<p>I was just curious about how chances are improved by having a lot of wealth. By estimation, say someone's family earns $6 million + per year, but has a 3.4 gpa, around 750 for most SAT scores, one all year sport, debate team captain for 2 years (as well as a national debater) in Public Forum, as well as multiple other outside activites (summer job, community service, and an instrument). Let's also say we're talking about a highly ranked prep school.</p>
<p>What kind of factor will that wealth have to make up for the rather low gpa in getting into a very famous college (i.e. MIT, Harvard, Yale, University of Chicago, if we want to use examples).</p>
<p>Note: these are not my personal scores, but of a generalization of people in my prep school neighborhood.</p>
<p>Well, since they are not applying for financial aid, how are the schools going to know how wealthy they are unless they offer to make a sizable donation and therefore, the kid becomes a "development" admit?</p>
<p>Anyone who tells you extreme wealth is not an advantage is just not facing facts. First of all, the wealthy are more able to apply ED and increase their chances of acceptance while those less fortunate are skeptical that the best FA offers come from ED apps. And many top U's admit they give special preference and even special interviews based on prompting from their Development Office whose job it is to identify potential big-time donors. Can you quantify the advantage? Not really as it depends on the school, but suffice it to say in this day and age when nearly every one who applies to a top school is capable of doing the work successfully, being extremely wealthy will help get your foot in the door, put your app on the top of the stack, and even get your file sent to the college president's office for a special stamp of approval.</p>
<p>This type of applicant is called a development applicant (as sunshadow stated.) The college expects that the kid and his parents will contribute A LOT to the school monetarily and, in some rare cases, publicity wise. I can't find the thread on it now, but a while ago some one posted an article that cited the example of fashion designer Ralph Lauren's daughters doing to Duke despite lower scores. Most schools eagerly seek development applicants. However, HYP are running the opposite way from these kids. HYP has been criticized for so long about being "old boy colleges" and "the last bastions of elitism" that they're going out of their way to accept more lower income applicants. They're trying to distance themselves as much as possible from the stereotype. There are two exceptions to this rule, however: celebrities and legacies with big checkbooks.</p>
<p>It's not the rich that are being displaced at HYP, it's the middle class. The middle class are becomming more and more underrepresented at top schools while the rich portion stays stable and always will.</p>