<p>Who do you think, between rich people or poor people, have it easier getting ADMITTED to colleges? AND I MEAN, under the circumstance that both have the same intellectual criteria(both are equally smart). Think affirmative action, poor urban minorities, prep school kids, financial aid, parents' donation, MUCH HIGHER expectations for wealthy students. I don't think the answer's that obvious.</p>
<p>Depends on the school. Equal chance for high endowment schools. The challenge is to convince low income kids to apply and that they can afford it if admitted.</p>
<p>There's no question that rich people have the easier time. They have connections, sophistication about handling the interviews and paperwork, and can get prep courses, college admissions consultants, excellent educations at prep schools, etc.</p>
<p>I'd say that wealthier students have the advantage.</p>
<p>Even though many colleges and universities take their advantage into account with minority recruitment and affirmative action, that effort cannot trump years of advantage that wealthier students have had attending the best schools, living in the best neighborhoods, possibly spending their summers in expensive prep programs or abroad doing volunteer work or learning a language or whatever, taking expensive SAT/ACT prep courses and hiring college counselors to get them in. Not that all wealthy students have all of these things, but they have access to social capital that low-income students simply do not have.</p>
<p>There is always the case of the low-income student who's really outstanding, or affirmative action, but intelligence does not necessarily transfer into grades and test scores. Beyond that, if you have to work to support your family or even just work in order to support yourself, because your parents can't give you money to run your car (if you have one) or for bus fare, or you have to take care of younger family members, your grades might not be that high, you may not have excellent scores and you may not have the time or money to participate in ECs.</p>
<p>There is no question that at the vast majority of schools, wealthy kids have the advantage. The need blind schools and those giving a tip to low income are a tiny fraction of US colleges. And even at those schools, the majority of students are relatively wealthy.</p>
<p>I think there is an implied advantage, but assuming anything about a kid and his/her family circumstances can be misleading. We send our kids to a great private school with tuition coming in close to 25k. We wouldn't qualify for financial aid. However, we sacrifice a great deal to send our kids to the school and then really dont have a lot of excess income to spend on tutoring or prep classes or summers spent abroad, let alone family vacations! So.. do admission officers ASSUME we're wealthy and the kid just hasn't taken advantage of these things? Would we have been better served if we had sent the kid to public school and used what is currently spent on tuition in the above mentioned perks/subsidies?</p>
<p>Seems to me if you're truly wealthy, you may have advantage. And if youre truly poor or an URM you also may have a bump. But if you are middle class or slightly above, there is no way to demonstrate that you merely put a huge premium on education to the sacrifice of vacations, etc.</p>
<p>I am glad we have done what we have. Our kids really love their school, and they have benefited hugely from teachers who love to teach every day. While it's a great opportunity in itself, they also realize there are people more and less fortunate than they are. I believe not handing your kids everything improves character. I just think had my kids stayed in public and we subsidized that with a bunch of other things, they would have come out feeling like they were somehow more entitled over being appreciative of having a good education day in and day out.</p>
<p>rich hands down</p>
<p>Obviously the rich, no contest. Connections, connections, and connections.</p>
<p>I've asked about this before. </p>
<p>modadunn: totally agree....My D just said the other day that she understands how much we had to sacrifice so that she is in the "right place"...and added that she would be willing to even give up more if it meant staying there....not an issue, but hearing everything about the economy scared her into thinking she may have to return to public...(she even suggested that we sell our house and move into a rental....we told her it wouldn't have been a bad investment move a couple of years ago, but not necessary...)</p>
<p>But in reference to the OP's question, I think the answer is "it depends"....Students from our public school last year who were deemed "less wealthy" had much better admissions success than others....but when you are talking about such competitive admissions stats, you never know.....</p>
<p>alexkaye: perhaps your question needs to be a little more focused? I sense you're trying to make a point. If you're gonna make some point about the very selective colleges who may give admissions "nods" to socio-economic diversity, then state so. If you leave this extremely tiny sample of the college experience, then you it's extremely obvious. Not even being close, higher income leads to higher levels of education. Period.</p>
<p>Just look at some demographic numbers -- not thru the lens of selective college admissions (the fake CC worldview)</p>
<p>While the very selective colleges give admissions nods to the poor, those colleges also give nods to students who have very wealthy parents who could be big donors.</p>
<p>i think the low-income and the VERY VERY VERY rich have an advantage. but NOT the upper-middle-class and "not so rich" rich. Some might call my family "rich" but we could not afford a hefty donation to a school, ergo, we are no different from any other full-tuition-paying family. if you make in excess of $1 million/year as a family, then maybe you've got an advantage, but from $200k/year to $500k/year, you really couldn't afford a huge donation or "buy your way in".</p>
<p>And the wealthy "use" their college experience differently. Ivy league degree plus wealth and connections equals top jobs.</p>
<p>pinkpineapple: I pose to you the question I posed to the OP: when you say that "the low-income and the VERY VERY VERY rich have an advantage. but NOT the upper-middle-class and 'not so rich' rich. " This might only have some relevance when speaking about the rarefied air of ultra selective admissions. However, if you were to examine the demographic data, I'm 100% sure that you'd fine VERY STARK correlations between % of people with "some college" and income.</p>
<p>The large urban district near where I live (which is about to go into state receivorship for its messed up finances AGAIN) graduates 23% of 9th graders in four years. Can you honestly tell me that a SINGLE one of them has an advantage over any person in my upper middle class district? BTW, it ranked #1 AGAIN as the most crime ridden city in the USA.</p>
<p>I'm not trying to rag on you but please qualify your statements because that CC-esque generality doesn't hold true in the real world. I think I'd be safe to assume that the very fact that you're online and on a website like CC -- that 1) you're 98% likely to be attending a 4 year college imminently, 2) this hasn't been in doubt since before you were born, 3) one and likely both of your parents graduated from college and 4) you will be a college graduate. Am I wrong? And you're disadvantaged how?</p>
<p>Disadvantaged is kids' situations in that district I cited. Disadvantaged is not having a single book in the home. Disadvantaged is not knowing a single person who is raised in a father and mother household. Disadvantaged is every adult in your life not having a HS degree.</p>
<p>Don't get me wrong. For your accomplishments, you should be proud and rewarded as much as possible. But without doubt (even if you don't get into your first choices), you're FAR ahead in life than many of your fellow citizens, who, by no choice of their own -- were born on the "other side of the tracks."</p>
<p>My impression of OP's question (and perhaps pinkpineapple was responding to it this way, as well), was that assuming a poor student and a rich student have made it to the point of submitting an application, and they both have the same stats/ECs/CS, etc., which has the better chance of actually being admitted? (Not which one has a better chance from birth of making it to any given college). In such a circumstance, the poor student might look much more impressive than the rich one.</p>