<p>"No matter how you slice it, there just aren't going to be a large concentration of folks in that range."</p>
<p>That's because excellence of public schools is linked in the US to property taxes, which are connected to income levels. Of course, excellent of private schools tends to be linked to tuition levels, and the higher the tuition, the more likely that the school is to be excellent.</p>
<p>Since students with the stats and academic background to be able to handle the coursework at places like Ivies are likely to have gone to excellent schools. Excellent schools in most cases have students whose income is far above the national average.</p>
<p>Even many of the low income students who end up at places like HPYS have gone to either good private schools (where they got excellent scholarships) or have gone to excellent magnet public schools.</p>
<p>It's not as if the low income students going to places like HPYS come from low performing inner city or rural schools. In fact, it's virtually impossible for students to get the skills and academic background at such a school that would allow them to have the stats, etc. that would indicate they could successfully attend a place like HPYS. </p>
<p>I know that when I went to H, most of the students from low income backgrounds had gone to prep schools through the ABC program, which indentifies gifted low income students and puts them in some of the country's top prep schools.</p>
<p>The few low-income applicants that I have interviewed for Harvard, have been mainly artificially low income. For example, the offspring of low income, but highly educated immigrants who were not able to pursue their professions in the US because of licensing problems. The only low income student whom I have ever interviewed who came from a family that was low income and uneducated, had gone to a very weak inner city school where she was a top student. However, even though she clearly was brilliant, her scores were horrendous, as was her presentation during the the interview. She burst into tears during the interview, apparently because of stress.</p>
<p>She ended up going to a several low ranked colleges, including a community college. She eventually graduated from a tier 2 4-year college, where she developed more confidence and solid academic skills. Now she's a grad student at a tier one college and is, I hear doing very well. She has the brains to become eventually an Ivy facultly member, but at age 18, she lacked the exposure and knowledge to have been able to succed at an Ivy. </p>
<p>I am sure she wasn't rejected by Harvard because she needed lots of financial aid, but because she simply was not academically an appropriate candidate for admission.</p>