually very close) that with tuition reciprocity functions as our second flagship and offers more of a classic college town atmosphere than you get at the Minnesota-Twin Cities urban campus. A few of the more adventurous and gifted end up at Northwestern or the University of Chicago, and in doing so they’re not losing out to students at Yale or Brown; it’s pretty much a wash.</p>
<p>Most Minnesotans really like it here and have no desire to leave. And apart from the weather (which they’re accustomed to), what’s not to like? The Twin Cities have a dynamic local economy, the lowest unemployment rate of any major metropolitan area, a relatively high median income and relatively low cost of living, relatively low crime rates, precious little public corruption, and one of the most highly educated workforces in the country. We also have cultural opportunities galore–the best theater scene anywhere in the country outside of New York and possibly Chicago, a great music scene with everything from hip-hop to classical, outstanding libraries and bookstores (well used, too; both Minneapolis and Saint Paul are regularly at the top of the charts as “most literate” measured by library usage and book sales), a wide variety of good restaurants, an excellent and rapidly growing craft beer scene, and more. Most young Minnesotans imagine themselves spending the rest of their lives here, and I’m sure not going to tell them they’re wrong or ignorant for wanting that. And if that’s what they want, they’re actually better off staying close to home for college–better networking and internship opportunities with local employers, thicker alumni networks, and a degree from Minnesota, Wisconsin, Macalester, or Carlton is every bit as good in this market as one from HYP and probably better than Brown (which few here have on their radar screens) or the University of Pennsylvania (which most people are going to confuse with Penn State).
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<p>Pizzagirl, I grew up in a Levitt house and went to a working-class high school on Long Island, filled with kids from families whose dads bought houses after WWII with their GI mortgages. There was nothing the least bit worshipful or revering of Ivy League or other elite schools. The culture of the school worshipped the football team.</p>
<p>But there was definitely a nerd table.</p>
<p>My daughter went to Brooklyn Tech, a test-in school with a huge immigrant population, where many of the kids had parents who wanted their kids to go to schools that were reachable by public transportation and not too far. So SUNY Stony Brook was ok, but Binghamton was too far.</p>
<p>Remember that 60% of New York City students are immigrants or children of immigrants. And we are not talking about Tiger Moms and Dads who came here to be graduate students. Over 80 percent of NYC students are eligible for free- and reduced-price lunch. 69 percent at Brooklyn Tech. And the median family income in NYC is not much more than $50k.</p>
<p>This thread is having technical problems again.</p>
<p>Not to derail the discussion, but there is something technical seriously wrong with this thread! I keep seeing that there are new posts, and I can even read them if I click on the author’s name and go to their threads, but every time I return here I get stuck in the same place, post #109. And the thread ends at #120. What is going on, LOL???</p>
<p>ETA: My post is registering as #117, even though there have been between 5-10 posts made since the original #117!</p>
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<p>^ This. Don’t get me wrong, there’s animosity toward the perceived snobbiness of Ivy League yankees, which I guess is caused mostly by ignorance. But irrelevance is a huge part of the problem too. My family didn’t think I had any reason to go out of state. Frankly, they didn’t know anyone who had.</p>
<p>What’s going on with this thread? Posts aren’t showing up.</p>
<p>btw: at our public HS, the student/advisor ratio was 700:1…</p>
<p>Isn’t getting low-income students into elite colleges a new mission of the Obamas? I think this was announced in, maybe, June? </p>
<p>It’s not “the Obamas”–it’s the President.</p>
<p><a href=“Bloomberg - Are you a robot?”>Bloomberg - Are you a robot?;