<p>texas,
The auto admit is only for instate applicants, yes?</p>
<p>Correct. We do take a lot more money (35k in tuition) from non instate students and don’t pay that close attention to their ranks. :p</p>
<p>So the vague, qualified maybe that Bay quoted above may apply to out of staters as well as non auto-admits instate.</p>
<p>I would think it applies to all applicants.</p>
<p>All I know is that the most economically successful people in my large city by and large went to state schools. The economically successful ones who went to elite schools were already rich by birth/legacies. The rest are underpaid and overworked “experts” hired by State U. grads. As one of my friends once said, “someone has to manage all the brains”. In traffic, I see plenty of beater cars held together by Ivy League window stickers passed up by Mercedes, BMW’s, and Porsches with State U. vanity tags.</p>
<p>"texas,</p>
<h2>The auto admit is only for instate applicants, yes?"</h2>
<p>Yes; you can be a citizen of another country and be auto admitted, but not a US citizen of another state.</p>
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<p>But how they use the scores in admissions and what they report on the CDS may not be the same thing. In fact, we know they’re not the same thing, because these are at different stages of the process–on the CDS they’re reporting the SAT/ACT scores of enrolled freshmen, not of admitted students. It’s entirely possible that some schools do exactly as they say and not superscore the ACT for admissions purposes, but when they’re calculating their standardized test medians for enrolled freshmen for purposes of the CDS (and their US News ranking), they superscore as many as they can, i.e., anyone who has submitted scores from more than one sitting.</p>
<p>I think you’ll find if you do a little searching that most schools still say they use only the highest single-sitting composite ACT score for admission purposes. I don’t think they’d have any reason to lie about it.</p>
<p>[The</a> Answer Sheet - Do colleges superscore ACT and SAT equally?](<a href=“http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/sat-and-act/superscoring-act-vs-sat.html]The”>http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/sat-and-act/superscoring-act-vs-sat.html)</p>
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<p>The top 10% (7% for Austin) auto-admit is only for Texas high school students. Campuses with extended auto-admit thresholds may choose to not limit them to Texas residents.</p>
<p>[Freshman</a> | How to be Admitted - Office of Admissions | Texas A&M University](<a href=“http://admissions.tamu.edu/freshman/admitted]Freshman”>http://admissions.tamu.edu/freshman/admitted) indicates that, for Texas A&M, top 10% automatic admission is for Texas high school students only, but academic admits (top 25% with high enough test scores) are not so limited by residency.</p>
<p>Citizenship appears not to matter.</p>
<p>“In traffic, I see plenty of beater cars held together by Ivy League window stickers passed up by Mercedes, BMW’s, and Porsches with State U. vanity tags.”</p>
<p>Yes! This is exactly why the Ivy Leagues are filled with people who didn’t get into State U and why State U people only apply to Ivy Leagues as a backup safety school.</p>
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<p>Some people are very brand conscious.</p>
<p>Maybe they have given the new Mercedes to their kids to tool around on campus.</p>
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<p>hmm … alternative interpretation … maybe those Ivy league grads are driving a beater because they have an alternative use for the incremental money needed to overpay for basic transportation.</p>
<p>When my kids were little the numbers said if I bought and held Honda Civics 10+ years instead of flipping leases on an Acura every 3-4 the money saved by my car choices was basically the 4 year difference in the cost between UMass and a full pay private school. My wife made similar choices which paid the full pay private school premium for another kid. (In the end school cost increased more than expected when I ran the numbers so the car choices turned out to be more like 3 years of the UMass-PrivateSchool gap instead of 4). So … </p>
<p>Option #1) Beater car and best fit college for my kid
… or …
Option #2) Spiffy new car and UMass funding level for kid (likely often leading to not as good a fit … (I did not say bad fit; I said not as good))</p>
<p>and on CC choosing option #1 is often portrayed as chasing prestige or financially unwise … I find that logic path ironic.</p>
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<p>You may be mis-reading the signs.
See The Millionaire Next Door or Paul Fussell’s Class.</p>
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<p>I’m so glad you posted that, tk - that’s exactly what I was thinking, but didn’t have a handy quote!</p>
<p>On my first day at Berkeley and in my first class was a kid who’d turned down Harvard. I grew up and graduated from a local high school. Bottom line: go where you feel most comfortable and challenged and to hell with what the neighbors think.</p>
<p>Anyone who knows anything is aware that CAL and some of the other CA state universities are among the best in the world. So making that choice means next to nothing, even for the brand conscious.</p>
<p>That said, Harvard is still the gold standard, and that is why people give those sorts of examples. My D turned down H too, and it was not an easy thing to do–even for Stanford. I recently heard a presentation by the principal of a private religious high school. After touting the academic virtues of his school by saying that their students have been accepted to HYP, ironically he went on to say that they encourage their kids to attend religious colleges. People can, and will, continue to have this debate but it’s silly to discount the value of the societal esteem in which the elite schools are held. It matters and sometimes it matters a good deal. How relevant this factor is to the particular student and his major/career plans is a personal judgment.</p>
<p>The beater car analogy seems odd to me. Many families with low to middle income who have really bright kids have the opportunity to send them to elite schools because of the great financial aid. That may be why they have those stickers on their cars. Those in the solid middle class or upper middle class may not be able to afford the elite schools, so send them to their state university instead.</p>
<p>I live in an area where one’s car seems to be more important than anything else. I see a lot of brand-new BMW’s and Mercedes parked in crummy apartment complexes and being driven to the local commnity college. I imagine many of them are leased. It’s not that hard to get an expensive car if that’s how you choose to spend your money. I myself drive a 2006 Prius, which I love, whereas some of my Chinese International students drive by me and wave hi from their Mercedes and Maseratis (I kid you not). I could afford the lease on an Audi or a Range Rover. I could even cash in my 403B and get a Maserati. I would just prefer to retire soon. My point is, your car doesn’t really tell the whole story of your finances or your success as a person.</p>
<p>Those Chinese internationals probably bought their Mercedes with cash. They are buying NYC apartments with cash.</p>
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No, of course it doesn’t. Where I live it is just the opposite–people are generally not flashy and tend to roll their eyes at those who display their wealth (or perceived wealth) ostentatiously.</p>
<p>tk, thanks for the reminder about Paul Fussell. I loved “Class” and also “Bad, or the Dumbing of America.”</p>