Legacies, full pay and donors. Misguided anger?

Applying to College
201

Agree that the NRMP is a bit different. But why can’t a matching system be implemented in college admissions? Suppose there was a way to incorporate interview feedback and the other subjective factors? Why couldn’t colleges simply provide a list of their top picks in rank order?

I can imagine a two-staged approach, where students rank their colleges in order, followed by how much money they would be willing to spend per year. For instance I might be willing to pay $15k per year to go to Dartmouth, but $0 per year to go to local state school:

  1. Dartmouth College, $15,000
  2. Emory University, $12,000
  3. Johns Hopkins, $12,000
  4. Univ of Pennsylvania, $11,000
  5. Drexel University, $5,000
  6. Penn State University Park, $1,000
  7. West Chester U, $0

The colleges would then create a similar list, but then listing how much financial aid they would be willing to give each student.

  1. Student A, $50,000
  2. Student B, $44,000
  3. Student C, $42,000
  4. Student D, $38,000
  5. Student E, $33,000

Then throw everything into a computer, and find out the best match. Students would then end up at a college as high as possible on their list without paying any more than it was worth. This would avoid a lot of game playing that goes on now with the ED1/EA/ED2/RD and waitlist rounds.

202

@sgopal2 Seems a lot like…Questbridge

203

Although since the Questbridge process involves only high-financial-need applicants, the expected net prices should be known beforehand and not that different, removing the variability of cost and financial aid differences from the match process.

204

The system is broken, and I find the entire process depressing.

My perspective on this has changed recently due to personal experience, so please bear with me. My kids will both be full pay–not because their parents have high salaries (we are both federal government employees), but because all their grandparents had the misfortune of dying and leaving us some money. I’d rather use that money to help my kids with a down payment on their first homes, and possibly to retire early, but instead much of it will go to the colleges they decide to attend. If my parents and in-laws were still alive, we’d qualify for some aid, and later in life my kids would receive that financial help when they needed it (not to mention that they’d have the wonderful experience of growing up with grandparents). Our money is not endless, and being full pay will really, really hurt psychologically. After all, my parents were the sort of people who never went on vacation, drove old cars, lived in a tiny house, didn’t even have cable TV–they just saved every penny–and now that gift they have left us will be decimated. So, in return, why shouldn’t my children be able to attend the schools they want, if they are qualified? Why shouldn’t they be considered over other similar applicants? If being legacy at Brown gives my daughter a second look, I feel no remorse about taking advantage of it.

This is not just an issue of rich vs not rich, privileged vs, non-privileged. There is a very, very large gray area where parents are expected to surrender a pound of flesh nearest their heart. It’s not unreasonable to try to get the most value for that flesh.

205

There is a fascinating conundrum that exists on cc. It’s the undergrad doesn’t matter go to the least expensive school you get into and save the money for grad school vs a quality education is outrageous and unaffordable to anyone not making high six figures.
The bottom line (and I say this to my patients all the time) - “Here’s what it costs for option x vs y vs z. Each has pluses and minuses. The cost for each of the options is fixed the VALUE to you is what matters.”
If you get into Harvard without any aid or scholarships and it has a VALUE of $80,000/yr you find a way to pay and don’t look back. If it doesn’t there are plenty of other great alternatives that are far less costly.
I’ve raised eyebrows on here because I live in North Carolina and my daughter will be attending UVa OOS next year as opposed to UNC IS. To me there is VALUE and the cost is $160,000 more…

206

You’re entitled where to spend your 160k. It’s your money and your child’s education.

To be fair. Most people don’t have that choice or if they do not believe unc offers an experience worth 160k less than uva. Many people would do the opposite.

Usually with in state schools there isn’t enough pizazz or perceived reward as being unique enough for the star student. Too many other kids go and it doesn’t seem that great. Except to the oos looking your state school as the dream opportunity. Human nature is a funny thing.

207

I agree it’s an unpopular stance and not one many people would make. But I feel like it’s a bargain compared to what Lori Loughlin paid for USC.

208

@Cavitee We can’t take it with us anyway. Go Cavaliers!

209

@Cavitee You are not alone, and I don’t think it’s really an unpopular stance. Many of us parents feel it is totally worth paying significant $$ for the tip top education that we determine will be the best for our child, despite there being cheaper options. While we can empathize with families that don’t have the luxury of choice, we also can look back and recognize that our child’s education is exactly what we have been saving for for many years.

And to bring it back to @privatebanker 's original premise, I do come to agree there is more good than harm by allowing a small number of acceptance-due-to-big-donation (so long as the student isn’t a total moron.)

210

I’ll take publics over privates any day of the week and avoid scandals that will keep happening!

211

I am late to this thread and haven’t read every post, but private banker surely was prescient in raising these issues way before this week’s scandal broke. I was also the first person in my family to go to college. When I applied back in the Age of Paper, neither my parents nor I had any idea what we were doing, and my high school guidance counselor was worse than useless. Not surprisingly I made a mistake, chose the wrong school and ended up dropping out after two years. I worked for a while at some interesting jobs, went to trade school and eventually realized college probably wouldn’t be worse than that. So I graduated from an open admissions state college and went on to an Ivy law school. (I am a good standardized test-taker and had quite a story to tell at that point.) Fast forward many years, and I am working with my son on his college applications. We are living in Asia and my son goes to a school where more than half the kids will go to college in Europe, so we have not been as immersed in all of this as someone living in the States might be. In any event, I had assumed that my background would be helpful in getting through this process, but, honestly, the thing that has struck me is how hard it is, how complicated, how strategy-driven. I am, like many of you, a chronic investigator, so I’ve studied this site, read books and so on and so on, and I think we’ve done alright. But to think that a kid working through this on his or own, or parents who haven’t been through the process themselves and aren’t able to devote an enormous amount of time and energy, could figure out even what the possibilities are seems crazy. A low-income family may simply assume they can’t afford anything other than a community or state college, without even knowing about scholarship possibilities, Honors Colleges, merit money, EA, ED and all the rest. Even leaving aside the issue whether any preferences afforded to legacies, donors and athletes are appropriate (I generally think they are OK at least in a private school system), there are still an awful lot of opportunities available, but being able to access those opportunities is critical. Maybe some kids have keyed-in guidance counselors to point them in the right direction, but that’s probably only a lucky few. I’m not sure what the solution is. Ideally, you would want to see an admissions system that is simpler and less driven by strategies keyed to the USNWR rankings, but that seems a way off. In the meantime, finding some way to help kids identify and maximize their opportunities however they are situated would be great, probably some kind of online tool - maybe this would make a great EC for some eager-beaver applicant.

212

@tkoparent, you make great points. For those of us in that age group, it does seem like the process back then was more haphazard and there was less information to help make an informed decision. I too had no idea how to chose an appropriate school; my guidance counselor was no help, as was my parents.

Here is how I would respond, in what is sure to be another unpopular post.

What I think has changed most are expectations.

My parents were the children of immigrants. They grew up poor in working-class sections of Brooklyn and New Jersey. Many of your stories are probably the same. They were (obviously) the first in their families to go to college. They went to the best schools they could afford (giant state schools, mostly). Goodness knows how they chose them back then. They worked hard, and saved their money, so their children and grandchildren might have things a little easier.

They were long-term thinkers. They continued on and earned PhDs in the sciences, funded by the schools, as PhDs in the sciences still are.

There were no fewer poor or disadvantaged people who wanted to go to college 50 or 75 years ago. But they didn’t expect to “jump the line”–they had a methodical process with long-term aims.

Today, everyone seems to expect to go to the best, most expensive school even if they can’t afford it. (aside: I’d love an Aston Martin, but I can’t afford one. Not upset about it).

That immigrant attitude of old has changed, shifted. Familial progress is slow.

I am not privileged simply because my parents and grandparents thought in terms of generations instead of themselves. I may be a beneficiary of their long-term thought, but to get there, they scrimped and saved and, yes, suffered, as all children of immigrants do.

There’s nothing wrong with going to a less-expensive public school because that’s what your family can afford. That’s what my parents did. That’s what every family does at some point along the line, probably many of you or your parents, too. But do not seek to punish those simply because their families have gone through that stage a generation or two ago. Everyone’s time will come.

213

@tkoparent - when we visited Maryland for Banneker Key, they talked about one of the B/K students that had created a program that connected alums with local low income students to help them navigate the college application process. Very cool.

214

I would love to see a public college system whereby schools with robust academics cut both extras and costs to the bone. I think if you could dangle an essentially free education at public flagships you’d find a lot of kids willing to spend some of the money they’ve saved to join outside gyms, pay for their own counseling services, and live 6 to an apartment. However I see one massive impediment; Americans would have to give up their obsession with college sports. In my opinion that isn’t going to happen in my lifetime.

215

Wikipedia says NMFs didn’t exist before 1955.