I’ve been looking at many college acceptance statistics and it seems like many people who’ve been accepted to the more prestigious have income brackets of 100,000.
My mom is a single mother and my family’s income bracket is around 40,000. Is that going to affect my chances a lot? Btw I’m a junior
Some colleges slightly favor applicants from lower income families giving otherwise similar credentials.
However, it is often much harder for students from lower income families to reach as high a level of achievement – often have lower quality public schools, private schools are too expensive, family finances limit extracurricular participation, etc… Of course, lack of money is often very limiting to college choices; those from lower income families need to achieve highly enough to gain admission to the good-financial-aid schools (mostly more selective schools) or earn the full or near-full ride merit scholarships.
You should run the net price calculator on each college you are considering, to get an idea of what kind of financial aid it may offer to you. If your father is alive, be aware that many of the good-financial-aid schools require his financial information as well as your mother’s. If he is uncooperative, or is wealthy but won’t contribute to your college costs, then you will not likely get enough or any financial aid from a school that requires his financial information. Schools that use only the FAFSA form for financial aid will only require your mother’s information; those that also use the CSS Profile will usually require both of your parents’ information.
For merit scholarships, take a look at the threads linked from http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/1678964-links-to-popular-threads-on-scholarships-and-lower-cost-colleges.html .
If you have not taken the SAT or ACT, you may want to take them this year to have some scores available for your college search. You will also then have the chance to retake in the fall if desired.
@catherwren Celebrate and develop your strengths. Do not dwell on the things that are not.
In any case, at this point, your income status will mostly aid you.
I thought that income levels were kept separate from admissions and the financial aid department
If the school has need-blind admissions, then the actual financial aid application numbers are not revealed to the admissions readers. However, it is usually not hard for them to figure out which applicants are from high or low income families. Of course, weighting of different factors for admission has effects on the family income mix of the admits, since some factors more strongly correlate to high or low incomes than others, so a college that does not care to judge individual applicants on the basis of coming from a high or low income family can still aim to have a particular mix for the entire admission class.
If the school is need blind, the richer you are, the higher are the achievement expectations bcs of all the opportunities your family’s higher income can afford. Poor students get cut slack for their hardship and lack of opportunities.
Then the correlation starts to reverse when your family becomes insanely wealthy. When your family is able to make a $20 million plus donation to the school, then the applicant need only have a pulse.
@princetonboii Even for need blind colleges they always have some idea of your finances. The regional reps know if your address is in a rich or poor neighborhood, they see your parents’ education levels and occupations. These things give them some idea of how much your parents make.
Since higher income correlates to higher SAT scores, on average, then having a lower income can be thought of as working against you. You are less likely to have access to test prep programs, private tutors, even taking the tests multiple times can become an issue because of the test application fees.
There are things your family struggles with on a day to day basis that your peers with more privilege never consider. But another thing to consider, is that geography makes a huge difference. $40k is much more manageable in some parts of the country than others.
The fact that you are posting here on CC shows you are on the right track. Best of luck to you. You will get lots of good advice here.