<p>Despite</a> Harvard outreach, the needy face socioeconomic gulf - The Boston Globe </p>
<p>Hat tip to a news aggregation site for finding me the link. </p>
<p>See </p>
<p>Cost</a> Should Be No Barrier: An Evaluation of the First Year of Harvard's Financial Aid Initiative </p>
<p>which leads to </p>
<p>for a detailed analysis of how the Harvard Financial Aid Initiative influenced admissions, with no analysis of what happened to students after they arrived at Harvard.</p>
<p>Thanks for the links. The socioeconomic divide is alive and very real not just at Harvard but at highly selective colleges and universities across the country. And kids don’t have to come from poverty to feel that they “don’t fit in.” Every year there are students in our community from middle class backgrounds who either decline offers of admission to top private colleges to attend SUNYs, or who drop out of their highly selective school after a semester because of perceived poor social fit. While there is more to be done to insure that talented, economically disadvantaged kids find a real “home” at Harvard, the university is to be applauded for recognizing this problem, speaking out about it, and seeking better ways to ease the transition from the ghetto/barrio/rural backwater resident to elite college student.</p>
<p>I think there is a bit of hyperbole in these articles. Even a lot of students who some consider “rich” work in dorm crews etc and all during the school year. They also don’t have tuxes etc.</p>
<p>I may be reading it wrong but that paper on financial aid has a lot of inverted bell curves in its figures. Makes me think that there may be a trend towards a bimodal distribution in the student body- a lot of scholarship students with family incomes <60K, and a lot of full-pay students with family incomes >160K, and not too many students in the middle. If true, that would only deepen the socioeconomic divide on campus.</p>
<p>The linked paper gathered data before the middle-class financial aid initiative that followed the original Harvard Financial Aid Initiative by a few years. Perhaps more current figures would show a different distribution of incomes in Harvard’s most recent enrolled class.</p>
<p>^^ Ah…glad to see they are moving in the right direction. Harvard seems like a really nice school. I really don’t understand why people bash it so much. And I don’t think my opinion will change if/when my D is denied next year :-)</p>
<p>I am posting because as a parent whose kids attend Harvard on nearly full aid, I can speak firsthand. This article is twisted. It does not tell about people with similar background but different experience. My kid does not feel ashamed due to lack of money. Yeah there are times when kids may not be cultured as compared to their rich classmates, but so what if they have not gone to Europe. Extracurricular activities take up so much time, that they have rarely time to dwell on the money matters. In addition, the money earned during summer internships allows one to have enough living expanses for the year. As far as final club is concerned, it is not end of all. My kid has many friends who attend Harvard on full aid, but kid has friends whose family are among wealthiest in the world. Bottom line, Harvard offers opportunities that are the most important aspect about college.</p>
<p>I’m a Harvard alum who agrees with collegeinusa.</p>
<p>I was on financial aid, worked during the summers and school year, and usually took Greyhound to Harvard from my town, which was 250 miles away. </p>
<p>Most of the activities that I did were free or dirt cheap ones on campus. Harvard has many free things to do. I was a member of the Crimson newspaper and the radio station and did a few other things. Money never was an issue because my ECs were campus based, intensive and didn’t require any extra money.</p>
<p>I had some friends who flew to Europe for summer vacations. My boyfriend’s family was so poor that they received charity baskets of food from their church. My best friend literally lived in a mansion. Money, however, was no barrier to friendship.</p>
<p>I never heard anyone put another down due to their lacking money. Harvard students were far more interested in what went on in people’s heads, not what was in their wallets.</p>
<p>I have seen far more snobbishness about money at public universities, including a second tier one where I used to work, and where a large proportion of students qualified for Pell grants.</p>
<p>I knew one student who was in a final club. No one else I knew was interested in such things.</p>
<p>Due to the career track my husband and I have pursued – journalism, nonprofits, professors at a public-- my family income is probably in the bottom fifth of my class. No one cares. At reunion, most reminisce and talk about ideas, our kids, our vocational and avocational interests. We don’t talk about money and material things. Well, I do remember one man who did talk about material things at our 25th reunion. Others considered him to be crass</p>
<p>Repeatedly I hear references to final clubs. I have a vague idea what they are. I assume that they work like frats at other schools. I get the general sense that they are elitist? What percentage of students are actually in them? Male only I assume and freshmen males I also assume are those that attempt to join. How do they hold functions. Frats at Duke had their own houses. I am guessing that there is not a definition on Harvard.edu.
I have a daughter, so in a sense it does not matter.</p>
<p>smoda,
Both men and women can be in finals clubs. Here’s the explanation of them that I gave in another thread:</p>
<p>"Finals clubs are social organizations. They throw parties, provide an opportunity to network with other students and alumni, have social events for their members, and some are involved in community service. There are both male and female clubs - all of the male clubs have houses on campus (not <em>officially</em> on campus though, because the administration doesn’t recognize them). Maybe 2 or 3 of the roughly 5 female clubs have houses as well.</p>
<p>You get into a club during your sophomore year (or occasionally as a junior). The process of getting into the club is called “punching.” A club (or several clubs) expresses interest in you by inviting you to a “punch event” via an invitation clandestinely slipped under your suite door. At the events, you basically go mix and mingle with the members and other “punches”. After each event, there is a round of cuts. Those people who make it through all of the cuts are accepted into the club, and then go through an initiation process similar to that of a fraternity or sorority.</p>
<p>Freshmen girls can get into the parties because upperclassmen typically want them around. Freshmen boys generally can’t get in because the men in the club have no incentive to let them in - they’ll get their chance to be in the mix next year and the year after. The “no freshmen boys allowed” thing isn’t a hard and fast rule though - some clubs are more lax about it, and it can also vary from event to event. If it’s a “list party” then no one who’s not on the list can get in, regardless of age or gender. If it’s a more open thing, then most people will be let in (provided they know someone in the club, or are with someone who knows someone, or just come along at the right time, etc.), even freshmen males. But if they’re seen in there, it may be held against them the next year during the punch process. Open parties are more common than “list parties” so getting in isn’t a problem for people who want in - freshmen boys just enter at their own risk."</p>
<p>I’m not sure what percentage of people are in finals clubs, but I can assure you that people from all socioeconomic and racial backgrounds are in the clubs. So they’re only “elitist” in the sense that a membership selection process exists. I was in a female finals club briefly while I was an undergrad and had plenty of friends (male and female) who were in clubs and plenty who weren’t, and I can assure the people in the clubs are just normal students like everyone else. </p>
<p>If your daughter decides she’s not interested in that scene, she’ll have no problem ignoring it. If she decides she’s interested, I doubt she’ll have a problem becoming a part of it.</p>
<p>Smoda- wikipedia has good descriptions of the various clubs- search “Harvard Final Clubs”. Another revealing article is “The Isis Crisis” a Harvard Crimson article which reveals the back room selection process of Isis, one of he femal final clubs. The club accidently left their email site open to scrutiny, and it was copied by The Crimson. While the club purports to choose campus leaders, in reality it judges it’s candidates on the superficial. (Clothes, drinking ability, etc.)</p>
<p>From the first link: “The stakes are high here,” Fitzsimmons said in an interview. “If we aren’t educating the full range of the population, we won’t be educating effective future leaders of the country.”</p>
<p>Not to mention that Harvard will be anally assaulted by the federal government if they don’t start getting more low-income students to attend.</p>
<p>Also, it seems to me that the experience at Harvard of the student profiled in the article (Garcia) is basically a typical college experience (waiting for the washer and dryer in the dorm basement? Heavens!), but the drudgery of typical college dorm life is just more noticeable when some rich kid in the room across the hall is packing for his ski trip to Switzerland while you’re meanwhile packing your washer full of dirty underwear and detergent.</p>
<p>caramelkisses - Thanks for the overview.</p>
<p>Fauve - I’ll check out wikipedia.</p>
<p>I appreciate the help. :)</p>
<p>Without underestimated the gap between the students from low-income backgrounds and those from extremely wealthy ones, I was amused by some of the illustrations of this gap.</p>
<p>I don’t know of any friend of my S who has his clothes commercially laundered. They say it’s more of a hassle than watching their clothes dry. Nor did his friends buy a tux new. There’s Keezer’s for that. </p>
<p>Finally, as a group, they seem fairly stingy. Over the last four years, my S reports that he has seldom spent more than $100 per month (not counting books and clothing which I have to buy for him otherwise he would have nothing to wear).</p>
<p>The point of the Boston Globearticle is not to demonstrate that all students from poor backgrounds will feel ill at ease at Harvard. The jounralist is simply illustrating, using juxtaposition (not hyperbole), that it is very easy for a low-income student to feel as though he doesn’t belong. That much is true, at least from what I’ve heard, seen, and experienced during my short stay there.</p>
<p>That being said, when I did visit Harvard, I managed to randomly meet up with three other pre-frosh who came from low-income backgrounds themselves. Thanks to Harvard’s Financial Aid Initiative, the chances of this are higher in the Class of 2013 than in previous classes, but not by much.</p>
<p>I agree with collegeinusa and Northstarmom. Admittedly our family is not low-income, but we are definitely of modest means; our S would not be at Harvard without the financial aid he receives. We have been amazed at how little he has spent while at Harvard, and get the distinct impression that all of his friends are similarly thrifty. Regardless of family background and income, the impression we have received is that Harvard students are not fans of consumerism, and if in need of a tux for a music group, MOST would choose to buy used rather than buy one in a retail store.</p>
<p>Our kid has never felt anything but accepted and appreciated at Harvard, and it has only been as the year progressed that he has had any inkling that there might be income differences among his family and his friends’ families. These differences were certainly not readily apparent, and they have not posed any barrier to friendships.</p>
<p>I read this article this morning, and felt that there was some exaggeration, perhaps because the reporter started out with a thesis and then went out and found students who would support it. </p>
<p>I have read that 70% of Harvard students receive aid (of course, some of these families make $180,000 and are still counted in the financial aid ranks), and 20% of students apparently come from families making under $60,000. Our daughter is definitely at Harvard because of the aid, without which she could not even consider it. She has never expressed any discomfort whatsoever.</p>
<p>Maybe the kids who send out their laundry should be the ones to feel uncomfortable, especially in the recession. Do kids age 18 really own a tux? Really, I don’t think so.</p>
<p>There are other, more important, disparities on campus, such as differences in academic preparation. However, I have read, on that subject, that some of the kids from private schools are more “jaded,” while the kids from public schools are “fresh” and eager, and therefore, after a year or two, everyone is sort of on the same level. I have no idea, because, although our high school is pretty poor quality, our daughter does not really compare herself and is pretty relaxed about grades.</p>
<p>I was going to write the paper a letter, that admissions loves kids who have “overcome obstacles,” including financial adversity, and other things like disability or chronic illness, or family tragedy, etc. etc. But that there is a disconnect, or a time lag if you will, between admissions and the college itself, in these matters. Someone else alluded to this earlier.</p>
<p>Harvard seems to be trying to improve orientation, advising, proctoring and other freshman supports. Drew Faust seems to be trying to modify the Type A environment by beefing up the arts (new majors in visual and theater arts) and in speaking up for humanities and “learning for learning’s sake” versus the competitive pre-med, pre-law and pre-business focus of many.</p>
<p>However, no amount of advising or speeches by Faust is going to quickly change the sort of “survival of the fittest” culture at Harvard. Kids are expected to be assertive and advocate for themselves from the get go, which is fine for many. But for kids who are not from backgrounds where they are used to supports, who are used to being really on their own, it can be difficult to even realize that one can get help by advocating for oneself.</p>
<p>In a related area, there may be a group forming for students with disabilities and chronic health issues, to improve the experience for them at Harvard. Admissions also loves these kids, but the resources on campus do not match admissions’ enthusiasm, and I have heard stories about problems with accommodations. This is another area of diversity, perhaps even the last frontier, as they say. </p>
<p>Every student who is admitted to the college should be able to thrive there. I really believe that admitting a student means the college itself has a responsiblity to that student, for the next 4 years- as well as the student having responsibilities to work hard and contribute to the school in whatever way he or she can.</p>
<p>As a student who choose Harvard because of its generous financial aid, I also found that article to be… misleading if not exaggerated. I found the part about ‘waiting hours for laundry’ especially amusing. Not only do I know plenty of extremely rich kids who do their own laundry, but more important, laundry just takes 2 hours to do. That’s just how long it takes everyone. We just drop it off there and go back to studying…</p>
<p>I would also second the opinion that money almost never separates friendships here, at least from my experience. I have friends who are wealthy and extremely wealthy, we go to Annenberg, we go to CVS, and we go to Noch’s. Most people here are thrifty. I would actually say that people who spend alot of money in the open develop a stigma. Besides the Final Clubs (non of us feel like we’re missing anything by not going to them), the only group on campus that discriminates based on wealth is the Hasty Pudding Social Club.</p>
<p>"The jounralist is simply illustrating, using juxtaposition (not hyperbole), that it is very easy for a low-income student to feel as though he doesn’t belong. "</p>
<p>That’s true, however, at most colleges in the country. At the second tier public in the town where I live, there are sorority and frat houses that literally are mansions. For the first time, I visited one last Dec., and was surprised to see that there were several huge livingrooms with antique furniture and professional decorated Christmas trees. The parking lot had cars that each must have cost $50 k or more.</p>
<p>I didn’t see that kind of ostentatiousness at Harvard, where virtually all students live in dorms, which are comfortable, but not luxuriously decorated. </p>
<p>There’s far more conspicuous consumption and adoration of wealth at my local second tier public than there ever was at Harvard.</p>
<p>Harvard has been very supportive of me. As someone coming from a family way
below the <em>poverty line</em> I can vouch for the fact that Harvard opens up the
world for its undergraduates. (My family though is wired a little differently in that
strategic values are more important than tactical gains. Poverty at home would
mean not spending time with Hemingway:))</p>
<p>From tickets to the Symphony to extra cash to get warm coats Harvard financial
aid will level the playing field for any admitted student in their usual understated
classy way.</p>
<p>I was attracted to Harvard for the reasons NorthStarMom outlines. Every alumunus I spoke
to seemed to value intellect and caring significantly over material wealth accumulation.
This was reflected in their pursuits and passions.</p>
<p>Now that I am here, the feeling has not changed. Mustafah, I often
have to remind myself about my economic status since it is so easy
to forget when I am here that some of my best friends have parents
who earn more in two weeks than my family does in a year. The point is it is not
important to remember!</p>
<p>I do know one thing, all this kindness will not be forgotten and I hope I will
be able to make some student feel good anonymously as other alumuni are
making me feel with their scholarships and grants.</p>