I’m glad this kid got in, and I’m glad he’s an African American kid. I hope he inspires other African American kids to aim high. I hope he inspires ALL kids to aim high.
This boy has amazing raw stats: 4.68 GPA, 34 ACT, 1540 SAT. He is involved in all kinds of stuff, including internships.
He probably didn’t need to apply to so many schools. Who knows why he did? It doesn’t matter. Our child is full pay at college. I know we are subsidizing students with less money. We knew the price when we let her enrol. Would I want my ORM kids, who rarely want for anything, to trade places with this student, or any student who gets FA to go to college? No, I wouldn’t. I am fully aware that my kids’ lives are much more comfortable than others’ lives are.
There probably are a number of ORM kids who get accepted to tippy top colleges. They aren’t necessarily all making the news, and they aren’t necessarily on CC. But how interesting is it when another ORM student gets into HYP, etc…? This story is in the news because it’s a feel-good story. An underdog is getting rewarded for his hard work. Good for him. I hope other underdog stories continue to make the news.
“However, it is certain that the budget, which is one large fixed number, would be the same with or without the financial aid takers. Therefore, If you built a class that consisted of full pays and no takers and the endowment still contributed (as mandated to keep tax free status)… the cost to the full pays would be smaller.”
You’re assuming that is the only way to spend an endowment. There are many ways that the money can be spent without reducing costs for full pay families.
My daughter is ORM female candidate. We do not know if she will get into an elite admissions as this is all new to us. She currently attends a prep school on 50 K need based aid. She has very high unweighted GPA above 3.95 and courses like Multi variable calculus, AP Physics C, AP Chem, AP Bio, AP US History, AP language, AP literature etc. School does not rank or weigh GPA. I have no idea how anyone can achieve above 4.0 GPA out of 4.0 GPA. No we have not denied her food. She is self motivated as applied to prep school without us knowing anything about it despite her father against it… Her SAT is above 1550. Her SAT II are very high. She has few national level achievements and is very involved outside the classroom and in school community. President of multiple clubs. Lots of volunteering.
But since we are ORM, we do not know what happens. Parents have first kid going to us educarional system. Parents also do three jobs to support kids. We would be happy with one or two admissions that pays merit or need based aid.
Because of her computer skills gained in previous summer internships, a private fortune 500 companies hired her for summer paid internships, but no idea what effect this will do as she applies for computer science in college.
I am hoping based on this very positive story, our ORM kido gets into a college too as I see many kids with great states being denied. We are anxious as it is all new to us.
Most schools will say that tuition does not cover the cost of instruction for each student.
Financial aid is primarily from donors and endowment. Not sure there is enough tuition to cover that as well as the cost of education. Only a handful of schools meet full need in most cases.
In this case, he got over $200K from outside scholarships. And the NY Times article clearly noted it was a combination of merit and need-based aid.
If you decide to pay full tuition you are obviously in a good place financially. Most kids that get into every school likely have a good story to go with their very high stats. You aren’t paying more due to need-based aid, you are paying more because enough families are willing to pay that price to send their student to that particular college.
I find these “I got into all …” articles very distasteful, so Kardashian. If you really feel, for some unknown reason, compelled to apply to a bunch of tippy top schools, after already having been admitted to Stanford REA, with lots of FA, keep it to yourself. It reeks of publicity seeking. I blame everybody for this phenomenon: the kid, the parents, the media.
Regarding the inspirational angle, haven’t we seen enough of this already? As the sarcasm of the thread title indicates, we see these stories every year, and it’s getting really old. How can one more of these “I got into all…” stories inspire anyone further? We get it already.
Increased demand (artificially created by availability of financial aid) creates higher prices.
@mom2and I know a lot of families that are full pay who have loans or make tremendous sacrifices to pay those tuitions - and some would be sacrificing and taking loans. Your assumption about a good financial position and the decision to pay full tuition is misguided.
Feel-good news items are popular, and this type of inspiring story will not go away (kind of like the first-baby-born-in-the-new-year story that makes the news in every major city each New Year’s Day). I’m not so sure I’d blame the kid and parents, though. Perhaps a more interesting story might feature the hundreds (thousands?) of kids who apply to 20 schools … [EDITED TO ADD:] and the current climate in which they might feel the need to cast such an enormous net?
To the race baiters: If you look through the various results threads, there are any number of white and Asian kids on CC with multiple acceptances to hyperselective colleges. It’s not very meaningful to me if none of them went 20-for-20. That was a stunt, and to my mind a pretty ugly one.
The valedictorian in my daughter’s high school class and the person ranked #3 were both white (and presumably still are). After both were accepted at Harvard SCEA, one applied to all seven other Ivy League colleges, Stanford, and MIT, and the other applied to six other Ivies (not Dartmouth) and MIT. They were both accepted everywhere they applied except Princeton. Ostensibly, it was to get better financial aid than Harvard offered. Some of the other universities did offer better financial aid, which Harvard declined to match. Both went to Harvard, which had been their goal all along. (I have no idea what Princeton’s issue was. They were both fabulous candidate, except for whatever part of their personalities made them apply to a whole bunch of other colleges after getting into the college they most wanted to attend with affordable aid. One of them was a recent war refugee, and would have given Princeton serious consideration because she could spend a lot more time with her family if she went there.)
While doing college tours with my son, we met a young woman from San Diego and her father (both white, obviously affluent). She had applied to 23 colleges – not quite the top 23 in USNWR at the time, combining universities and LACs, but close – and had been accepted at 21 of them. (She had been waitlisted at Amherst and Yale.) All of her applications were RD; she hadn’t applied anywhere early. In her defense, it was clear she, her parents, and her counselors had completely misjudged how good a candidate she was; both she and her father were sort of bewildered at what had happened. All of the colleges except Stanford and USC were in the East, and she had never seen any of them. Her idea was that she was going to visit the ones that accepted her in April. Of course there was no way she was going to be able to see 19 colleges, so she wound up not ever really considering over half of the colleges that accepted her.
I find them inspirational when it’s a kid that has little. We know plenty of rich, private schooled kids with private college coaches and schools counselors with good connections get into a multiple Ivies and Stanford. Some of those kids I’m like “of course! Great!” Some I think “really? That’s what they are looking for?” A kid who manages to get into several with parents who didn’t go to college themselves or from poverty or a rough upbringing or a regular high school with a counselor they’ve never met… that’s pretty impressive to me.
I’m not sure these are good or inspirational stories. What happened to some personal character traits, which should include humility, that these colleges are supposedly looking for?
I personally felt more inspired by the girl who had not electricity and running water at her home and worked at her school as a janitor to support herself and her younger brother for her parents were having drug issue and basically abandoned them. Her whole school and the local community were all very excited when she got accepted to Harvard with full ride.
@infinityprep1234 So go into college admission process with eyes wide open. My two tippety top ORMs with the same stats as your daughter got into good schools, but not Stanford, let’s say.
I agree a better story might be all the tippety top ORMs with over the top stats who get denied at 20 elite colleges.
Is Stanford looking for humility? I doubt Harvard is, lol! I am thinking this kid is excited, and it was his friends who recorded him. Even if he’s bragging, we should be happy for him. He faced huge odds.
He must have had good recs too. You can be a superstar but it won’t do any good without good teachers’ recs.
I operate a business whose annual income varies significantly. My 2017 tax income came out a lot lower than I thought. I was actually glad because this means my kid might get some financial aid from Stanford, even if it’s only for one year out of 4. Now, there is some reason to smile when you make less money.
After my kid got into Stanford early, we decided not to apply to any other schools, not because he wasn’t curious whether he would get into so and so school but because we wanted to not waste time comparing and deciding between schools. We were full pay so there was no reason to apply to other schools to get few thousand more in financial aid.
My friend long time ago, who got into all top colleges early was so calm and collected that he never told his close friends he got into them until we asked him. His attitude was since he knew he would get into them, it was no big deal. He went on to get all As at MIT.
ORM = over represented minority? Which seems oxymoronic as whites Would be majority… no? And they couldn’t be majority and over represented? Could they?
@preppedparent “I agree a better story might be all the tippety top ORMs with over the top stats who get denied at 20 elite colleges.” -
I personally know two ORM boys - 1560+ SAT, 3.9+ uw GPA, typical leadership ECs STEM majors - got rejected by the top 20 elite- WL by NorthEastern, BU, NYU - and just accepted by the state flagship. These kids have worked part-time year round to fill the financial gap and with family income too high for QB and <75K/yr… imagine how these kids will react when they read this “inspirational” story.
It is the system we are setting up. These schools are chasing the same unique personal profile. Every year is the same.
One thing I am curious about is why we don’t hear more stories about Hispanic or Native American Indian kids who get into all the schools they applied to.