We’ve seen a number of students respond to gentle inquiries about affordability by replying that they flat out do not want to consider it. They only want people to comment on their chances or which school is better for their major and nothing else. When several adults mention that acceptances won’t matter if they can’t pay some will leave the thread and make a new one, and they usually start out by saying finances aren’t an issue.
But the reality sometimes turns out to be that they’re from lower income families who would have to take out a crushing amount of loans to make those schools happen. Unfortunately, there are parents ( usually those who didn’t have the opportunity to attend college) who don’t know better. If their kid insists that some name brand residential college is necessary for them to be successful and the local cc will only lead to a failed career there are parents who will take the loans. I keep an eye out for those students and do my best to educate them.
When it comes to selective schools I think the 2 most important data points that anyone on CC is lacking is 1, what are the overall goals for the incoming class? And 2, given number 1 how does this applicant compare to all of the other applicants. Since, on CC we have only the information for one applicant we are not in the position to make much of a judgement on that single applicant. We can’t really make too much of a judgement on the applicant due to objective stats unless it is to suggest they might not qualify. Excellent statistics are expected. I agree with you concerning the more subjective requirements. However, they are most important in light of my 2 points at the top.
They can be need-blind when evaluating individual applicants (which is what “need-blind” commonly refers to).
However, they are much more likely to be need-aware when making plans for future entire classes. Before the application season, a college can choose to adjust its admission policies with respect to correlates to SES (e.g. legacy → higher, first generation → lower) to target a specific SES and financial aid level.
On the other hand, some colleges do not care about students’ financial need because they give little or no need-based financial aid to begin with.
When it comes to national science prizes, the AOs don’t need to know, because the national science organizations have done the vetting themselves.
I wrote about this earlier, and I have seen the process for one particular contest up close. Each finalist is individually grilled by a dozen scientists, with the total time being about 4 hours. At least one of them, and likely more, is an expert in the finalist’s particular project area and these subject matter experts evaluate the project in considerable depth. The rest evaluate a finalist’s general knowledge in other areas. The physics expert was a senior person at NASA, and she asked physics questions in relation to the forces acting on an airplane. It takes her only a few minutes to determine what level of physics knowledge the finalist has, and if the finalist’s project is related to physics, she can go as deep as needed. There is no “coaching” that prepares one for this gauntlet of experts, and it’s useless to try.
This is apart from the fact that most of the kids at this level do their research under the guidance of a college professor who then writes a recommendation that specifies how much of the work was the student’s vs. that of the group. It’s usually not done at their parent’s company.
You don’t have to see income or FA app to figure out a family’s ability to pay, as others
have also said in various posts. Legacy, sport, zip code, are some. You don’t randomly get a class like Harvard or Amherst where the average income is $200K. And that’s reported income to the IRS, a lot of wealthy families can hide income as well.
“Chancing IMO is a party game.”
The chance me thread is of the unique features of c/c, not sure why people denigrate the thread. As a mod, you may have numbers on which forums do better than others, the chance me is really the only place for students and even there, they’re judged harshly. It gets mentioned outside of c/c as one of the reasons to visit the site. Yes you need the posters to be accurate.
Or as I said in the post that you quoted, beyond just those 2 words that you copied. As mentioned in the post, Harvard uses factors such as parents occupation and SES characteristics of school and neighborhood to identify SES “disadvantaged” students. If readers believe the applicant is SES “disadvantaged”, then the applicant gets a special flag. Getting this lower SES flag was associated with a significant boost in chance of admission in the lawsuit analysis. The separate Harvard internal analysis that was linked in my post found the same thing.
As shown in the linked analysis, the admit rate for lower and higher income students was similar. Specific numbers from the analysis are repeated below (only includes applicants who applied for FA). “Expected” means expected admit rate from Harvard IOR admissions model, without any special preference for lower income students. “Actual” means the actual admit rate among applicants in the multiyear sample. The small portion of entering students from lower income families and large portion from higher income families primarily relates to getting a small portion of applicants from lower income families and large portion from higher income families, rather than Harvard avoiding admitting lower SES students. The reasons why Harvard gets so many applicants from higher income families are multifaceted and beyond the scope of this thread.
Less than $40k Income – Expected 6% admit rate, Actually had 11% admit rate
$40-$80k Income – Expected 8% admit rate, Actually had 11% admit rate
$80k-$120k Income – Expected 9% admit rate, Actually had 9% admit rate
$120k-$160k Income – Expected 10% admit rate, Actually had 10% admit rate
$160k-$200k Income – Expected 11% admit rate, Actually had 10% admit rate
More than $200k Income – Expected 13% admit rate, Actually had 12% admit rate
In the most recent CDS class, 65% applied for FA. Regardless, the overall admit rate was lower for kids who did not apply for FA than any other group, including lower income kids (who applied for FA). I added the did not apply for FA category below. I did not include this group in my earlier post since income is not known (many who don’t adequately fill out FA section are not high income).
Less than $40k Income – Expected 6% admit rate, Actually had 11% admit rate
$40-$80k Income – Expected 8% admit rate, Actually had 11% admit rate
$80k-$120k Income – Expected 9% admit rate, Actually had 9% admit rate
$120k-$160k Income – Expected 10% admit rate, Actually had 10% admit rate
$160k-$200k Income – Expected 11% admit rate, Actually had 10% admit rate
More than $200k Income – Expected 13% admit rate, Actually had 12% admit rate
Did not apply for FA – Expected 8% admit rate, Actually had 7% admit rate
Harvard accepts more lower income students and high income students, but admissions is toughest for people who do not fill out the form? Why would this be the case?
As stated in my earlier post, “Expected” means expected admit rate from Harvard OIR admissions model, without any special preference for lower income students.
The “expected” admit rate is lower, meaning that this did not fill out FA group is the least qualified on average prior to possible income considerations. As I alluded to, the did not fill out FA form adequately group may include some applicants who did not believe that they were serious candidates and/or did not take the application especially seriously.
I expect you’d see a similar pattern for other portions of the application. For example, applicants who do not make the effort to do interview tend to be less qualified in rest of application. Applicants who do not make the effort to send a 2nd LOR tend to be less qualified in rest of application. Applicants who do not make the effort to fill out FA (and are not extremely high income) tend to be less qualified in rest of application.