<p>Hazmat, that's a different issue for a different thread.</p>
<p>Most of the posters say that the classes do socialize together and the differences in wealth aren't a big deal. </p>
<p>I find that amazing because that is not how it is in the real world.</p>
<p>College is NOT the real world!!</p>
<p>No, but I thought it reflects the real world.</p>
<p>My son will be a senior at Stanford next year. He is not on aid but we are by no means rich. Basically, I work as a professional in a government agency and my husband works as an engineer for a corporation, so we can afford college - thus, no aid. My son has close friends from every extreme of the socioeconomic ladder, and also from many ethnic backgrounds (although that is not the topic of this thread). I really don't think social/economic class is a big factor in whom students socialize with, at least at Stanford.</p>
<p>I think it really depends on the school
I hear about some schools where kids go to Bahamas and the like for spring break- they went to Europe after high school graduation- they get healthy allowances to pay for the ins on their Range Rover and have plans to work in mummys firm after graduation. They are the ones who are buying Seven jeans, who had a boob job at 20 and they dress like they are on the set of "sex in the city".
these schools at least the ones I have heard about 2nd hand, have slightly lower academics although still quite good, have greeks as a major part of campus life although the school administration may be trying to extinquish that, and don't have great aid, so many of the kids who come are paying full price.I get the impression that wealth is what these kids have to differentiate themselves, and so it must be milked for what it is worth.
This is what the suburb that I was raised was like, so I moved to the city when we had kids. I didn't like feeling like I had to keep up or that "things" were what attention was paid to. Yes I know that there are always people who don't go with the flow no matter where you are, but I didn't want to raise my kids where I felt like I was having to swim upstream constantly, I wanted to be able to float a little.
IMO it isn't how much money you have or really how you spend it- it is what you spend your time doing and what you talk about.
When we looked at private( middle high) schools for my oldest we found that they were very different- one was almost hippieish- they had a very rundown computer lab and seemed to pride themselves on that ( they have since updated), another virtually all of the kids had A&F emblazoned on their chests ( this was a few years ago) and seemed to walk out of seventeen magazine. another prided itself on the total of dollars parents contributed rather than the percentage,one highlighted the generations of Seattle elite who attended, the school she chose while academic really didn't give us the impression that we would be uncomfortable, even though my H had a factory job and even though I never graduated from high school. ( all the tuition was close to the same - it currently is about $20,000 but whats give or take a thousand?)
D did have friends there, mostly from kids who were in a different social class and had a different focus, simply because that was the majority of the school, but for college, there are enough colleges that you can find one that is a better fit .
For students who are already at a school I would say join a club or a sports team- seriously.
My youngest has made many friends across racial and economic lines in her sports teams and while my oldest isnt' as athletic, it has been her extra curriculuar interests which have found her friends that don't necessarily look like her.-</p>
<p>My son's school (Swarthmore) is very small. There aren't very many poor students but everyone socializes quite a bit and it isn't possible to be segregated by class, it is that small - and that is an eye-opener for kids like my son. For example, he has a friend whose parents are very poor - and she is a miracle of sorts! He marvels at that as do I. She lives in an inner-city neighborhood. It has been wonderful for him, he grew up in a relatively affluent neighborhood and did not know very many issues before going to college.</p>
<p>Then, there is this kid who is a friend of my son - who went to Hotchkiss school in CT. So, yes, in my observation, in my son's school (Swarthmore), there is mixing of social classes because it is very small.</p>
<p>we have friends who sent all their kids ( 5 of em) Hotchkiss-
The family tradition was to attend Andover, but when their first had spent a year or two there, they decided that Hotchkiss was a better fit- my impression is that it was more eglitarian ( even though just try and find out how much it costs!)</p>
<p>It is true that in the real world there may not be so much mixing- when my d was younger, a good friend who was the mom of one of her friends lived in an 8000 sq ft house, with 8 bathrooms where we lived in a 1000 sq ft house with one bathroom. Still we had a good time together and our background was actually very similar as we both used to do hair.
However now that my friends are more often "my friends" and not just parents of my daughters friends it is more common that they are closer to our own economic status, although their education level is generally higher ( hard to get away from that in Seattle- everyone seems to have grad school if not a Ph.d)-
But that is one of the great things about college- everyone lives in the same dorms- everyone eats the same food- everyone looks like they havent done laundry for a month.</p>
<p>My son went to a private international school filled primarily with middle and upper-middle class kids and some from quite wealthy families. We were not interested in sending him to Sidwell or St. Albans because we didn't want him to think that he was poor. </p>
<p>He used to whine though that some of the kids would go skiing in Colorado over the break or in Europe. I said son--you hate skiing and those kids are going to Europe over break because that's where they're from.</p>
<p>I attend a high-ranking school, and I see lots and lots of mingling. My best friends and suitemates for next year are a perfect example: One friend is from a well-off family in Florida, another has only a mother who works as a maid for minimum wage in New York, the third is upper-middle class (son of a doctor and lawyer) from Ohio, and I am from a middle-middle class family in New Mexico. I see very little discrimination or even acknowledgement between the different 'classes', as is the advantage of going to school where you cannot determine your housing etc. by throwing more money out, and thus being grouped with others who could and were willing to pay more. The distinction between the affluent and the less well off only comes up during the occasional conversation when someone mentions they spent the summer in their family's 'other house' in Paris, or that they had to work in warehouse to help their family, but no one holds either situation against the other. If it is awkward, the conversation quickly passes to a more comfortable topic, and not mentioned again. </p>
<p>As others have said, it really depends on the school...during my visit to Princeton last year, I couldn't help but notice a very, very clear divide...</p>
<p>great question ... my experience at Cornell years ago went something like this.</p>
<p>There were some rich kids, mostly prep school kids and who had joined frats and sororities, who basically hung out with other kids from similar backgrounds and who often lived (by my standards) very expensive college experiences (cars, cloths, vacations, clubs, etc).</p>
<p>Cornell had 10,000 undergrads when I was there ... after ignoring these 1000 kids/snobs ... the other 9000 kids were just great and coudn't care less what anyone's background was ... one kid in a jeans and a t-shirt looks pretty much like any other kid in jeans and t-shirts. While the rich elite had their little play space ... the community on the whole was overwhelmingly open to all including the lion's share of the frats and sororitites.</p>
<p>Some people saw the small minority that was exclusive and complained about the exclusivity ... some saw the majority getting along just fine and thought it was open to all ... a lot depends on the lens through which one looks!</p>
<p>In my experience social classes totally mix. I also find that it the choice of the kids from lower classes when mixing does not occur. In the day when I left inner city LA for Harvard, I had been taught not to trust the wealthy I would be meeting. My parents thought there was no way to be both wealthy and good people. It took me a year to get past their prejudice and make life long friends from all groups. I also married way outside of my social class not to mention race.</p>
<p>My kids have attended private schools where there were few other blacks and many very wealthy. They also had friends from all walks. This past spring I looked at Hotchkiss and several other prep schools with the reps of being wealthy enclaves. Not so, these schools have as many fin aid kids as most top colleges. From everything I'm told, kids are even less conscience of wealth at these schools than in private day schools. That Swarthmore kid from Hotchkiss just may be on aid!</p>
<p>emerald, did you grow up in Bellevue?</p>
<p>I go to a school (Georgetown Prep, Maryland) that has people from many walks of life. We have our fair share of rich kids who can write off the 19K tuition (34K for residents), and we have people who are there almost fully on aid. </p>
<p>It's not wealth/social class that divides us, it's the common interests that unite us. I know kids at St. Albans, and I hear it's the same way there.</p>
<p>No not bellevue Kirkland more specific bridle trails- but no I didn't have a horse :(
we lived in Bellevue over by Lake washington when we got married and when the youngest was born- but decided to go to seattle when we were ready to buy house.
I know the east side is a lot more diverse now than when I was growing up in the 60's 70's but I also liked the abilty to get around by bike or foot in the city, which was more difficult in the suburbs</p>
<p>Kirmum, have you ever heard of "Jack and Jill" ?</p>
<p>Tuition at Hotchkiss is no mystery and why would you suggest that it is???
Endowment Size $320 million<br>
Yearly Tuition (Boarding Students) $31,925
Yearly Tuition (Day Students) $27,075
Percent Students on Financial Aid 35%
Average Financial Aid Grant $23,727</p>
<p>Egalitarian: Affirming, promoting, or characterized by belief in equal political, economic, social, and civil rights for all people.</p>
<p>Interesting topic. I had an experience similar to Mini's back in the 1970's. I went to a public school (a SUNY) for my first two years and there weren't many class distinctions there. Transferred to Syracuse on heavy financial aid and felt like I'd fallen into the rabbit hole. I still remember doing work study in my dorm's "snack bar" and how I was treated by a few upperclass dorm mates. It was not a pretty picture. I also had an international student as a roommate whose father thought nothing of sending her 10 $100 bills in an envelope for no reason at all --- and did so several times a year. There was a definite class distinction drawn - the rich and the have nots. I quickly learned my place.</p>
<p>Like Jmmom, my family lives in a small town with a wide range of incomes and classes - we have families living in mansions and families living in trailers (and I'm not talking mobile homes, but actual trailers). We are definitely in the upper middle class bracket. Both of my kids attend a private Catholic school that has a large number of rich kids, but also a fair amount of lower income financial aid kids as well as your generic middle class kids.</p>
<p>But, here's what's interesting. My two kids have had VERY different groups of friends since kindergarten. My daughter's friends have always defied any category - all income levels, all races, all religions, all sexual orientations, many different family situations. My son, on the other hand, has always fallen in with a group of middle to upper middle class kids that look and act very much like him. </p>
<p>Two kids. Two years apart. Raised in the same family, the same town, attending the same schools. Very different social groups. I can't figure it out. But, perhaps it really is true that part of whether you'll mix with people different than yourself comes down to something basic in your personality.</p>
<p>Carolyn, my daughter and my son are similar to yours. My daughter has friends whose heritage...well, I have no idea, and they come from all different economic classes. My son primarily hangs around white upper-middle class kids.</p>
<p>Not so, these schools have as many fin aid kids as most top colleges.>></p>
<p>Kirmum, I'll beat Mini to the punch by pointing out this is not exactly a glowing recommendation. Most of the "top colleges" actually have a relatively small percentage of kids on financial aid according to Mini's data.</p>