<p>Mini, how do you count the SES admits if financial details do not appear on the CA? Just based on the box that asks if you intend to apply for FA? I’ve seen plenty of neurosurgeon families that intend to take a shot at FA. </p>
<p>Xiggi, CC tends to paint low SES kids in a flat way.
And, I think it’s fair to say being a women’s college presents its own challenges in getting matriculants. I love 'em, see the value, but it’s not always representative.</p>
<p>So far, the only ‘selective college’ I’ve applied to is the University of Chicago, because after meeting with a represntative and getting to know the school, I realized that it was perfect for me. To answer your questions though, that was both of my parents’ income. And yes, I do have safeties, and I already got admitted into them.</p>
<p>My case is kind of the opposite though. My parents WANT me to apply to selective schools, like NYU and even higher, but as I’ve said, some parts of my application (mainly my transcript) are at a really bad disantvange. Maybe if colleges knew that I was low-income, they it could maybe offset that fact (if only by a little bit), but how would I let colleges know this?</p>
<p>Datamining. zipcodes, schools, whatnot. area codes. address.</p>
<p>it’s suprising what you can accurately guess from very little information. Absence of high cost ECs combined with maxed out ECs, jobs, AP classes, no club sports, etc…</p>
<p>NYU gives horrifying financial aid, so forget that one.</p>
<p>Have you written about it in the extra information essay?</p>
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<p>In addition to stuff mentioned in #63, essays which describe overcoming adversity type of experiences (obviously considering what the described adversity is) can be a big indicator.</p>
<p>One can argue that a student who has overcome adverse conditions is more meritous than a student with similar achievements in non-adverse conditions (UC holistic admissions reading criteria are generally thought to consider that favorably, although UC need-based financial aid will only be decent for in-state students). But whether that matches with the “institutional needs” of highly selective private schools is another question.</p>
<p>Mini, how do you count the SES admits if financial details do not appear on the CA? Just based on the box that asks if you intend to apply for FA? I’ve seen plenty of neurosurgeon families that intend to take a shot at FA."</p>
<p>It’s so easy! They know exactly where each kid came from, their zip code, what the counselors said on their recommendations, the kid’s work history. Will they get 100% of them right? Probably not - more like 95%. But remember, once they accept them, some of the admits will turn them down - and they know the percentage of each kind of applicant who is likely to accept, and those who are not.</p>
<p>These are professional people - they are PAID to know. They attend seminars every year on “enrollment management”. They know each other. If they want “socio-ecs”, they get “socio-ecs”; if they don’t, they don’t. Amherst has proven that - there really shouldn’t be a question about that anymore. (Maybe Smith isn’t representative - but they’ve spent A LOT OF MONEY over more than a decade ensuring that they get Pell Grant applicants, admit them, get them to attend, and graduate them, without any change in academic standards whatsoever.)</p>
<p>" Not only did Marx increase the number of low-SES students, but also spearheaded a campaign to increase the size of the school."</p>
<p>Sorry, Xiggi, but you’re wrong. There was NO increase in the size of the first-year class in the year Marx implemented the “socio-ec” strategy. (There had been before.) They didn’t lower standards to do so - they didn’t need to. They still rejected plenty of qualified low-income (and high-income candidates). And they got the class they wanted.</p>
<p>But where we could have an interesting discussion is whether it was easier for Smith than for Amherst. As noted by you, Amherst has many more candidates whom it wold formerly have rejected. Smith by virtue of its single gender status, begins with a much smaller potential applicant pool. not only just women (half the pool), but only those women who would even consider an all-women’s college (maybe one-fifth of the pool, if that.) So Smith likely has to spend a lot more time, energy, and money to get an class of academically talented “socio-ecs” who will do as well academically as the rest of the student body, and ensure that they will graduate.</p>
<p>Poetgrl, agree. But it’s not foolproof. And I am so leery of these “outsider” reports that purport to have gleaned what really goes on. </p>
<p>Obviously, you can see # siblings, all the details show up on the QB apps, and GC’s sometimes mention the financial challenges. You can see parents’ jobs (or lack) on the CA. I’m not ready to draw a conclusion that need-blind is fake.</p>
<p>Mini is replacing Anti-Asian with anti-SES or something akin to it. “The matriculant numbers tell the real story.” ? Who says every low SES kid Williams takes ends up enrolling? Or, fill in the blank- same stuff we’ve been…discussing.</p>
<p>Oh, no. Not anti-SES at all. They simply get the class they want. They are professional people, who are well-trained, and paid to get the class they want. And they do their jobs very, very well. They know, with some precision, how many students they accept will end up going elsewhere, and, not only that, they can predict for every geographical and “socio-ec” subset. They have to, or they couldn’t set their financial aid budgets in advance of having accepted even a single student. (There are some places where they study very carefully precisely how much tuition discounting they have to do for each class of student to plot the “rate of return”. There is an entire science to it, and there are folks who make a fortune doing so.)</p>
<p>But, no, the Williams story is not anti-SES. On the contrary, the admissions director had a target, and he was just as concerned about falling below it as going above it.</p>
<p>At this point, I’m just going to say that I know there are enough ways to suspect SES. </p>
<p>And, I know many low SES kids are not the “flat” functionally disabled kids CC assumes. I said much earlier on this thread that many of them have sum total accomplishments that leave my kids in the dust. It’s tricky to assume all poor kids are somehow not comparable to privileged kids. I am trying to pick my words carefully, pls understand.</p>
<p>(-ok, no, it was the other thread where I said that.)</p>
<p>I am a very low income student, currently in the college application process. I can understand. I mean, at times it feels as if I can not compete with other students who have been tutored, taken sat classes and have really no distractions at home. Also, people do not understand that even transportation and extra clothing costs are intimidating alone. As a student who has to pay for all of their college education by themselves,I feel that top colleges are incredibly intimidating. Crossing my fingers, I really hope I can get into one!</p>
<p>I’m a student but let me put in my two cents.</p>
<p>In November I went to a youth conference and heard from a very wise man that children don’t care to listen to adults much.</p>
<p>He said, and this is very true, that they respond much more to kids their age or a bit older.</p>
<p>So here’s a thought: if parents are telling their 17-/18-year-olds that they can’t afford college, but they meet with a college freshman who tells them that they can no matter what, I assure you, they will take the advice of the college freshman.</p>
<p>That’s something to ponder…maybe if there were more exposure from college students to high school students, there would be more motivation.</p>
<p>How do they know? In addition to demographic info…if the admissions office has access to the FA office, they know the family EFC. If there was an app fee waiver granted, they know.</p>
<p>Some of these questions have been the subject of study for a very long time. James Conant Bryant heavily studied the question of “public” v. “private” school admits to Harvard.</p>
<p>One of the most interesting studies was, in fact, at Williams. During the 1970s, Williams had a nominally secret program called the 10% Plan, under which students who wouldn’t have normally have been admitted based on their academic performance, were admitted, and followed. Some folks thought they were the socio-ecs; others thought it was an excuse to admit less qualified legacies, still others as way to enhance the athletic teams (there is a little bit of evidence for the last, as this was the beginning of Williams’ ascendency in Division 3 sports.) At any rate, the study found that the 10%ers just slightly underperformed other students in terms of GPA and graduation rates, but “overperformed” in terms of contributions to the college, student body presidents, community involvement, etc.etc. (The College then, as far as I know, shelved the results.)</p>
<p>Smith’s policy came about as a result of the insistence of Ruth Simmons. Simmons, who had become President, grew up the daughter of sharecroppers in the South (their 12th child), and would have been unlikely to have been admitted to any of the prestige colleges as an undergraduate (she went to Dillard University in New Orleans). So she had the college - admissions office, dean’s office, and faculty senate - study two questions about students who had already been admitted and attending, as well as applicants: 1) Did the use of SAT scores in admissions weigh against the admission of low socio-ec and minority applicants (the answer being “yes”), and 2) Was the SAT for those admitted a predictor of academic success at Smith, either in GPAs or in graduation rates? (the answer was no). Before the study resulted in new policies, Simmons was named President of Brown, but that year was also named America’s best college President by Time Magazine.</p>
<p>I’ve already referenced the Gordon Winston study.</p>
<p>Maybe a fair number of very smart low-income kids simply don’t want to go to elite universities. It’s a huge big assumption to make that they all want that direction in life.</p>
<p>yes, sewhappy, but it would be a shame if they didn’t go, anyway. In no group other than low SES students and URM’s does it make one bit of difference in life after college. But for the low SES student and the URM, it actually does have a life altering effect.</p>
<p>I’m going to look for that darn study, again, now. Be right back.</p>
<p>Okay, here it is: <a href=“http://www.international.ucla.edu/cms/files/w7322.pdf[/url]”>http://www.international.ucla.edu/cms/files/w7322.pdf</a></p>
<p>they recently updated this work, too, but I can’t find the paper, for some reason. I know it reinforced the findings, which is that the benefit of these educations is marginal, for the upper and middle SES students, but very high for the lower SES students, significantly so.</p>
<p>Quoting myself and Mini</p>
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<p>Sorry, Xiggi, but you’re wrong. There was NO increase in the size of the first-year class in the year Marx implemented the “socio-ec” strategy. (There had been before.) They didn’t lower standards to do so - they didn’t need to. They still rejected plenty of qualified low-income (and high-income candidates). And they got the class they wanted.<<<</p>
<p>Mini, I am not really sure what you found to be erroneous in my statement about Marx initiatives. Although there is a degree of personal interpretation of the exact timeline of Marx’ initiatives and how they did fit in the Trustees’ established plan at the time of his hiring, I do not see how you can dissociate them.</p>
<p>In any case, inasmuch as I could go dust off my many notes and research on the tenure of Marx at Amherst, I think that this article of 2006 provides enough evidence of how intertwined the expansion of the school and the SES initiatives were. </p>
<p>It also happens to offer an insight into the research of Carnevale and the debate about having to lower SAT scores objectives when boosting the number of lower SES students.</p>
<p>[Campus</a> Revolutionary - Businessweek](<a href=“Bloomberg - Are you a robot?”>Bloomberg - Are you a robot?)</p>
<p>Hope you’ll read the article.</p>
<p>Goodjobbro- to answer your question about how do the colleges know a student is low income? There are some possible ways: Your guidance counselor can address any adversity a student may face in his/her report. It can come out in your application if it is pertinent to your background for instance if you had a job while going to school or it was part of your essay. Teachers can mention is in their letters. If a student used a fee waiver for SAT/ACT and also had an application fee waiver from college board or a note from the guidance counselor.</p>
<p>And here is a quick to grasp synopsis of the changes in enrollment and admissions in the past decade at Amherst.</p>
<p><a href=“https://www.amherst.edu/media/view/445948[/url]”>https://www.amherst.edu/media/view/445948</a></p>
<p>HTH</p>
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<p>purmou, then I’ll be one of those college students who tell you and emohlee that you absolutely should apply to top schools that offer great financial aid. My family was around what we would consider middle class by national standards, but back in my freshman year, we paid nothing for college besides my summer job expectation just as it was predicted for us on the online financial aid calculator. </p>
<p>I’m personally absolutely astounded and touched by how much Harvard goes out of its way to make sure that once accepted, a student’s family income will not be an impediment to his or her education or residential life. Here’s what my financial aid has covered: full tuition, room and board; full medical insurance coverage; any student service fee, etc; funding for winter clothing, and if you live sufficiently far away from campus, the cost of transportation; and even tickets through the FA office for any concert or dance or dinner or social events hosted by any school organization so you never need to miss anything because of the cost of the tickets. </p>
<p>On top of that, anyone can easily get funding for doing research. Anyone can apply for grants that cover the cost of traveling abroad. The financial aid opportunities at some of the more selective schools is definitely something to look into if you’re interested.</p>
<p>did the authors who live and breathe that rarefied air ever stop to question of many low income students just don’t want to apply to the highly selective (and NE?) colleges on their list?</p>
<p>Gasp! Could it be that not everyone sees the advantage of HYP et. al? Or perhaps that is the author’s point: we need to train the (ignorant) GC’s better so they can then pass on that new brilliance to every A- student to be HYP or bust? :rolleyes:</p>
<p>I would bet that some GC ignorance is bliss.</p>
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<p>True, but the number of colleges with “great” financial aid – winter clothing allowance – can be counted on one or two hands. And those colleges just don’t accept too many A- students that aren’t recruited (or offer another hook).</p>