It is 2013, parents; is Vassar really need blind ?

Colleges and Universities A-Z Vassar College
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<p>Vonlost, you are using data from a year ago. Contrary to what you think, you are helping me make my point! The percentage of students at Vassar last year who received financial aid (all classes) was, as you say, 66%. But only 56% of this year’s freshmen receive financial aid. 10% is a very significant, worrisome drop. </p>

<p>The 36% (or, really, less than 36%, because this figure should really not include the veterans at Vassar) figure I used as an estimate for the number of non-Pell Grant financial aid-receiving middle class admits in the current freshman class is a whole lot closer to 25% than 66%. Given that the middle class is the backbone of American society, the figure should be closer to 66% than to 25%. To me, it’s not acceptable that the percentage of middle class students at an elite college has dropped so precipitously in one year, and I doubt it was a coincidence. Despite the Pell Grant program, the rich can still get their kids into Vassar. The 31% of Vassar students not receiving financial aid come from the wealthiest 5% (approximately) of the US population.</p>

<p>I’ve been continuing my discussion with my friend, the Vassar grad, and I asked her if she knows how those particular alums with children who might want to attend Vassar feel about these policies. Don’t these policies make it much more competitive for them to be admitted, particularly those who are middle class? Her response was that the Vassar campus is swarming with legacy admits. I guess as long as alums can send their kids to Vassar, they are very happy with the current state of affairs.</p>

<p>The president of Vassar is a very smart woman, but if she has anything to say about the struggles the middle class face when sending their children to college, to me it’s just lip service and is not particularly sincere. </p>

<p>Now, back to you, Vonlost. You toss around the word “bias” without realizing how incredibly biased you are! Most of the middle class people on this forum who would respond to your question on Vassar’s page about whether Vassar gives adequate financial aid to them would likely respond the way chris’mom responded!! It’s an incredibly biased sample. The admits who turned down Vassar for financial reasons are much less likely to be keeping up with this forum than the students who received enough aid to make it possible for them to enroll. Current students who are getting help from Grandma might feel uncomfortable admitting that they are getting help (even though this forum is anonymous). It’s all anecdotal evidence anyway.</p>

<p>If idic5 is applying to college this year, I don’t think he/she should count on admission at Vassar being entirely fair just because it’s “need blind”. I don’t know whether the explanation for the low number of middle class students at Vassar is because they are not being admitted in high enough numbers or because many who are accepted don’t receive adequate financial aid or both. </p>

<p>Nevertheless, if idic5 wants to attend Vassar, he/she should, by all means, apply. The last thing I’d want to do would be to discourage a young person from following her dreams.</p>

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<p>“I guess as long as alums can send their kids to Vassar, they are very happy with the current state of affairs.”</p>

<p>Alums govern such schools (30 of 33 Vassar trustees are alums), concerned with long-term viability and (also short-term) policies. Presidents do their bidding or are replaced.</p>

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<p>I am a middle class parent of a senior at Vassar whom lives in a high cost area(Long Island, NY). My son was accepted to several colleges in 2010 with the cost after aid as follows:</p>

<p>Vassar 15K
SUNY Geneseo 18K(state school)-Did not recieve aid
SUNY Stony Brook 18K(state school)-Did not recieve aid
RPI-25K
Union College-21K</p>

<p>It is difficult for middle class parents to send there kids to any college, but given the above Vassar was the obvious choice. In subsequent years the cost did go up due to some reduction in financial aid ( income increased a bit) and this year we had another child attending college which increased our financial aid(40K) and it cost us the least amount this year(10K).</p>

<p>We were fortunate to have a good amount of equity in our home so we refinanced this year to offset the parent plus loans.</p>

<p>It really is not affordable for middle income parents to send there kids to any college, even state schools nowadays and something really needs to be done. I have no problems helping poor students and veterans, but we need some help as well. College costs are out of control and as long as the federal government makes it easy to get parent plus loans(no limits), colleges know they can keep raising costs and that the federal government will continue to cover these costs by allowing parents whom want the best for there children to borrow to cover these costs. People will say send your kids to a community college, but why should I have to do that. Should I, as a middle class parent not have the same oppertunity as well off parents or low income parents to send my child
college(elite or state)?</p>

<p>I believe Vassar is one of the better schools for financial aid but it is still difficult for a middle class kid to afford to attend even there.</p>

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<p>Borghugh: The people who tell you that you should have sent your son to community college to save money did not work as hard in high school as your son did. Do not waste your time trying to explain, because they do not have a clue. I agree with everything you say. To preserve our economy, we have to find ways as a society to make all colleges- public and private- less expensive.</p>

<p>Vonlost: I doubt Vassar is any different from any other college in terms of having a board of trustees composed mostly of alums, but your point is well taken. </p>

<p>A comparison of the data Vonlost found from last year and the data I found about the current freshman class on the admission page of Vassar’s website shows that the percentage of current Vassar freshmen receiving financial aid is 10% lower than the percentage of Vassar students (all classes) on financial aid during the “2012-2013” school year. This year, about 60 more freshmen than in previous years are wealthy enough not to need financial aid and probably come from families in approximately the upper 5% of American earnings (unless they are foreigners). </p>

<p>Especially given that Vassar claims to be sensitive to diversity of all types, I do not think this is an accident. It happened either because Vassar dramatically decreased the number of middle class students admitted or because many more middle class students than wealthy students unexpectedly turned down offers of admission this year. If middle class students declined offers of admission in large numbers this year, Vassar had a chance to correct this decline when choosing students from the waiting list. </p>

<p>This means that the enrollment of rich kids at Vassar has increased significantly at a time when the president says the college has a moral obligation to enroll disadvantaged students and is decreasing admission of students they would have otherwise accepted. </p>

<p>If my interpretation of the data is incorrect, I would be happy to retract my comments. As I see it, Vassar’s Board of Trustees and the president are congratulating themselves for giving poor students the chance to go to Vassar at the expense of middle class students while INCREASING enrollment of their own kind. </p>

<p>Some college presidents have admitted that it is not economically feasible to remain need blind. Maybe that is what Vassar should do. The president could apologize to the middle class and admit that she thinks it so important to educate the poor that she feels justified in turning away middle class students and accepting more poor students as well as more full paying students. She is free to admit that she thinks it is more important to give one poor student a full scholarship rather than two middle class students partial scholarships. (I am not being sarcastic. It is a fair choice and one the college is entitled to make.) But then she would have to stop claiming that Vassar is need blind.</p>

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<p>Vassar College in New York, the No. 6 Best Value School in the Liberal Arts Colleges category, listed 2012-2013 tuition, room and board, fees and expenses at $59,860, but awarded need-based grants to nearly 60% of students that year. The average cost after receiving those funds was $19,470, an average discount of $40,390 off the total cost of attendance</p>

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<p>It is a sad state of affairs when Vassar is the best alternative for middle-income parents trying to send their children to college. By Borghugh’s admission, he needed to refinance his home to pay his children’s tuition this year. However, the results of using Vassar’s financial aid formula vary depending on a given family’s circumstance, and some students wind up getting more money from other schools. Nevertheless, I see now that for many middle class students, Vassar offers the best option- if they are admitted.</p>

<p>Vonlost claims to have data indicating that 66% of Vassar students were on financial aid last year. But even if Borghugh is correct that the figure was closer 60%, let’s not forget that that figure has declined to 56% for the current Vassar freshman class at a time when admission of Pell Grant students has been increased. This means that Vassar is also increasing admission of wealthy students. The only students getting hurt are the middle class students on financial aid, and this is not a topic Vassar’s president acknowledges in public.</p>

<p>I understand that admission of middle class students on FA will decline with the admission of more Pell Grant students. But if Vassar is truly need blind, as it claims to be, the percentage of wealthy students would also decline.</p>

<p>Let’s design a few models to illustrate the data. We know that:

  1. (At least) 40% of Vassar students last year were sufficiently wealthy that they did not qualify for financial aid. Some were foreigners, but most were Americans whose parents were probably in approximately the top 5% of American wage earners.
  2. 44% of the parents of this year’s freshmen fall into this “wealthy” category.
  3. 20% of current freshmen are Pell Grant recipients. I don’t know how many veterans Vassar has enrolled, but I will ignore them in these models, which will make enrollment of middle class students on financial aid seem higher than it is. (Just so I am not accused of bias again!)
  4. Without further information from Vassar, we don’t know how many Pell Grant recipients enrolled at Vassar before this program was implemented, so I will create three models, assuming that at “baseline” Pell Grant recipients represented 5%, 10%, and 15% of the student body.</p>

<p>The first column represents percentages of the student body that was middle class on financial aid, economically deprived (Pell Grant recipients), and wealthy at baseline prior to the new program. We know that the percentage of students on financial aid combined with the percentage of Pell Grant recipients was 60%. If 5% were Pell Grant students, 55% were middle class students on financial aid. The second column represents what the percentages in each category would be if Vassar proportionately decreased the percentage of students who are middle class financial aid recipients and those who are wealthy to allow for admission of more economically deprived students. The last column shows the data of the current freshman class using three possible models. We know that the total percentage of both middle class students on financial aid and Pell Grant recipients is 56%.</p>

<pre><code> Baseline Proportionate Current State
</code></pre>

<p>5% PG Model Middle Class 55% 46.3% 36%
Pell Grant 5% 20% 20%
Wealthy 40% 33.7% 44%<br>
Total FA 60% 66.3% 56%</p>

<p>10% PG Model Middle Class 50% 44.5% 36%
Pell Grant 10% 20% 20%
Wealthy 40% 35.6% 44%
Total FA 60% 64.5% 56%</p>

<p>15% PG Model Middle Class 45% 42.3% 36%
Pell Grant 15% 20% 20%
Wealthy 40% 37.7% 44%
Total FA 60% 62.3% 56%</p>

<p>So, depending on whether Vassar had previously enrolled approximately 15%, 10%, or 5% Pell Grant recipients prior to the adaption of the program to increase their percentages on campus, the percentage of middle class students on financial aid dropped between a little over 6% to as much as nearly 20% while the percentage of upper class students increased by 4%. A proportionate reduction of both middle class and wealthy groups to accommodate more Pell Grant students would have hurt the middle class much less.</p>

<p>It’s time colleges started admitting and enrolling qualified economically deprived students as well as veterans who have served in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. My objection is that Hill has become the spokesperson for the movement to admit economically deprived students and veterans and has tried to shame other college presidents for not copying her She does NOT admit that she has increased enrollment of wealthy students and disproportionately decreased enrollment of middle class students. She has not admitted the program is entirely at the expense of the middle class and that the wealthy have benefited. </p>

<p>Vassar is not truly need-blind.</p>

<p>Borghugh, your son might very well have not been admitted to Vassar this year, and the spot he earned might instead of been given, not to a hard-working Pell Grant recipient (which would not bother me), but to a wealthy kid (which bothers me and should bother you).</p>

<p>(I hope my chart posts clearly. My apologies if it does not.)</p>

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<p>“Vonlost claims to have data indicating that 66% of Vassar students were on financial aid last year.”</p>

<p>It’s Vassar’s own Common Data Set:</p>

<p>[H</a>. Financial Aid - Institutional Research - Vassar College](<a href=“Institutional Research – Vassar College”>Institutional Research – Vassar College)</p>

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<p>I guess that did not work too well.</p>

<p>5% PG model: If Vassar had decreased enrollment of middle class and wealthy students proportionately to make room for 20% PG stduents, the percentage of middle class and wealthy students would have declined from 55% to 46.3% and from 40% to 33.7%, respectively. Instead, enrollment of wealthy students increased from 40% to 44%, as is true in all models. Instead of being 46.3% of the class, middle class freshmen are only 36% of the class.</p>

<p>10% Pell Grant baseline model: If Vassar had decreased enrollment of middle class and wealthy students proportionately to make room for 20% PG students, the percentage of middle class and wealthy students would have declined from 50% to 44.5% and from 40% to 35.6%, respectively. </p>

<p>15% Pell Grant Baseline model: If Vassar had decreased enrollment of middle class and wealthy students proportionately to make room for 20% PG stduents, the percentage of middle class and wealthy students would have declined from 45% to 42.3% and 40% to 37.7%, respectively.</p>

<p>Of course, in order to retain baseline proportions of middle class students on financial aid and wealthy students, instead of giving out financial aid to 56% of the freshman class, Vassar (according to these three models would have had to give out FA to as much as 66% of the class.</p>

<p>The percentage drop of middle class students relative to wealthy students makes it clear to me that Vassar is not truly need blind, which was the original question in this thread.</p>

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<p>Vonlost, I agree with you. If I used your numbers/ Vassar’s numbers, the situation for middle class students would look a whole lot worse.
Thank you for pointing this out.</p>

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<p>When I ran the numbers yesterday, I made every effort to use numbers that would be favorable to Vassar. I used Borghugh’s data suggesting that the percentage of students on FA at Vassar had only dropped from 60% during the 2012-2013 school year to 56% in the current freshman class (at a time when Vassar had decided to ramp up admission of Pell Grant recipients).</p>

<p>However, vonlost reminded me that “her” numbers are Vassar’s numbers and come from an official document Vassar uploaded onto its website. According to this document, 66% of Vassar students were on FA during the 2012-2013 school year.</p>

<p>Developing models using several assumptions, that is, that enrollment of Pell Grant recipients increased from 5%, 10%, or 15% in previous years to 20% this year, and working with the data that shows a drop in the overall percentage of students on FA from 66% to 56%, the data look even worse than I had thought:</p>

<p>If up until now, 5% of Vassar’s students were on Pell Grants (PG), 61% were middle class students on partial financial aid (MC-FA), and 34% were wealthy enough not to qualify for FA (wealthy), a proportionate drop in MC-FA and wealthy students to accommodate enrolling a class consisting of 20% PG students would have led to a current freshman class composed of 51.4% MC-FA and 28.6% wealthy students. Instead, the current class is 36% MC-FA and 44% wealthy students.</p>

<p>WOW WOW WOW!</p>

<p>If we assume that 10% of Vassar’s students were on PG up until now, 56% were MC-FA, and 34% was wealthy, a proportionate drop in MC-FA and wealthy enrollment to accommodate 20% PG students would have led to a class composed of 49.8% MC-FA and 30.2% wealthy students. Instead, the corresponding percentages are 36% and 44%.</p>

<p>To accommodate a change from 15% PG enrollment to 20% PG enrollment, Vassar should have enrolled a class composed of 48% MC-FA and 32% wealthy students. </p>

<p>I suspect one of my 3 models (5%, 10%, or 15% PG recipients) is an accurate picture of enrollment at Vassar prior to adoption of the new policy to build a class that is composed of 20% PG recipients. This means that enrollment of MC-FA students has dropped from between 15 and 25% while enrollment of wealthy students has increased 10%. </p>

<p>Where is the outrage? How can President Hill claim that Vassar is need-blind? Why doesn’t she admit what has happened to enrollment of MC-FA students at Vassar? Is she just hoping no one will notice?</p>

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<p>Vassar is need-blind. They don’t care about money when accepting you. Simple as that.</p>

<p>As for why there’s less middle class? Well, at colleges that meet full need, poor kids start out with 0 EFC. Rich kids have enough money that it doesn’t matter where they go.</p>

<p>But, since Vassar doesn’t give out any merit scholarships, if a middle class student is admitted and is said to pay 10k, but they get merit scholarships at state schools/other private schools (which many people who can be admitted to Vassar do), then their EFC might drop to 0 at the other institutions due to those scholarships. Many people I met at admitted student’s day who were middle class chose other colleges for this reason.</p>

<p>So no, it’s not that Vassar is segregating them. Vassar just doesn’t offer merit, which sometimes makes other colleges cheaper for the middle class. And, in all honesty, we have a sizable portion of the middle class, so…</p>

<p>As for the veterans? They all received Posse Scholarships, and there’s only, what, 7 of them? I don’t see how 7 people would skew anything.</p>

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<p>Oh, also, to mention the poor kids: Vassar is a QuestBridge school. They’re getting a lot more low-income applicants than non-QB top colleges, and people who become finalists for QB are usually students any college would want, regardless of income. So, yeah.</p>

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<p>Vell28, are you naive enough to think Vassar has no idea and does not care which applications are the ones submitted by the sons and daughters of the top 0.1? If Bill Gates’ children apply to Vassar someday, don’t you think the admissions officers would drool over their applications? </p>

<p>Of course they would. Who could blame them? Even though Vassar is need-blind, everyone would excuse such behavior. </p>

<p>But at what point does such behavior become inexcusable? I maintain that Vassar crossed the line when they admitted a significantly larger percentage of wealthy students at a time when the administration warned that admission of traditional students would drop significantly to make room for admission of low-income students.</p>

<p>You should take a statistics course while you are in college. It helps in the interpretation of data. </p>

<p>Vassar enrolled more than 25 more wealthy students into the class of 2017 than they had enrolled, on average, into each of the previous four classes. My guess is that at least 35 spots (a conservative estimate) were taken by wealthy applicants to the class of 2017 that would have been given to middle class applicants who needed partial financial aid if Vassar had kept the relative proportions of wealthy students and middle class students constant while admitting more low-income students. At a minimum, I estimate that nearly 7% of the 533 spots in the freshman class that were not reserved for low-income students went to wealthy students that should have gone to middle class students on financial aid, assuming Vassar wanted to keep proportions constant. This is statistically significant. This kind of difference does not usually happen by chance alone. (I am using data favorable to Vassar and assuming only a 4% drop, not the 10% drop Vassar reports, in financial aid recipients in the freshman class.)</p>

<p>When the president of Vassar decided to become the public face of programs to admit low-income students and started trying to shame other college presidents into following her lead (see NYT article from July 2013), she should have first made sure her own admissions system was beyond reproach. </p>

<p>Do you have evidence, Vell28, that the number of middle class admits who turned down Vassar’s offers of admission to accept merit scholarships elsewhere was larger this year than in the previous years? You spoke to a few admitted prospective students in April. Meh.</p>

<p>How did it happen that so many spots were given to wealthy applicants that one would have thought would have gone to middle class applicants at a school that professes to value economic diversity and claims to be need-blind? I don’t know. Maybe Vassar increased the number of recruited athletes whose parents could afford to pay for years of expensive coaching and specialized summer sports camps. Maybe the Vassar admissions officers accepted more students from America’s wealthiest zip codes. Maybe Vassar favored students from certain high schools this year that in the past tended to send students who did not request financial aid. It is often not difficult to distinguish the applications written by students from families with money from the others without viewing financial aid applications.</p>

<p>If it was not Vassar’s intention to increase admission of wealthy students, the admissions committee could have used the waiting list to correct this problem. After all, the school claims to be very sensitive to the need for economic diversity.</p>

<p>Vell28, I never wrote an anti-QB comment or a comment against admitting veterans. I never said anything that merited your scorn. My gripe is that admission of middle class students got cut, not only to admit more low-income students, but to admit more wealthy students, too. </p>

<p>I do not remember the average SAT scores for Vassar’s class of 2016, but the average SAT score for the class of 2017 seems low. Vassar could have easily admitted a class composed of students with higher SAT scores. Thousands of highly qualified students with greats statistics, college essays, and an impressive list of extra-curricular activities are rejected from Ivies, Ivy equivalents, and top LACs every year because of lack of space. I attribute the somewhat lower SAT scores for the current freshman class at Vassar, at least in part, to the admission of 20% QB students. I accept that many (but not all) QB students have lower SAT scores, because SAT scores correlate with parental wealth.</p>

<p>Vell28, I take offense at your comment that “people who become finalists for QB are usually students any college would want, regardless of income. So, yeah.” REGARDLESS OF INCOME??? Your comment and its smug tone with the “So, yeah” ending is a slap in the face to the many middle class students with better SAT scores and high GPAs, often earned at more competitive high schools, who did not have any hooks in the college application process but were not admitted in order to make room for QB students (as well as for more wealthy students). They did nothing to deserve your contempt. </p>

<p>While QB students have the right to claim they deserve special consideration because of the disadvantages they have faced in life, they do not have the right to claim that most of them would have been admitted even without consideration given to their low-income status. Admission standards and the whole application process are different for them. Even Vassar’s president says so.</p>

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<p>I take offense at your claim that Vassar’s relatively small dip in SAT scores was the result of admitting more QB kids when the evidence suggests it could just as easily be the result of admitting some other group on the basis of income. You’re already on thin ice accusing Vassar officials of conspiracy. Stop speculating.</p>

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<p>I agree with circuitrider.</p>

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<p>Well stated circuitrider.</p>

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<p>circuitrider, HiToWaMom, and CrewDad, I think you all do not like the fact that I am criticizing your beloved Vassar and its president (assuming, of course, that you have ties to Vassar). Or, perhaps, you feel it your duty to defend one of our nation’s top LAC’s on principle.</p>

<p>You use terms like “thin ice” and “speculating” against me instead of taking a good hard look at the statistics and admitting that something doesn’t smell right. Are the two of you Vassar students or alums? If you are, doesn’t Vassar teach critical thinking skills? Don’t they teach students at Vassar to look at data critically? </p>

<p>How do I make it clear that I am not opposed to admitting QB kids and that I support the program in spirit? It’s common knowledge that SAT scores correlate with parental wealth. You have to take this fact into consideration when you evaluate the applications of low-income students. This is a progressive notion. Pretending it does not exist doesn’t change anything and potentially hurts low-income students.</p>

<p>Vassar’s President Hill doesn’t pretend that QB finalists have SAT scores as high as those of middle and upper class students. She doesn’t pretend that all of them come from high schools that offer challenging programs. (Of course, there are exceptions, especially the 30% of students at Stuyvesant High School in NYC who are economically disadvantaged.) She argues that some of these students are admitted because of their tremendous potential, not because they have statistics as impressive as those of upper middle class and wealthy students enrolled at our top high schools. I don’t remember where I read it, but she has said that SAT scores will drop with the admission of large numbers of Pell Grant students. I am not going to try to look for where I read it, because it would take too long. President Hill is a media darling and finding that original article could possibly mean searching through the thousands of articles on this topic that mention her name and still not being able to find it. But I just googled the terms: “Vassar College” president hill pell grant sat.</p>

<p>The first link that popped up in my search was this one: [Diversity</a> and the Rankings | Inside Higher Ed](<a href=“http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2011/09/12/essay_suggesting_a_better_way_for_u_s_news_to_rank_colleges]Diversity”>http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2011/09/12/essay_suggesting_a_better_way_for_u_s_news_to_rank_colleges)</p>

<p>In it, Hill argues that SES of a college should be considered in the rankings. Doing so would give colleges an incentive to admit a more economically diverse class, even though it would mean admitting students with lower SAT scores.</p>

<p>She admits it. Why can’t you?</p>

<p>My objection to Vell28’s post was that he/she, too, would like to pretend that QB students have just as high statistics as non-QB students and would have been admitted without consideration of SES. I am not saying that QB students should not be admitted. What I am saying is that no one should rub salt in the wounds of the many qualified middle class students with better statistics who were rejected so Vassar could provide opportunities to QB students (as well as to a larger number of wealthy students).</p>

<p>My objection is not to the admission of Pell Grant students, but to the admission of more wealthy students. In this article, written two years ago, Hill notes that 63.5% of Vassar’s freshmen receive financial aid. This figure contrasts with the 56% of current freshmen receiving financial aid today. This means that the current freshman class at Vassar has 50 more students wealthy enough not to need financial aid than did the freshman class two years ago. That’s 7.5% of the freshman class. That’s 10% of the spots not reserved for Pell Grant students. When you consider that enrollment of traditional students was supposed to drop, not increase, that’s a heck of a lot of spots taken up by rich kids, whatever the number. </p>

<p>This dramatic increase in the number of wealthy students (accompanied by an even greater decrease in the number of middle class students on financial aid to account for both admission of more PG students and more wealthy students) makes me wonder if Vassar is truly need-blind or if the college just finds ways to game the system. Anyone with the smallest understanding of statistics has to ask the same question.</p>

<p>How about commenting on this fact and attempting to explain how the large drop might have happened despite a need-blind admissions system? Something changed this year. You say you don’t want to speculate. Are you afraid you cannot come up with explanations that would make Vassar look good?</p>

<p>President Hill complains about colleges giving wealthy students (not middle class students on partial financial aid) full merit scholarships, and we have no reason to believe that many more middle class students accepted merit scholarships to other schools this year than they did two years ago (at least as far as I am aware). I discount this argument. Anyway, it was established earlier in this thread that Vassar gives good financial aid to middle class students- at least to those who are admitted. I conceded as much. This would make me suspect that many admitted middle class applicants (at least those who did not receive very large merit packages worth more than, say, $5K per year) would choose Vassar over other colleges simply for financial reasons. </p>

<p>The only arguments I can think of that might account for the reason why a need-blind school has enrolled more wealthy students despite a warning that admission of traditional students would decrease are unsavory. They include focusing on admission of students from wealthy schools and neighborhoods and the admission of more athletes who have had the advantage of having parents who had the money to pay for athletic coaches and expensive sports camps from the time they were young.</p>

<p>You call it speculation, and you claim I have no right to engage in this behavior. I am just dealing with the data and searching for possible explanations. Sociologists and other social scientists do this all the time. Why can’t I? The only difference between them and me is that they then set out to either prove or disprove their hypotheses. I don’t have the data to do so.</p>

<p>Maybe someone in the Vassar community could approach the college president, ask her for an explanation (backed up with hard data, of course), and post the response here.</p>

<p>I’m waiting.</p>

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<p>Of course Bill Gates’ kids would get priority, everyone can tell from their names that they’re Bill Gate’s kids.</p>

<p>Look, colleges won’t know your economic status unless you state it on your app. End of story. And Vassar is hardly the first college to adopt a policy helping low-income students, QuestBridge has been around since 2006.</p>

<p>And why does a dip in SAT scores matter? It’s still well within the top percentage range, maybe Vassar cares about things other than scores? Hm… Do you think QuestBridge kids are the reason? They’re 6% of the entire campus. That equates to about 36 QuestScholars a year. I’m sure that must be it. And it’s not like the programs been going on at Vassar for years.</p>

<p>Look, you know nothing. You’re citing statistics and pretending you know all the details behind them. You aren’t an admission officer. You aren’t Cappy. You don’t even go to/have any ties with Vassar. Colleges don’t lie when they’re only partially need-blind, why would Vassar be any different? Be honest, was your middle-class kid rejected?</p>

<p>Also, you’re looking at the kids who go to Vassar. Ever think that middle/low-income people this year just went to different schools? It’s not like everyone admitted went there.</p>

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<p>Wait, are we looking at the same test scores?</p>

<p>2016 Class: 704, 690, 699 average CR/M/W, 30.7 ACT
2017 Class: 700, 687, 701 average CR/M/W, 31.3 ACT</p>

<p>This is what you consider a huge drop? The largest being 4 points in CR with an increase in M and ACT scores? With 4 points meaning literally nothing?</p>

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<p>Vell28, I’m not perfect, and I’m not always right. I’m using QuestBridge and Pell Grant terminology interchangeably, and I probably just mean “Pell Grant”.</p>

<p>Does Vassar use an assortment of different programs to admit students who qualify for Pell Grants? Do many apply on their own?</p>

<p>So, substitute “Pell Grant” for “QuestBridge” in all my posts. We are talking about admitting 20% of a class of low-income students, whether they are admitted through QuestBridge or some other program, and I’m fine with that. My point is still the same. Enrollment of middle class students on financial aid has markedly decreased while the enrollment of wealthy students has markedly increased.</p>

<p>Are you kidding me that Vassar cannot tell whether a student is rich or middle class without looking at financial aid applications? If I recall, students list the professions of their parents on the common application. Don’t you think it is easy to conclude that the student from an elite private high school in Manhattan who lives on Park Avenue in NYC below 96th Street, and has a parent who is a CEO of a major company is wealthy? What about the student whose father is an investment banker, has an address in Greenwich, CT, and attends a private boarding school? Contrast that with the student who attends Stuyvesant High School, lives in Flushing, Queens, and has parents who are public school teachers. Who is likely to be wealthy, and who is likely to be requesting financial aid?</p>

<p>No, I don’t know the details behind the statistics, but I know enough statistics to know that the numbers are very suspect. Any statistician will tell you these numbers did not happen by chance alone. Something happened. I don’t know what happened, but until someone at Vassar explains what happened and backs up the explanation with numbers to prove it, I am going to say that this looks fishy to me.</p>

<p>Enlighten me. Ask “Cappy” to explain what happened and to back up her explanations with statistics. Remember, if the Vassar admissions office was alarmed by the drop in middle class financial aid students accepting offers of admission, they always had the option of focusing on the admission of middle class students from the waiting list.</p>

<p>As I said, I don’t remember Vassar’s SAT scores from last year. All I was saying was that Vassar’s SAT scores look low to me. I guess Vassar’s SAT scores are a lot lower than I had remembered. What these SAT scores say to me is that wealthy kids are probably also getting admitted with low SAT scores. Vassar certainly does not admit many middle class students with SAT scores this low. The few I’ve known from my children’s high school have all had SAT scores higher than 2200. Of course, from what I’ve heard, they are among the top students at Vassar.</p>