<p>Okay, I'm better now. Let's see, how wealthy are students at PRESTIGE colleges? Well WHO CARES? I agree that wealthy kids behaving badly are pretty repulsive, but so are middle class kids acting badly. (In our local HS some graduating seniors thought it would be a blast to torch the school bus fleet.) As many on this thread have wisely observed, it's not the wealth of the students but their cultural attitudes that define the "feel" of a campus.</p>
<p>I walked through an Abercrombie and Fitch the other day, largely to horrify my daughter, and was fascinated by the pre-ripped worn clothes. See what your class envy is doing to these poor wealthy kids. You grubby materialists ought to be ashamed of yourselves. Stop looking over the fence to see what your neighbor has that you don't and you might recall the joys of admiration. Speaking of which--Driver, I drove through your hood once. Suburban paradise,...</p>
<p>That's exactly what I was saying. Despite similar demographics, students at Carleton, Oberlin, and Grinnell are different than those at Harvard, Dartmouth and Williams.</p>
<p>I just read a review of a new book coming out in Sept. that addresses some of the issues in this thread. The title is
The Price of Admission: How America's Ruling Class Buys Its Way into Elite Colleges--and Who Gets Left Outside the Gates.
The author is Daniel Golden, Wall Street Journal deputy bureau chief. HIs thesis is that the top colleges (esp. Ivies) are not meritocracies, but "elites mastering the art of perpetuating themselves."</p>
<p>On this mention of Vassar versus Bard, let me comment that my son was accepted to both. Vassar met ALL of his need, mostly with grants, and Bard met half his need. He could not afford Bard, so we could not even consider it. This is one not-rich kid who was priced out of Bard but not Vassar --often the higher-ranked schools give better aid, especially need-based. In that sense, it is the opposite of what you suggest. The doors are open at most of the very top-tier schools to the qualified. Schools that don't meet need, like NYU and Bard, are not going to get the same calibre of student as those that do, but they ARE going to get richer ones.</p>
<br>
<p>elites mastering the art of perpetuating themselves.<</p>
<br>
<p>I'm not so sure about this. Of my D's 4 roommates that I know well enough to know about their home life, there's not a single Ivy legacy in the bunch (she herself is not an Ivy legacy). And H & I certainly don't consider ourselves the "ruling class." As for buying a kid's way into an Ivy, it would take a lot more money than most (but not all) of the parents of the current Ivy students have.</p>
<p>Having said that, there are plenty who get left outside the gate--but not as many as there used to be in the past.</p>
<p>Ah yes, Daniel Golden. Does everyone remember the case of Henry Park of the Groton School? We oldtimers have found Golden's pieces to be grist for the mill in many AA discussions around the time of the UMich Supreme Court case in 2003. You can read the collection here:
<a href="http://www.dowjones.com/DJCom/Uploads/beatreporting.pdf%5B/url%5D">http://www.dowjones.com/DJCom/Uploads/beatreporting.pdf</a></p>
<p>Rorosen, you are right, it is a suburban paradise, almost too good to be true. For many years the college kids (probably Haverford or Bryn Mawr) used to spray-paint "LIONEL" in big block letters on the railroad overpass next to Bryn Mawr Station--I suppose it reminded them of the little fantasy playtown/trainsets of their childhoods. The LIONEL marking was meticulously maintained for many years, not unlike the "Smoot" measurements on the Harvard Bridge at MassAve.</p>
<p>Oh, Marite--What a great Gandhi line!</p>
<p>"Having said that, there are plenty who get left outside the gate--but not as many as there used to be in the past."</p>
<p>Mini must be on vacation. :) I seem to recall him quoting stats that show that in fact the Ivies are quite a bit less diverse now than they were in the recent past. Mini? Can you confirm of deny? Thanks.</p>
<p>Personally, I think this thread is all heads-in-sand. If you think these $40K+/year aren't LOADED with very wealthy kids, well, think again. The class distinctions are just as clear in college as they are in high schools all over this country. It's just more of the same.</p>
<p>
[quote]
If you think these $40K+/year aren't LOADED with very wealthy kids, well, think again.
[/quote]
No one is arguing differently. Some of us are saying that your point is in the same class as "If you think these $40K+/year aren't LOADED with Jewish kids, well, think again" and wondering why you think it's ok to express such bigotry. Do you have a problem with rich black kids? Rich Asian kids?</p>
<p>Driver, regarding those expensive cars over at Bryn Mawr College--they are indeed the cars of Baldwin and Shipley students, who have long (greater than 30 years) found it easier to sneak out during the day on foot than in cars ;) </p>
<p>I won't tell you how I know this.</p>
<p>Driver:</p>
<p>It takes a lot of work to get these pre-ripped jeans, and so they are more expensive than run-of-the-mill intact ones. It's the Gandhi effect, you see. You need to be well- off to wear clothes that would have once been worn only by the truly down-on-their-luck. That's because if you <em>really</em> look like you are down on your luck, then you have not achieved the nonchalantly affluent look you seek.</p>
<p>driver:
Well, then what's the point of this thread? Would you deny there is any benefit or added pleasure to diversity?</p>
<p>Marite:
That must explain the white kids with dreadlocks look, too.</p>
<p>Weenie:</p>
<p>There are lots of very affluent kids in other schools, too. Try SMU; ole 'Bama; and a few others. Boston U is crawling with rich foreign kids. They supposedly are responsible for the party and shopping scene on Newbury Street (Boston's version of Fifth Avenue). As Cloverdale's experience shows, better endowed schools are able to provide more financial aid to students who need it--ergo, more socio-economic diversity.</p>
<p>Look these schools ARE loaded with the wealthy but NOT as loaded with them as slightly less elite schools that cost as much but don't meet need. My guess: You need to be richer but less accomplished to attend Bard than Vassar. Are they both loaded with the rich? Yes, but Bard moreso.</p>
<p>Barrons:</p>
<p>I have not really seen anything that shows that students at Grinnell or Carleton or Oberlin have different attitudes toward spending money than their peers at Ivies. My kids went to Wes (similar to Oberlin) and Harvard respectively, and they have the same atitude toward money.</p>
<p>marite: Gotta disagree about the goal of the "ripped jeans" look.</p>
<pre><code>It's not at all about looking as though you might be "down and out," a rich person undercover. No, it's about showing the world you can afford to pay $200 and up for the fashion statement of artfully ripped denims. With the right label, of course. And don't forget the accessories, which one would never mistake for the Ghandi look. When the teenagers at Beverly Hills High stop wearing them, they will be over.
</code></pre>
<p>Jazzymom:</p>
<p>That's precisely my point. If you do look down and out, you've failed in your goal utterly and completely! </p>
<p>Gandhi took a lot of money to appear poor; ditto the high school and college students who pay more for jeans that have holes in them than ones that are actually intact.</p>
<p>Marite: I know it's off topic, so just two more cents.</p>
<p>Gandhi (got it right this time) employed a staff to keep his dhoti spotless, hence the takes-a-lot-of-money-to-appear poor line, but his choice of costume was not intended to telegraph wealth and status to those he met. That, in fact, is what people are doing by wearing $200 jeans and the designer shoes that go with them. They are not trying to fake "poor."</p>
<p>Jazzymom:</p>
<p>I understand the difference.<br>
At the beginning of the destroyed jeans craze, it was an attempt to look as if one did not care about fashion., being too busy being involved in political activism. (I recall the horrified looks of the actual low-income students upon seeing better-off ones wearing holey jeans. One of my classmates went around in jeans such as these. One day, she let slip that her parents used to easily fit 125 guests into their living room...
A friend of mine went to Harvard wearing shoes held together with duct tape. It turned out his father owned a shoe-making business and was very well-off (before shoe manufacturing got outsourced to China and Vietnam). Another take on the sartorial fashion of the haves and the have-nots:
In England in the 70s, I read a colum about how to distinguish old from new money: the old money titled folks wore clothes that looked as old as their titles. Only the nouveaux riches wore new suits.
I remember the time when the Harvard Faculty Club had a dress code banning jeans and requiring a jacket and tie. There was no dress code for women (probably because there had not been women on the faculty or among graduate students until after the dress code was adopted). Female graduate students who served as TFs took a delight in wearing jeans while their male counterparts had to keep a jacket and tie handy.
I can trace the rise of jeans as a rich person's fashion statement to the time when French hauts couturiers decided to show jeans that cost hundreds and possibly thousands of dollars. The bohemian/ratty look has been with us ever since. Nowadays, the really rich don't bother wearing suits. It's their underlings who do.
Nowadays, everyone knows that destroyed jeans are very expensive as are other jeans that look like they've been worn forever.</p>
<p>Okay, enough sartorio-sociological analysis for one day. :)</p>