Really? I don’t think this is a goal of colleges. College want to - and generally have the right to - pick the class they want. Which colleges do you think want more “fairness in … admissions”?
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So what exactly should the percentage be? Is there data that shows by income type what test scores, grades, LOR, match characteristics, ECs are so you have an idea what a “fair” admissions distribution would be?
milee30 True fairness would show a distribution that reflects the population and not skewed toward one demographic, if the college were truly looking for true equity in opportunity.
But that is my question - are the qualified students and more importantly - applicants - equally distributed across all income levels? I’m guessing not, but open to you showing me otherwise. It’s hard to know if it’s “unfair” that a particular college has 60% from one income group without knowing how many of the qualified applicants were in that income band. It could be that 75% of the qualified applicants are in that income band so by the admissions practices represent an ‘unfair’ skewing of too many students below that particular income band. No way to know without knowing what the data shows.
Again, do you have data that shows the qualified applicants and/or population of qualified applicants? Or are you just assuming that top GPAs, test scores, ECs, LORs are evenly distributed throughout every single income category?
@milee30 There are far more qualified applicants than there are spots at the schools. Loads of kids with perfect stats and impeccable ECs are turned away. The fact that such an overwhelming number are from the 1% income group at some of these colleges should tell you that privilege likely was more impactful on the student being at that college than innate ability.
It’s not going to work that way–a distribution that reflects the population and the various demographics equally. Without a quota system, hardly anything does. Even nature doesn’t work that way. There are far more important things that need to be addressed that are skewed terribly against certain demographics.
Again, how do you know more low income qualified applicants are turned away than high income qualified applicants? You have no data… only an impression.
@milee30 Did you look at the article I posted earlier that showed the income ranges of students at the colleges? Logic tells you that if 20% of the students are in the 1% income range (Incomes 600K and up per the NY Times), that something is off kilter.
Logic isn’t enough because logically it makes sense that more of the qualified students are going to come from the top income group; but how many and what do the actual numbers look like? Without knowing the distribution of applicants you can’t draw any conclusions on admissions results.
My ex husband hired some college consultants a few years back to look at our finances and tell us where we’d stand as far as financial aid, etc. What they told him was that income absolutely does have an impact on college admissions. I think they even had charts for each school that weighed the impact financial need had on admission chances. Somebody somewhere has the information.
@Trixy34 I would love to se these charts. The schools don’t release data like that so I’m wondering where it’s coming from. There are many need blind schools which doesn’t mean that those schools meet need (although my son’s is both need blind and meets 100% of demonstrated need) but many schools do not use need in the admissions process. Truthfully, I can imagine that a consultant who is being paid to do what easily can be assessed on your own by using the NPC, googling and talking to FA departments may resort to manipulating data that really doesn’t even exist. Most of those types of stories are anecdotal and based on patents’ assumptions that their kids weren’t accepted due to needing aid. Put quite simply they are hypothesizing a lot of the time.
Logically, more higher income families are able to provide their kids with the types of enriching activities that bolster a college application. They are also more likely to know people, which helps their kids get pre-college opportunities. Higher income kids are also less likely to need to spend their time on paying jobs, giving them extra time to pursue those enriching activities and opportunities. And of course, higher income families tend to live in higher income school districts with more options and opportunities.
For real type examples:
I know quite a few families that pay a lot of money for their kids to participate in travel and private club sports teams. Many of the highly selective schools seem to highly value athletes, whether recruited or not, as part of their culture and fit. Lower income students I know can’t afford the membership fees for these athletics. And if they could, they sure couldn’t afford the travel costs associated.
Higher income is usually associated with higher education. These people have connections. They know professors and doctors and people in various businesses, which helps get their kids shadowing opportunities, research opportunities and cool jobs. The kinds of things that can demonstrate a kid’s passion and aptitude for certain majors, which many colleges love. Lower income families don’t have the same amount of access.
I grew up in a poor rural area where many kids were working as soon as they were 16. Not only to pay their own expenses (school clothes and supplies) but many contributed to the families living expenses. These kids didn’t have time for afterschool sports and activities. Soncenit was a rural area, some were driving 30-45 minutes each way to get to their minimum wage jobs. And this poor, rural district isn’t able to offer as many specialized type ECs. No robotics or science olympiad, for example. No APs, or even an equivalent high level of non AP courses . Which will impact performance on standardized testing. The area has struggled even more since I was a kid and their sports teams are consolidated with neighboring districts. This at least allows them to be able to fund the sports, but if can make participation even more difficult for those who don’t have reliable transportation or consistent work schedules.
For those with recent NPC versus actual FA experiences, would you like to fill in the short survey in this thread to help future applicants?
Given the current full cost of attendance for private colleges, the student body is always going to skew toward the wealthy, because the COA is simply too high – and there are limits as to how much colleges are going to fund students via their own financial aid resources. Some colleges have stronger endowments than others, and some colleges have opted to allocate more dollars toward financial aid than others – but in the end there is a limit to how many dollars are going to be used to subsidize incoming students and there is a target amount that the college or university expects to collect in incoming tuition dollars.
And they are always going to structure their admission policies and practices around hitting those targets.
ED is one tool — not only does ED tend to attract an applicant pool that skews richer, but it also gives the college a set of admitted students in December that can be used to project costs going forward. They know how many full pay students are coming; they know how much financial aid dollars have already been committed.
I agree that ED gives a leg up some students over others— but in the end I think that the absolute number of seats available to lower-income students is still going to be limited. You can look at CDS reports over the years from any given institution, and you will see that financial aid recipients and dollars spent on aid tends to remain fairly stable.
Like previous posters, I’ve also heard several college reps say during presentations that you should not apply ED if you are not 100% confident you can and will pay the price. Some colleges might not offer as much money ED because they know you’re going there if it’s at all possible; they don’t need to sway applicants with financial aid and students can’t negotiate offers based on peer institutions.
I don’t think it’s fair. Regardless of money, why is it so wrong for students not to want to commit to a school in November or December? Colleges are allowed to consider other applicants; why can’t students consider other colleges? Quite frankly, some colleges are so biased towards ED applicants that I sometimes (figuratively) wonder why they even bother offering RD, if they look down upon RD applicants so much. Students don’t magically become less intelligent, less talented, etc. in the six weeks between EDI and RD deadlines.
Then again, I might be biased – I think a lot has to do with whether or not you/your student was accepted to the school in question, which is only natural 
The entire educational system is so grossly unfair. This doesn’t bother me. It’s the least unfair of a the unfair things from overcrowded head start, lead in the pipes, understaffed schools, hunger and sub-par nutrition, ridiculous tuition, stagnant wages especially at the low end that affects students…
ED doesn’t bother me.
@SuperSenior19 Giving out less FA during ED simply isn’t true. FA is decided on by specific formulas and those don’t change from ED to RD. Schools want to protect their yield and the last thing anyone wants is a bunch of students not accepting in ED due to not enough aid. As far as looking down on RD applicants? I’m not seeing that. How are they being looked down upon? RD is typically a more competitive pool leading to lower acceptance rates but I’m not seeing any schools having disdain towards those applicants. I have to wonder what makes you say that.
However, it is entirely possible that some colleges will reserve merit scholarships for non-ED admitted students whom they will need to compete with other colleges for.
I can’t agree w/ post 79.
I fully agree informed parents with money is an advantage. I can’t agree that makes it unfair. If those 2 parents have made better choices in their life that has earned them greater prosperity, I don’t see that as unfair. If they have made better marriage choice than divorced or never-married parents, they are good, and maybe lucky, but I don’t see that as unfair either.
To honestly gain advantages in life due to making better choices, well, I just don’t see that as unfair.