If your parents’ income is high, does that help you at all? Do some schools want kids from big money families?
Only if it is big enough to donate millions to the college. In addition, schools that are not need-blind in admissions will favor full pay applicants. And kids from high income families often have advantages that show up in their applications – they could afford private tutors to help get good grades and test scores, lessons that support EC accomplishments, to live in school districts or attend private schools that provide strong academic foundations. The parents might have connections that get little Johnny an impressive internship, or the chance to participate in interesting research.
For schools that are not need blind it certainly helps (at the very list it’s a tip factor between two otherwise comparable students).
@intparent is absolutely right. High income may help for need-aware schools, but it may also hurt at top schools as you are expected to do more with the increased opportunities available to you as a child in a high-income family.
I don’t think money will make up for stats that are less than competitive. The likelihood is that somewhere among the tens of thousands of apps they get are full pay students with high stats.
You can get an idea where you stand by checking your stats against those on each college’s Common Data Set to see where they fall. If your scores are on the higher end of their middle 50%, that’s a good sign. If their acceptance rate is low it’s still a reach, but at least you might have a chance. If they’re below the middle 50%, you probably want to consider them a high reach. In either case, apply to some academic safeties too.
Coming from a family that can afford to pay the full COA is an advantage at almost every school in the country…no school is indifferent to tuition revenue, and only a small handful of schools attract enough wealthy applicants that they can afford to ignore such concerns - all financial aid offices have a budget target.