<p>This WSJ recent "study" could I suppose shed some additional light!</p>
<p>Check out the numbers below for % for each of the USNWR Top 40 national universities and the USNWR Top 20 LACs. The publics take the highest numbers of public high school students, but among the privates, Harvard is not a big outlier.</p>
<p>% from Public HS , College</p>
<p>85% , UC Berkeley
84% , U North Carolina
80% , U Michigan
80% , UCLA
77% , U Virginia
75% , MIT
74% , Cal Tech
73% , Northwestern
71% , Rice
70% , Brandeis
69% , J Hopkins
65% , Harvard
65% , Duke
65% , Emory
65% , Wake Forest
64% , Lehigh
63% , Wash U StL
62% , Stanford
61% , Dartmouth
60% , Brown
60% , Vanderbilt
60% , USC
60% , Tufts
60% , Boston College
59% , U Chicago
55% , Princeton
55% , Yale
52% , U Penn
51% , Georgetown
50% , Notre Dame
49% , Columbia
na , Cornell
na , Carnegie Mellon
na , W & M</p>
<p>% from Public HS , College</p>
<p>80% , Harvey Mudd
74% , Smith
73% , Carleton
73% , CMC
69% , Grinnell
66% , Colgate
65% , Wellesley
65% , Vassar
61% , Swarthmore
61% , Haverford
60% , Pomona
60% , Hamilton
60% , Bryn Mawr
59% , Amherst
56% , Wesleyan
55% , Williams
55% , Bowdoin
55% , Colby
52% , Middlebury
48% , Davidson
na , W&L</p>
<p>NearL - just so you know.....</p>
<p>41% of Andover students are on financial aid
Andover's admissions are need blind
35% of students are of color
There are 128 International Students
The acceptance rate is under 20% </p>
<p>Davis</a> Scholars Program Oct. 2007
Phillips</a> Academy News Archives</p>
<p>IT'S NOT 1965 ANYMORE</p>
<p>big blue,</p>
<p>If 41% of Andover's students are on financial aid, that means that the other 59% are paying the full tab of $38,000 per year. Hence, it is a place for the wealthy.</p>
<p>Also, the fact that 41% receive financial aid does not necessarily mean that those 41% are financially needy. Example: A student could receive $10,000 in financial aid, yet pay the remaining $28,000 out of pocket.....something the "forgotten middle group" of students could not afford to do.</p>
<p>Your comment that 35% are students of color also tells us nothing. Being a student of color does not mean that the student is needy. At Andover, many students of color come from very wealthy backgrounds.</p>
<p>Of course one can find exceptions here and there, but in general, students who attend elite private secondary schools are socially and economically privileged. The socioeconomic profile of those students mirrors that of the student bodies at the Ivies.</p>
<p>Online</a> Extra: How Harvard Gets its Best and Brightest </p>
<p>The</a> Harvard Crimson :: Opinion :: New Possibilities in the Post-Early Admissions Era </p>
<p>Harvard</a> announces sweeping middle-income initiative — The Harvard University Gazette</p>
<p>Sorry - Private schools aren't 'a small percentage', parochial schools are included as private.</p>
<p>This notes that 12% of people are private or home schooled. Add in that many private schools have entrance exams many of the do not graduate/community college attendees. So a 35% number isn't out of line IMO.</p>
<p>This is coming from a rural/suburban public HS kid.</p>
<p>DSC,</p>
<p>Statistically, private schools are way overrepresented at Ivies if they comprise 35% of the student body while only 12% of all high school students attend a private high school. Also, the number of students who come from the elite privates (Exeter, Andover, etc.) is astronomical compared to all other lesser-known private high schools. So, only a select group of private (high cost) schools regularly send significant numbers of students to Ivies. Many of the poorer parochial high schools never send a student to an Ivy.</p>
<p>My point was, privates take up 12%, but also don't have very much of the bottom 50%-75% due to attracting more motivated kids, and having admissions standards that reject many of those lower kids.</p>
<p>Catholic Central, the local parochial school, sends over 80% to 4-year schools, and over 95% go to college. Compare that to a graduation rate in the 80's and about 30-40% to 4 year schools at my HS. So, quite frankly, I think that they should have more kids getting in than my HS. And I don't think either school is exceptional either good or bad.</p>
<p>Don't you know why Harvard did it? This was not done solely as a publicity stunt,but it wasn't done out of the goodness of the trustees' hearts either.</p>
<p>Harvard has been coming under tremendous criticism about not doing enough with their endowments to help more students. Congress probably would have undertaken an investigation and maybe even changed the laws on taxing endowments if Harvard didnt' do something. It was even possible that IRS, with enough congressional pressure, could have pulled Harvard's tax exempt status.</p>
<p>Here they accomplished several things at one time: they stopped Congress from complaining or passing legislations that might have harmed Harvard, they will increase the number of their applications, and they will be able to have more middle class kids accept Harvard,which will result in more economic diversity. It was a tremendously well-thought- out plan.</p>
<p>you can complain about it all you want... or you can work hard and succeed despite not being wealthy.</p>
<p>life isn't fair.</p>
<p>DSC...
I hope you noticed hawkette's helpful post #22 regarding Davidson. On another thread we have been talking about the predominance of wealthy students at Davidson. Compared to the northeast, private schools in the south play a smaller role in secondary education. That Davidson has the smallest percentage of kids from public schools of the top 40 universities and top 20 LACs for which we have information surprises even me.</p>
<p>That is a very good point, and no, I did not notice that.</p>
<p>That list actually has an interesting trend, I have liked a lot of the schools with a lot of private school kids(Midd, Williams, etc.), which both worries me as a public school applicant, and does raise worries as to the diversity at work. I think that 30-40% is acceptable, but going beyond that does seem over the top to me.</p>
<p>There's no question that people with lots of money have huge advantages, and are able to get the best tutoring, etc. However, there are other factors at work here, too. What I've read is that Harvard saw the portion of its matriculating class that was from middle incomes shrinking as the costs went up--students were opting out of Harvard because of the cost. This new financial aid program was the response, and I'm quite certain you will see the numbers of middle income enrollees go up significantly. Also, with respect to the numbers of private school students in top colleges--I suspect that a part of what you're seeing there is that students in selective high schools--both public and private--are overrepresented. Many of the public school grads at Harvard are from magnet schools and selective programs within schools--some of those students may be rich, but that's not the whole story.</p>