<p>Hey, I'm curious, what is the percentage of low-income students that apply to Harvard and about how much of them are accepted? </p>
<p>By low income I don't mean 50K a year, I mean more like 20K a year or less, or poverty level for those with families more than 2 or 3 people, etc.</p>
<p>anyone have an idea? or know where I can find this?</p>
<p>If you discount foreign nationals who are "poor" only by US standards (those who have a decent standard of living in their country of origin) it should be a very, very low number, particularly if you look at those admissible on pure merit without any preference for the impoverished.</p>
<p>Interesting. So out of the 20,000 that apply to Harvard, a very small number of them are low-income. And you also say that a very small number of them are then admitted? So you are at a disadvantage, then? Or if lets say you have at least a 2000 SAT, and at least a 3.7 GPA, would it be an advantage?</p>
<p>Only the admissions office has detailed knowledge of what the applicant pool looks like, but at Harvard there is a high and uniform yield; a matriculation rate that is steady at around 70-80 percent for most groups of admitted students (black, white, male, female, athlete, scholar, etc). So some inferences can be made from the population of matriculated students. There are not many truly impoverished undergraduates at Harvard, even given the financial aid.</p>
<p>For poor applicants whose credentials are in the admissible range, evidence of poverty (or better, "disadvantage" such as working full-time to support the family, living in a war-zone ghetto, having alcoholic parents, attending a disaccredited high school, etc) would strongly improve the chances of admission.</p>
<p>Hi, Celita, this is not quite what you asked for, but here is the link to the Harvard</a> Financial Aid Office Fact Sheet. I hope this helps. </p>
<p>After edit: looking at the revision date on that document, it looks like a new version will come out in about two months.</p>
<p>Is it an advantage to be low income?</p>
<p>To an extent. But remember, the average SAT range hasn't gone down since the low income initiative formally took place in 2004. In terms of score wise, it's definitely not an "advantage," per se.</p>
<p>That makes me wonder.. SAT score is sometimes associated with low income. These students might apply, but it's not as if they realistically believe they have a decent shot there. I don't think HFAI necessarily improves the rate of lower income students applying/getting accepted.</p>
<p>I think there have always been a few high-scoring, low-income students (I have known some, in two generations of Americans) who never even applied to Harvard because they thought Harvard was too expensive to even apply to. Perhaps the new Harvard Financial Aid Initiative will encourage some young people in that category to apply, allowing Harvard to admit an entering class with constant (or even rising) test scores while admitting a growing number of low-income students. I'm sure the Harvard admission office will be studying the results of this program for several years, and I will be looking on to see what happens.</p>
<p>So in other words low income is not an advantage unless you have the test scores right? But if you do have the test scores can it push you over the edge into the acceptance pile?</p>
<p>Replying to post #11, that's not exactly what I mean, and I don't venture to describe the admission decision-making process in detail because I'm surprised every year here on College Confidential, and the one thing I know for sure is that I don't work in the admission office where all the applications are piled up. All I would say in reply to the OP's question is that it appears that family incomes below $20,000 show up on the financial aid office fact sheet, and all I would say to collegehopeful78's question is that you should apply if you are interested in enrolling. </p>
<p>Good luck to next year's applicants. One definite piece of information I did hear directly from a Harvard admission officer is that next year, under the new single-deadline system, it would be a good idea to submit the first part of your application (the personal identification and contact information) as early as possible, even if you are not done with your essays and your standardized tests, so that Harvard can schedule an interview for you. The admission office dreads having to schedule alumni interviews for the whole cohort of applicants in the narrow time span between the regular action deadline and the final day for considering admission files. Submit the first part of your application early, and you can avoid the seasonal rush for interview appointments.</p>
<p>Low income per se is not an advantage or disadvantage, admission being separated ("need-blind") from financial aid. But the admissions office uses ZIP code, parents' occupation or lack thereof, and information in the essay and recommendations, as a proxy for financial data in assessing an applicant's environment.</p>
<p>Harvard admissions office, like all others, says that they appraise SAT scores and other credentials relative to the perceived (by the admissions office) opportunity for attaining the credentials. 1400 SATs from a student in an urban wasteland may be considered more impressive than 1600 from a student living on Park Avenue.</p>
<p>The financial aid data showing that about 4 percent of students have reported family income under $20000 almost certainly overstates the number who are really poor. International students are about 9 percent of the student body, and many of them are from countries where $20000 per year would be a decent or excellent family income. Within the USA, the family income figures are not reported per capita. A single mother raising one college-bound child on 18000 dollars per year (with the level of subsidy for food, medicine and housing that this typically carries in the US) is not all that poor in an absolute sense or on a per capita basis, nor would that income level necessarily force a child to choose between work and schoolwork.</p>
<p>I would guess the "true poverty" level of the enrolled undergraduates at Harvard to be at most around 1-2 percent. Among people who were admissible purely for academic credentials the number would be far lower.</p>
<p>"Is it an advantage to be low income?"</p>
<p>Indirectly, no. You don't have the same access to resources as higher-income applicants.</p>
<p>Even taking into account the greater resources open to high-income applicants, it is probably an advantage to be low-income. That is, admissions committees appear to put undue weight on the disadvantage of low income in assessing credentials. They probably have no choice, because elite universities seek to increase the enrollment of low-incomes faster than would naturally occur given a correct weighting of income effects.</p>
<p>What is a disadvantage is to be middle or lower middle income; above the threshold of special consideration for disadvantage, but without the resources of the truly affluent to pay for top-dollar schooling.</p>