In addition to what @Gumbymom wrote in #926, UC also recalculates unweighted and weighted-capped HS GPAs. The weighted-capped version limits honors points to 8 semesters’ worth, presumably to limit the inflation of HS GPA due to the availability of more courses qualifying for honors points.
The weighted-capped version is the one found on most UC web sites. UC admission readers see all three versions of recalculated HS GPA.
CSU uses a HS GPA recalculation similar to the weighted-capped version at UC. The difference is that a semester college course counts as two semesters of courses and grades for CSU, but one for UC.
Harvard Admit Rate by Income
<$40k Income – 11% admit rate
$40-80k Income – 11% admit rate
$80-120k Income – 9% admit rate
$120-$160k Income – 10% admit rate
$160-$200k Income – 10% admit rate
Above $200k Income – 12% admit rate
Did Not Fill Out FA Application – 7% admit rate
Note that the admit rate by income was reasonably flat among those that filled out FA. Lower income kids had a similar admit rate to higher income kids. Nevertheless, higher income kids were tremendously overrepresented in Harvard’s class, and lower income kids were tremendously underrepresented. Rather than high income kids having a much higher admit rate than low income kids, this pattern seems to more relate to higher income kids being much more likely to apply.
The study at https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/2013a_hoxby.pdf discusses the reasons for this pattern in more detail. The abstract begins, “We show that the vast majority of low-income high achievers do not apply to any selective college.” By “selective college”, they mean not open admission. I expect a similar type pattern occurs with the high schools you are comparing. Well qualified kids from wealthy high schools are far more likely to apply to Harvard than well qualified kids at less wealthy high schools.
That said, practices like legacy and in general ALDC preferences certainly are not helping resolve the income distribution imbalance.
The table shows admit rate, not percent in each group. Among applicants who did not fill out FA, the admit rate was only 7%. One can speculate about the reasons why this group has a lower admit rate. It may include kids who did not fill out FA because they did not want to put much time/effort in to the application, as they knew they were not well qualified, rather than just high income kids. Consistent with this, the report shows the did not fill out FA group had SAT scores distribution typical of low/middle income kids – not high income kids. The score distribution for the did not fill out FA group looks most similar to the score distribution for $40k-$50k income.
Another possibility is that they had divorced parents and were unable to get cooperation from both parents, so their FA applications were incomplete for that reason. Beyond the FA issue, divorced parents are probably disadvantageous in other ways for the kid’s preparation for admission to a highly selective college.
This would be a good time to point out how old this data is…it’s for college graduating classes from 2009-2016 (so students who applied for entry to Harvard in 2005-2012, so 10-17 years ago).
Since then, Harvard has instituted different enrollment goals, and changed some admission practices, including adding the goal of enrolling more Pell Grant students (roughly includes families with income of a max of $60K or so, actuals can vary due to family size).
We have no idea whether the current relative family income splits are similar to newly enrolled students from 2005-2012, nor the admit rates by income. I get this is the only data we have, but at some point data from this lawsuit isn’t relevant to what’s happening at H now, nor other similar schools.
For those who continue to cite this data and draw conclusions based on said data, it’s important to add the caveat that the data is 10+ years old, because we are certain that H’s enrollment goals, and some admission policies and practices (not to mention the admissions landscape and applicant pools), are different today than they were then…and that could render useless the data from a dated time frame where different enrollment goals and admission policies and practices were in place.
The point was that high income kids are far more likely to apply to Harvard than low income kids, which contributes to why high income kids are far more likely to matriculate to Harvard than low income kids. Is there any reason to believe this is no longer true?
“what do those students do if they want to go to a UC, have great scores and grades, but not a lot of AP extras for the GPA”
We’re talking here about UCB and UCLA mainly, there are seven more UCs that these students could get into. Also many kids will use the community college route into UCLA and UCB, where HS transcript are not considered, it’s possible some colleges will want to see the HS just to see what classes you’ve taken, but it’s all about the c/c gpa, filling the GE requirements maybe grades in major, essays, among a couple others.
I’m not totally sure about that, what colleges say and what they do can be two different things. When 75% of your class is taking over 9.5 honors/APs courses between 10th and 12th grade at a place like UCLA, it means imo, that if the APs aren’t offered, the kids that get in, take it as a DE as suggested above. Also the Berkeley admit rates ucbalum posted show a clear correlation between weighted GPA and admit rate. Maybe the person taking what’s offered is not being penalized but the kids that took that route of going beyond the high school are being rewarded.
You didn’t need to show admit rate by income level for students who initially enrolled in 2005-2012 to make the point that H has a significant proportion of students from relatively high income families, as the current CDS shows. There is also good current data that show students from relatively high income families are more likely to apply to any college than lower income students.
I will continue to call out the outdated nature of the data from the H lawsuit. Just like I, or anyone, can’t know if the data doesn’t hold today, no one can say that it does. What we know with certainty is that H’s enrollment goals, as well as some admission policies and practices, have changed since then.
I agree that your point still likely holds even with outdated data, but given that the applications have basically tripled over the time period in question, it would be interesting to see where all these new applicants are coming from. In other words has Harvard (or similar) made any real progress in reaching high achieving, low income kids, and if so, how? Have outreach efforts been successful? Has TO encouraged high achieving lower income students to apply?
The point was to show that high income kids are far more likely to apply to Harvard than low income kids, which contributes to why high income kids are overrepresented. The CDS does not show anything of the sort. However, comparing admit rate by income level to income distribution of matriculating students does lend itself to this conclusion.
The Hoxby study linked earlier discusses why typical lower income students do not apply to selective colleges. Before anyone complains, I will note that this study was published in 2013 and references data from well before that period. That said, I believe a lot of the general reasons why high achieving lower income students are less likely to apply to selective colleges still apply today. Some of the reasons suggested by the authors of the study include:
Students not being aware that $80k/year sticker prices colleges are affordable for non-wealthy
Representatives from highly selective colleges less like to visit HS
Less GC interaction and information
Unlikely to encounter member of school or community who has attended highly selective college
Some selective HSs seem to make getting in to Ivy+ colleges a priority. The school and community may be focused on that goal, with GCs, classmates, and parents all encouraging kids to apply to Ivy+ type colleges. However, I believe this is more the exception than the rule. Most HSs and communities are not like this In many areas, it’s common for high achieving kids to mostly apply to and attend in-state schools, particularly in-state publics. I attended a HS like this. While some high achieving kids applied to HYPSM…, they were in the minority. Instead most kids seem to favor upstate NY colleges – SUNYs and local CCs were most applied to colleges, Cornell probably received more applications that the other 7 Ivies combined, …
One of my relatives grew up in a rural, low income area where literally nobody applied to selective colleges. She was the first person in the history of her high school to apply to a highly selective college (she was accepted). Highly selective colleges just weren’t on the radar. Most kids instead planned to stay in the community after HS, often working on the family farm. If they attended colleges, they favored local ones. The Hoxby study linked above also found that income typical high achievers were far more likely to favor colleges that were <10 miles from home that achievement typical kids. There can be additional reasons why lower income kids prefer to stay near home, including family obligations.
I live in an area that is a veritable breeding ground for ivies, ivy plus etc. My wife and I have friends with kids at, or have attended, every ivy, every ivy plus, public ivy, blah blah (interestingly I see first hand what some of these ‘stars’ do after college, I’ll just say it’s a bell curve). My son told me his friends at school from rural areas were shocked he had so many friends at these places. Their experience was one person in maybe 5 years from their high school would get into an ivy or other.
Do you think this is less of a factor now? That is, do you think it has it become more well known that many elite colleges will meet 100% of demonstrated need?
We still regularly get posts on the forums from students/parents that are surprised to learn that Harvard is less expensive than in-state public options for typical income families, after FA. So I expect that lack of knowledge of FA is still a factor. I’d expect students from not high income areas who have little GC interaction and have parents who are not particularly knowledgeable about FA policies at Ivy+ colleges are more likely to be poorly informed about FA. It may be better, but it is still a contributing factor.
I just wanted to note that our local high school is 50% low income, but still offers a full array of AP courses (and assistance to pay for exams for those who need it). My kid took 15 APs.
That said, the kids taking the most APs do not tend to be the ones with the most financial hardship. I don’t deny there is a correlation between wealthier educated parents and students who do the things necessary for a stronger application. But there are opportunities in at least some public schools for the kids who know and choose to pursue them.
UC recalculate the GPA but the capped GPAs of students are so similar that UCLA considers the full GPA without a limit of numbers of Honors/APs. Only grades from sophomore and junior years are considered.
When my son applied last year, the UCLA admission site had statistics for percentage of admitted students that have 23 or more semesters of Honor/AP classes in grades 10-12 (something like 80+ percents - I don’t recall the exact number). Very few students with fewer than 23 Honor/AP semesters were admitted. This means admitted students averaged close to 4 AP/Honor classes per academic year.
This statistics existed for prior years and the number of semesters was smaller (22 for fall of 2020 instead of 23).
I was looking for these numbers on their admission site and they have disappeared this year. Seems with their policy to admit more low SES students and students from under-represented communities, they no longer can brag about such rigor.