<p>When applying using the common app, what would be the best way to express that your family is low-income or below poverty line? Or should you at all?</p>
<p>I am assuming that most elite colleges, are looking for wealth diversity, or am I wrong?</p>
<p>They are. It would show up in your financial aid application if you don't reference it in your essay.</p>
<p>Find a way to get it in your essay. For instance:</p>
<p>"I don't remember my clothes being a big deal until middle school. I liked my clothes in grade school. Hand-me-downs and thrift-store garments have two great advantages over new ones: They're comfortable from the first time you put them on and, if you tear a hole in one of them, there's a pretty good chance of replacing it for $.50 or less. Besides, no one minded if I drew beautiful butterflies on them, sewed on buttons or patches, or mixed pedal pushers with peasant smocks. Heck, I was the Kennedy Elementary queen of fashion.</p>
<p>Middle school changed all that.</p>
<p>It turns out that clothing labels are important. You can argue all you want that they're important only to shallow people. You may even be right. That doesn't change the fact that the girls who run middle schools in my neighborhood care about labels, and anyone who doesn't wear the proper labels is not invited to the proper social gatherings, invited to sit at the proper lunch tables, or asked to that first dance by a boy, proper or not.</p>
<p>Of course, I asked my Mom for those clothes. I'm afraid I wasn't very kind to her. Even now, I can close my eyes and see the pain on her face as she told me, for the first time, that we didn't have much money, and that we weren't ever likely to have much. I remember saying horrible things to her, things that shame me even now, about her inability to provide those clothes I desperately, desperately needed to change my outcast status. </p>
<p>I know now what she wouldn't tell me, then. Single mothers in textile mills work their fingers to the bone just to provide enough to keep their children alive and healthy. All the label girls at schools had dads who wore ties and dropped their children off in shiny, gun-metal-gray cars that, seemingly, had never seen a dent or a scratch. I'll bet they nearly always started when you turned the key, too. But that can't be right, can it?</p>
<p>In the end, it worked out. I grew up. Some of the label girls did, too. We went on to high school. I learned to design and make my own clothes. Now I'm the queen of fashion again. My Mom fields calls at least once a week from some mother who is desperate to know where I bought that slash-sleeved tunic or cool accessory. She tells them the truth: I made it. Often, that leads to an offer to make one for this or that daughter. Sometimes, I make money that way.</p>
<p>I wonder how the girls who wear my clothes feel about my label."</p>
<p>Or something like that. You get the picture, I'm sure.</p>
<p>Most elite colleges are need-blind so admission decisions are made without regard to financial situation. </p>
<p>Implicitly on the app, most financially struggling applicants tend to have jobs. You can hint about it in your essay or maybe have your counselor include it in your recommendation.</p>
<p>A kid who graduated from my school a few years ago wrote about missing Academic Team events because he had to work at Best Buy to support his family.</p>
<p>where did he get in ses?</p>
<p>I wrote one of my essays about being economically disadvantaged, and I think I asked one of my teachers to include it in their recommendation for me. Also, on the application there is a place for you to include your parents' occupations, which will generally give away your financial situation. Also, your zip code may be an indication of financial status. I don't think the admissions office sees the financial aid application.</p>
<p>Yeah, admissions officers don't see the financial aid application as far as I understand, if they are holding true to their need-blind policy. However I am also under the assumption that they will take it into account, and any extenuating circumstances if it is mentioned somewhere on the application. </p>
<p>Although writing an essay on it has been suggested... I don't think I would, not sure, it doesn't really seem to be a big factor that I would stress it that much. </p>
<p>Ugg not sure really.</p>
<p>You could write a compelling essay which shares something about who you really are and why. Anything like that would have to include showing the reader how you lived. It is all about authenticity. If you speak from the heart, you will write a great essay (and bring your financial situation to the attention of the admissions officer).</p>
<p>Consider Questbridge if you're not already. Their deadlines are all in October-ish so it's good to start thinking about it now.</p>
<p>Tarhunt, was that one of the essays you submitted on your college apps, or was that just now off the cuff? It's really good! I would really be swayed by such an essay if I were on the adcom of an elite LAC. Economic diversity is extremely valuable---for one thing, it re-enforces our national self-image as an egalitarian, Horacio Alger, by-the-bootstraps kind of country. We love a good success story. If your stats are exemplary despite some daunting challenges, it sets you apart. don't be ashamed to play that fact up in your app.</p>
<p>Off the cuff. I was trying to demonstrate how to go about talking about being poor without making it a sob story. Actually, I'm a middle aged male.</p>
<p>Thanks.</p>