<p>Says:
But most important, Amherst, for instance, is doing more than giving money to low-income students; it is recruiting them and taking their socioeconomic background — defined by family income, parents’ education and occupation level — into account when making admissions decisions.</p>
<p>How do they know your socioeconomic background?</p>
<p>I used to qualify for free lunch my freshman year, and reduced lunch my sophomore year, and now I don't think I qualify for anything. We made a huge leap economically my sophomore year. Will they know this---that we used to be quite poor? Or will they just assume that I have been middle-class all my life?</p>
<p>I'm a bit worried. Because of my situation, I hardly have any money in the bank saved up for college.</p>
<p>Amherst generally knows the socioeconomic status of low-income students because of where they live and where they go to school. If you recruit students from Roxbury in Boston or Harlem in NY, or kids at various low-income high schools, you know their socioeconomic status.</p>
<p>Even schools that are “need-blind” do consider socioeconomic status (Amherst is need-blind). They don’t consider it in terms of saying, “Oh, you need aid, so we won’t admit you.” Rather, they “consider” it when evaluating the opportunities that are available to the student and what that student did with the opportunities. They will consider that, for example, the student needed to work to help support a family; that the student couldn’t get SAT tutoring or take a prep class; that music, dance, art lessons may not have been available; that the student rose to the top of an underperforming school and exceeded expectations.</p>
<p>No, they don’t look at the FAFSA, but they look at the whole student and the environment that he or she is in.</p>