<p>Not really. As the above poster said, formally the admissions office has no idea what your financial background is. </p>
<p>In reality, however, the admissions people may get some idea of your background by your school report, which will talk about graduation rates, college attendance, free lunches, etc., and they can get a picture to some extent from the education level of your parents. Since Harvard looks at achievements in light of available opportunities, it is thought that one’s inability to hire SAT Tutors and get driven around to gymnastics practice every day is not held against him/her. But there is no explicit system for this and I wouldn’t think that a poor background would overcome significant flaws in your application, though it certainly would distinguish you from Harvard’s overwhelmingly well-off applicant pool if all things are “equal”. And much of it is presented indirectly in the application, through the aforementioned things or essays or recs, rather than a checkbox in the case of racial background.</p>
<p>See <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/harvard-university/1420429-lower-class-great-grades-very-impressive-colleges-true-false.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/harvard-university/1420429-lower-class-great-grades-very-impressive-colleges-true-false.html</a> for a longer discussion on this.</p>