@Data10, my comment about flyover states was about the CC forum.
And I do know that many of the kids at George get almost full tuition. It is usually about 55% boarding,
so yes, also day, and yes, many also get lots of FA. And even PA has rural areas, as noted by the poster who raised this.
I’ve made my point and am moving on.
It doesn’t surprise me that 6% come from a rural area. What percentage of the US population comes from rural America, especially if you take out cities in the Midwest from whatever “rural” means. Of those, how many actually know boarding schools exist? Then, how many parents are willing to send their kid thousands of miles away? Then, how many kids have the qualifications (not sure the schools are as test dependent as they were)? You get to a pretty small applicant pool pretty quickly, before you get to the question of financial aid.
My impression is that rural applicants are unicorns in the applicant pool. Most schools are need aware, so financial aid can be a barrier, but not one that puts rural students at a disadvantage. Lack of rural representation is a supply-side problem, not demand.
I’d posit that there is nothing to be gleaned here. Andover is not a rural school. Given the choice, most kids (and adults) opt for the familiar. After all, how many college freshman nationally are from OOS? Maybe, just maybe, something could be assumed if the 6% figure was at Hotchkiss or NMH.
Answering my own question: per the 2010 census, 19%. Assume the day student population is about 20% at boarding schools, and 20% are international, 6% sounds pretty good. My money is (literally) on those rural kids getting a disproportionate amount of the very generous financial aid.
Note that the sentence before and after the quoted ones said:
"It may be good to name specific HSs rather than generalize, as I expect a lot of variation from HS to HS. "
and
“However, I’m sure various other HSs show different percentages.”
It’s clear from the full quote that Andover is not meant representative of all BSs, and other BSs are expected to show different percentages. That said I do expect that rural lower income kids are almost universally underrepresented at selective boarding schools. It’s more a question of the degree to which they are underrpresented. If anyone knows of an exception, I’d be happy to hear about it.
The reasons for this underrpresentation and why one cannot draw simple conclusions about BS admission favoritism by urban/suburban/rural are largely parallel to the reasons for the overrepresentation of kids from highly selective private HSs at highly selective private colleges and why one cannot draw simple conclusions about highly selective private colleges favoring highly selective private HS kids, which stemmed this tangent. For example:
I’m not sure why you are separating international students. Is the assumption that international students cannot live in rural areas? The survey question only had 3 options – urban, suburban, or rural; without a separate category for international.
It is wholly unsurprising that kids from private schools were more likely to be wealthy, as compared to kids not from private schools. It may be surprising to some, though, that 20% in the lowest income group at Harvard came from private schools. I guess this qualifies as a “small minority,” it is still a very significant percentage.
Also, while you didn’t supply the income cutoffs for the Harvard survey, the Harvard distribution may be significantly different than that from the Andover survey, where only 5% were in the lowest income group, and only 10% were in the lowest two groups.
Another way to look at is a little under 10% of students at Andover reported <= $60k income in the survey compared to ~20% of Harvard kids overall (both private and public HSs). Private HS school kids at Harvard appear to be notably underrepresented in this lower income category. So if 20% of Harvard kids are <$60k overall, then one would expect far less than 20% of private HS kids at Harvard to be <$60k income , but how much less is unclear because the survey does not list the missing income categories. If there was a distribution something like the following:
<$60k – 20% private / 80% public
$60k to $250k — Same as overall for that year (36% private / 64% public)
$250k+ – 66% private / 32% public
Then the overall percentage of kids with <$60k income by school type would be as follows. I am assuming an income distribution across the full student body similar to the Harvard survey figures – ~ 20% <$60k income, ~47% 60k to $250k Income, ~33% >$250k Income. These are self-reported income figures from surveys without inflation adjustment, and I made a lot of assumptions and estimates, so the calculations are only extremely rough estimates and may be quite inaccurate. However, the point is the available information suggests “a similar type of distribution to the one occurring in the Andover survey”, like stated in my earlier post.
Income Distribution Among Public HS Kids at Harvard
<$60k income – 28% of public HS kids
$60k to $250k income – 53% of public HS kids
$250k+ income – 19% of public HS kids
Income Distribution Among Private HS Kids at Harvard and All Students at Andover
<$60k income – 9% at Harvard vs 10% at Andover
$60k to $250k income – 40% at Harvard vs 38% at Andover
$250k+ income – 51% at Harvard vs 53% at Andover
I can’t place much of any relevance on this analysis since “the calculations are only extremely rough estimates and may be quite inaccurate.”
Perhaps we can go at this from a different direction. I am trying to reconcile these two quotes . . .
and
So if 20% is notably underrepresented, what would be a proper level of representation? In other words, what do you suppose is the proper level of private school representation in this lower income group, and what is your basis for so supposing?
“Underrepresented” was in reference to the overall Harvard student body. Public school kids outnumbered private school kids 4:1 in the listed low income category. In the overall student body, the ratio was 64% public / 36% private that year or 1.8:1, so the 4:1 ratio suggests a severe underrepresentation compared to the overall Harvard student body.
That’s what I thought, but why compare to the overall student body when it is well established (and no surprise) that private school kids skew wealthy?
If you did a similar analysis for public schools serving wealthy areas, you’d probably find that their students would also be “notably underrepresented” in this lower group. But that wouldn’t tell us much of anything compared to what we already know.
I won’t requote the first paragraph of the post, but the general idea of the post was as follows. Comparing to the overall student body supports point 3.
Understood. You and are looking at different issues.
Fair enough. I don’t have data, but (a) most of the international students I know are from cities, which is logical because (b) there is very little international financial aid, and I would expect wealth to be located more in cities, as it is here.
That said, international admissions is neither what we are talking about nor comparable to domestic admissions (I don’t think the schools care about rural v urban international diversity so much as the students’ skill sets and ability to pay), so best just to take them out of the analysis.
One thing to keep in mind is that the sota from PA is student reported. I know this has been stated but I think it worth emphasizing. I’m not saying it makes the data completely unreliable. However, it definitely makes it something other than 100% accurate.
Source: have two kids at PA and have discussed this with them and their friends.
Specific to household income, some have shockingly little idea of their HHI.
Okay, I’ll bite . . . what’s a “sota.”
Also, it’s probably me not understanding something obvious, but is it possible this post was meant for another thread?
Looked it up. State of the art.
thanks. now I’m really confused.
State of the Academy. It is an annual, completely anonymous student survey at Phillips Academy Andover. Wide range of questions, but one is regarding houshold income. I believe @DroidsLookingFor was pointing out that some students (particularly high school) may not accurately know their HHI
Yes exactly. The discussion in the thread was citing HHI data from the PA State Of The Academy, which is a student survey.
The one of 8 million separate discussions in the thread. 