<p>I am a black man who attends an Ivy League institution. My family immigrated to the US from Africa when I was young. We are financially poor and my parents pay nothing for my education (I received grants and a job). In my opinion this article is full of hyperbole and grossly unfair generalizations. Although wealth opens many doors, it is not everything. For every wealthy student whose parents pay for extra coaches, tutors, classes, etc. are five more wealthy students who party away their lives. The truth is that two-parent involvement and encouragement are much more important to a student’s ability to achieve than money. When a student has two parents at home and those parents encourage academic achievement, students very frequently succeed. I believe the Asian cultures do the best job at this, and this is why Asian students do so well, notwithstanding their economic situations.</p>
<p>A poster above spoke about poor inner-city kids who lack computers and, therefore, do not know when SATs should be taken, etc. That’s a laughable premise. The idea that a student needs a home computer to know such information made me chuckle. More to the point go to any inner city neighborhood. In fact, go to my neighborhood. My neighbors didn’t have home computers but they did drive a Lexus, had the nicest shoes in town, and found enough money to purchase gold necklaces and rings and have nice phones. It’s not a money issue. You can easily get a used or even new computer for a couple hundred dollars. Internet service costs much less than cell phone service. For most people, it’s a lack of focus, not money, that holds them back academically. </p>
<p>To the author of this article, I beg you: Instead of relying on emotionally-charged, baseless allegations, go to an Ivy League school and talk with poor students. There are plenty to choose from. Interview them about their parental influence and encouragement. Then rewrite the story and give people information from which they can truly benefit. </p>
<p>Young, poor people of color need encouragement, not another article full of distortions that tells them they can’t succeed. More than any other nation, the US offers its minorities many chances to succeed. Why so-called community leaders and people with a voice want to convince minorities that the opposite is true had always baffled me.</p>
<p>What I don’t understand is why people are outraged by these revelations. The vast majority of college applicants cannot go to the top 10 schools. This is not a cosmic injustice. There are so many interesting, high-quality options for higher education in this giant, diverse country. Why, why why do people get so hung up on an arbitrary handful of schools and get consumed with paranoid bitterness when they or theirs are “rejected”?</p>
<p>Okay, so the article is very, very exaggerated. But I do think that for sports like fencing, squash, tennis- usually, those athlete recruits will come from a family that could afford lessons/courts. They aren’t exactly sports you can just practice in your backyard. And a lot of public schools don’t offer those sports, while private schools do.</p>
<p>SAT =/= income. There are plenty people with great SATs that come from public schools that have studied on their own. But there are also tons of public school kids that maybe could have done better if they had tutors or were encouraged by their schools/parents to take it. Whereas in private schools, SATs are definitely more encouraged and they keep track of students to make sure they’ve taken all the tests they could. </p>
<p>Legacies are not always rich people. But seeing as that the whole “need-blind”/AA was more new at the time that our parents were going to school, most of them probably did come from privileged backgrounds. Plus, these ivy-leaguers probably had better jobs and therefore better salaries- and in the instance that you were a poor legacy, I feel like that wouldn’t sit with the adcoms very well- they expect their alumni to do great things and be at the top of the market.</p>
<p>Just my opinion, in a nutshell= money does a lot for applicants. But the article is kind of exaggerated. I think that as long as the school has secured enough tuition money, they will have no problem accepting people with brains but low incomes. And even with those WITH tuition money- I don’t think they’ll accept you if you have terrible grades. You need to be smart as well.</p>
<p>This leads to an interesting statement to check. I just returned to my friendly public library the massive Barron’s guidebook that comprehensively lists which colleges have binding early decision and which have nonbinding early action. My observation as a parent is that the majority of colleges in the highest echelon of selectivity (one definition of “top”) have binding early decision rather than nonbinding early action. Looked at another way, the colleges in the U.S. News list of “best value” national universities (a list of relevance to students who think they will need financial aid) seems a little more likely to have nonbinding early action colleges, but still includes an absolute majority (down to ranking position 50 or so) of colleges with binding early decision. What colleges did you have in mind? What colleges with nonbinding early action do you recommend to students who are middle class or poorer, who definitely need financial aid, and who hope to attend a college with lots of smart classmates and challenging courses?</p>
<p>Well, I was thinking top 10 schools. From when I applied, I remembered that the only school that I remember had binding early decision was Princeton, and they switched later to non-binding.</p>
<p>I remember when the ivies shut down early action programs they said they were doing it because poorer students couldn’t weigh financial aid offers or something, but it never was fully explained. I never really understood that.</p>
<p>NO, the author is wrong: the poor do have a chance to get in. However, if you were a university, and there is a rich applicant who could pay the tuition and a poor applicant who can’t pay a cent, while both have equal qualifications, who would you admit? Obviously the one who doesn’t need your money! It’s common sense and it works to the university’s advantage. Is it fair? Hell no. But just like nothing else is fair in life, college admissions aren’t fair. People need to learn to deal with it.</p>
<p>The best way to get into a great school? Excel more than the rich kids. Period.</p>
<p>The top schools have enough endowment that they don’t need to do this. And they have money specifically set aside for financial aid. They don’t just reach randomly into their endowments to put together financial aid packages. That’s how they are need-blind.</p>
<p>Other schools are not as rich and so they are not need-blind in admissions.</p>
<p>As a low middle-class student i did find it difficult to attend any ivy league schools due to financial hardship since my family was unable to pay for EFC they offered me. I also waited till after i got my decision to fully complete my financial aid.</p>
<p>the economy nowadays are making it even harder for schools to maintain their endowments. I worked at my school to help fundraiser for more money for the school but alumni and the investors are having it rough. The next fiscal year may bring promise but the schools are not too sure it can support financially strapped students.</p>
<p>While there is a grain of truth in this article, some of the author’s assertions are laughable. For instance, “Goldens focus was on legacy admissions… and athletes who are, contrary to popular belief, not all poor ghetto kids adept at football and basketball, but are primarily wealthy white kids who are adept at lacrosse, rugby, crew and polo.”</p>
<p>When was the last time you heard of a kid recruited for rugby or polo? At schools that even have these sports they are usually club sports. The heaviest recruiting still happens in sports like football, soccer, basketball, baseball (and yes, lacrosse) which have large rosters and are highly visible to alumni.</p>
<p>Furthermore, he asserts that 50% of admissions files at top colleges are flagged as development cases (“the so-called best schools give heavy preferences to the wealthy; as many as one-third of admissions, he writes, are flagged for special treatment at the elite universities, one-half at the elite liberal arts colleges, and the number of open spaces for the non-privileged is reduced accordingly.”) Do the math. At most top LACs far more than 50% of the students are on some form of financial aid. If the above assertion were true it would mean that the wealthiest students were at a disadvantage in admissions.</p>
<p>It does make sense that half of all admissions files are flagged for special consideration. Many of these kids are URMs, recruited athletes, first generation college applicants or kids with special talents in the arts or sciences, not development cases.</p>
<p>I won’t quibble with his central assertion, that middle and lower-income kids are at a disadvantage in college admissions, but this stew of misinformation makes it tough to assess.</p>
<p>im pretty sure that yale and stanford have single-choice early action. therefore, anyone that gets in is not BOUND to the school. therefore, they can check financial aid packages and compare them with other schools in the regular decision round.</p>
<p>I don’t see why not. If MIT is need-blind, they are not supposed to have any prior knowledge of your finances. It just doesn’t make sense why they would ask for financial info before decisions came out especially since she was rejected.</p>
<p>Hmm…well I can name about 20 at Columbia just from my sister’s circle of friends. I can name many others off the top of my head. Wealthy, prep school families try to package their kids by putting them in sports like archery, polo, fencing, and crew to help with Ivy League recruiting because naturally they are less competetive. And in regards to football, Columbia’s football team is probably ranked last, however their archery team is #1 in country. Not saying that I believe much of this article at all, but the concept of recruiting for strange sports is not conjecture.</p>
<p>Ummm… the Boston Globe is a tabloid that makes up facts? I think the Catholic Church wishes that were true, because it was the Boston Globe that blew open the pedophilia scandal in the Boston archdiocese after decades of cover-ups, and that’s just one example. </p>
<p>I agree that the whole “we want students who excel in one area” heavily favors the wealthy. One of D’s friends will be playing football for an Ivy league school next year. He attends a private hs that excels at sports, and doesn’t have a job - he doesn’t have time for a job, because he went to FOURTEEN football camps last summer. He’s a great kid - top of his class academically, very hard-working, personable and humble. But if he had to go to public school and work at a part-time job, would he have been able to excel at sports at the level to attract the attention of several Ivy league schools? </p>
<p>Also, I believe research is now proving what a lot of people already knew - the SAT favors the wealthy, and therefore makes it easier for the wealthy to get into college. </p>
<p>
And that doesn’t even include the known “coachability” of the SAT, and SAT prep classes aren’t cheap. Those who can afford SAT prep classes/coaching have a big advantage over those who can’t. Those whose high schools are geared toward the SAT have a big advantage over those whose high schools arent.</p>
<p>As for kids being recruited for rugby or polo - I know a kid who was recruited to a top school for Crew. And another who was just given a likely letter to Harvard for wrestling. Schools do recruit for non-revenue sports.</p>
<p>I didn’t say Columbia recruited for polo and I never mentioned rugby. I said prep school families package their kids for sports like these. I know an okay student at Penn Charter who was recruited for water polo at Penn.</p>
<p>I agree that schools recruit for odd sports like fencing, crew, and squash and that these sports are played primarily by kids from prep schools or wealthy backgrounds. To say, however, that schools are recruiting heavily for sports like polo is silly and makes me question some other the other “facts” contained in this opinion piece.</p>