“These aren’t just elite institutions, they’re elitist institutions”

Parents Forum
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Suppose a top 1% family and bottom quintile family were equally likely to attend Vanderbilt. You’d expect the bottom 20% families at Vanderbilt to outnumber the top 1% families by 20 to 1 since there are 20x more bottom 20% families than top 1% families in the United States. Rather than the expected bottom 20% outnumbering top 1% by 20 to 1 at Vanderbilt, instead the top 1% outnumber the bottom 20% by 12 to 1. So a top 1% family is 12x20 = 240x more likely to attend Vanderbilt than a bottom 20% family. The full information for Vanderbilt is below.

Inflation Adjusted Median Family Income – $221,000
Share of students from top 1% – 23%
Share of students from top 5% – 47%
Share of students from top 20% – 70%
Share of students from middle 60% – 28%
Share of students from bottom 20% – 1.9%

Also note that the above stats are not from the most recent class. Several of the colleges listed in my earlier post have made key changes that will likely influences their placement. For example, WUSTL is less need aware, Cooper Union no longer gives a full tuition scholarship to all admits, etc. Vanderbilt’s most recent class may differ from above.

Yes, I abbreviated most schools to one word, which may cause confusion. Loyola refers to Loyola U in Maryland, not the one in Chicago, New Orleans, or Loyola Marymount.

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It is interesting to me that many posters think that the social distinctions are less obvious in college. In my view, this depends on where the student is coming from and where the student is going. Our area has a lot of people in the top 5%, and I would say that the majority are solidly middle class and up, though there is some economic diversity through the ability to transfer into the district while residing outside of it. However, there are next to no extremely wealthy families, of the type that one may encounter at the Ivies (and as noted, elsewhere). So the impact of social distinctions is muted. It could be considered as living in a “bubble.”

At the large public research universities, there are probably some students who are quite wealthy–over the top–well inside the top 1%, but there are not too many of them as a percentage of the student body.

At the Ivies, there are students of wealth levels that to me are still staggering. Also, I think that instead of the differences being washed out in college (everyone lives in the same housing and eats in the same dining halls–that part is true enough), for many students I suspect that the true advantages of great wealth start to become more apparent then. It doesn’t make any sense for Bill Gates to buy a super expensive hamburger (the grown-up analog of dorm residence and dining hall food), but there are much more ambitious things he can do with his wealth.

Wealth opens options that were previously undreamt by many people. A personal example of this involves the acquisition of fine art. As a high school student, I never thought about this at all. It was so far outside the realm of possibility that it did not cross my mind. Now I have several friends who are serious art collectors. It is a different world. I am not exactly envious of them (honestly), but if I had more money, acquiring art is one of the things I would do. I have pieces picked out that have not sold yet–all outside any realistic price range for me though. You probably have your own examples of what you would do if you won the lottery (if you ever enter it).

The relationship to the specific topic of this thread: It seems to me important to acknowledge that elitism or its absence involves more than the experience of students in the lower socio-economic classes at Ivy-like schools. There is an elitist element that one learns about when contrasting the top 1% in income (or lower) with the top 0.1% (or even higher). This means that much larger swaths of the student body are potentially caught up.

In my view, there is some economic snobbery that is detectable on CC itself. And a larger number of unthinking comments about what people can or should do.

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@Data10 You are kidding me. What an abuse of data.
“Suppose a top 1% family and bottom quintile family were equally likely to attend Vanderbilt.”

Who on earth makes that wild assumption?

Is the pie chart of brains, ambition, hard work necessarily equally split between the top 1% and the bottom quintile?

What percent from each apply to college? Vanderbilt cannot accept those who do not apply to college.

What percent of those applying to college from each then apply to Vanderbilt? Vanderbilt cannot accept those who do not apply to Vanderbilt.

What percent that do apply to Vanderbilt from each then have the GPA and test scores to attend Vanderbilt?
Vanderbilt cannot accept every kid who has a 2.5 GPA and a 20 ACT and expect those kids to keep up whether they are in the top 1% or the bottom 20%.

Vanderbilt is obviously skewing admissions criteria to favor non-Asian minorities and the bottom 20% and everyone on earth can see it in GPA and test scores. This is not even up for debate. It is fact.

I would go so far as to say, I guarantee you that a kid from the bottom 20% with an application better than the kid from the top 1% has a far greater chance of acceptance to Vanderbilt. They actively search and bend over backwards for these kids.

Replace ‘Vanderbilt’ with just about any Top 25 university in America and the answer is similar. Use data correctly.

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You mentioned not understanding why there was a 20x difference between the listed 240x ratio for Vanderbilt and the ratio between top 1% / bottom 20%. It’s a hypothetical example to explain why that 20x difference exists – there are 20x more families in the bottom 20% than the top 1%.

I believe the original source for comparing the likelyhood of top 1% families and bottom quintile families attending a particular college like this, is the study at http://www.equality-of-opportunity.org/papers/coll_mrc_paper.pdf . The abstract states the 77x figure roethlisburger mentioned earlier, which is requoted below:

“For example, children whose parents are in the top 1% of the income distribution are 77 times more likely to attend an Ivy League college than those whose parents are in the bottom income quintile.”

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All of this is an abuse of data and sends a terrible and inaccurate message to high school kids and their parents.

To all really strong students in high school and parents of these students, if you so happen to be in the bottom quintile financially, do NOT be discouraged away from applying to the Ivies or Vanderbilt or any other elite university when you see headline statistics like “77x less likely” or “240x less likely”.

Do NOT write these fine universities off your list. They are actually trying to find you and want to accept and pay for your education if you are an outstanding student.

If you’ve got the test scores, GPA, and an otherwise strong application, you’ve got a better than fair shake of a chance to be accepted versus equally intelligent peers with identical applications and the statistics bear this out.

Keep working hard, keep tackling difficult challenges, keep building your application and don’t be afraid to dream big!

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But not all bottom quintile kids either want an elite and apply- or matriculate, if admitted. (And of course, not all are qualified, in the first place.) It’s a factor in looking at the distribution of wealth at top colleges. More richer kids do apply and attend.

There’s a presumption in some posts that the fact of skewed wealth distribution makes “elitism” a goal pursued by these colleges. All the time. What says that?

If elitest means ‘a system should be led by an elite,’ why do you think they go to such lengths to announce themselves in poorer areas, seek out the best qualified lower SES, and support them financially, as well as academically and socially? You think it’s smoke and mirrors? Those big bad elites have a secret agenda only some can rightly see? Lol.

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@bloomfield88, while I applaud your advocacy, I think you are reacting to a different message than @Data10 is sending. It isn’t really controversial that college is difficult to afford, that students get scared to apply even though they shouldn’t, and the “elite” schools skew affluent.

I think the point @data10 is making is that the Ivies are not the worst at skewing “affluent”. In other words, they do a better job of finding and admitting and financially supporting lower ses students than other schools. I don’t think @Data10 is even speculating as to why, or discouraging anyone from applying, or suggesting that lower SES students are at a disadvantage once in the applicant pool.

My own thoughts on it are that schools lower down the food chain have to admit more full pay students out of economic necessity, and can’t afford to give out as much financial aid as they would like to. It doesn’t mean anyone should be dissuaded from applying, or that poorer folks aren’t wanted. but it may mean that financial aid at some schools may not be as free flowing as at the super elites. That is a good bit of data to know about at the time you apply.

If you think about it, but for the elite schools’ desire to financially support lower SES students, the lowest quartile would not be present on those campuses at all. The Affluence ratio would be 1000x. Some schools just are able or willing to support more students financially than others.

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And some of you presume poor kids have no idea of the wealth that does exist out there, probably never heard of Bill Gates or his foundation work. Feels like you’re still stereotyping.

I suspect some have no idea what poor kids ARE doing, the best of them, the ones who may attend an elite. How they interact in their wider communities, what exposures they can have had, etc. How they, themselves may have been mentored by successful others. It goes on. In ways, you present a picture based so much on deprivation and miss what these kids can do and have been doing. Look around, at them, too.

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Nope, it’s a presentation of reality, based on real data. It’s terrible, but it’s true. Being a Pollyanna won’t change this reality. telling poor kids and families some garbage like “just follow your dreams and believe in yourself, and you will achieve everything you set your mind to” won’t make it so.

It’s not “inaccurate” to say that only about 1% of all kids from the lowest 20% by income will attend an “elite” college, and only another 10%, at most, will attend a college which is at all selective (i.e., not open enrollment).

I’m also pretty sure that every poor family who is on CC knows the score. They won’t be reading this thread and exclaiming “Oh my!! I didn’t know that it was so difficult for poor people to get into an “elite” college. I think I’ll just give up now”.

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Most 17-year-olds with a pulse know about Bill Gates. Why would anyone presume that students from poorer families don’t know about him, and about his foundation work? But I suspect that quite a few 17-year-olds think that Bill Gates is more singular than he actually is.

I suspect that they don’t know the number of billionaires in the country, or even in their home states. In the same way that students at my college are likely to significantly overestimate the median household income, they are also likely to considerably underestimate the number of people in the state with a net worth of $10 million plus. Or make that $100 million plus, if you prefer. They might start finding this out by direct experience in college. (But probably not at a large public research institution.)

I don’t believe that Harvard and its ilk are deliberately economically elitist. True, it is in Harvard’s interest that the alumni should become “people of wealth,” who will donate to the college. Harvard probably promotes that.

I occasionally encounter very wealthy people in connection with my work. I am not particularly envious of them, but there are aspects of the interactions that are just slightly awkward. This holds regardless of whether or not they have given their teenage children an allowance of $10 a week or a beater car. If they did, that’s window dressing, cloaking the advantages that wealth provides.

Mostly, I think about science. When I was in grad school, and had friends who came from considerably wealthier families, mostly I thought about science. But it is not as if I never noticed the difference. I would imagine that the situation for science students at the Ivies is similar. It’s not debilitating in any way, but to pretend that the economic differences (for those not in the top 1% or top 0.1%) are totally unnoticed seems unrealistic to me. The differences don’t matter much. But it’s incorrect to suggest that they don’t matter at all.

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Just to clarify. My post earlier recalling a story my dad told me about going to camp with no extra money was misunderstood a bit.

The experience was not at all pleasant and it was obviously important enough for him to recall so many years later.

The story was speaking to the experience of less affluent students being surrounded with affluence.

I think it is a bit of a shock at first for students in this situation, when you’ve been in situations with many families and friends that operate in a similar atmosphere day to day to something so different.

You may be aware. You may watch tv and YouTube. But it’s a bit different when it’s your day to day environment.

My later observation that it became less of reality for my dad in and more of a source of motivation was from a rear view mirror.

The actual realization he had less resources was actually described to me, by him, that it was a source of embarrassment. It had to be hard.

And being poor at an elite school is a learning experience of its own. No doubt about it.

However, it is not a reflection of the schools or the warmth of most students. Students grow to understand and connect to each other over time.

The few snobs get sorted out into their groups over time. Kids are adaptable.

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It most likely becomes easier for a student to deal with disparities of wealth as the student becomes more mature. On the other hand, I expect that it does come as a bit of a shock the first time that one encounters a person who is much wealthier “in the flesh,” as opposed to on TV or in the news. Sometimes that happens in college. For me, it did not happen until grad school.

While the snobs may generally get sorted into their own groups, I continue to encounter snobs from time to time even now–it is not as if one can escape them entirely. It is probably useful to an Ivy student to know that there are such people.

Comment by a younger, Harvard-educated Rhodes Scholar upon meeting a non-Ivy Rhodes Scholar, “When people in my neighborhood hear that a Rhodes Scholar was selected from [your university], they just laugh.” It’s hard to forget a line like that.

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That was a nasty comment you heard and doesn’t tell us this was more than some whacked kid.

Some here seem to be insisting all rich kids are tyrants of the oppressor class.

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Yeah, some whacked kid who was a Harvard Rhodes Scholar, upon arriving in Oxford and meeting a previous year’s Rhodes Scholar (not me). . . at an official reception . . . not drunk (at least, not yet) . . . and presumably not on drugs. Plus, the Scholars had traveled to England by ship, so it wasn’t a question of poor judgment due to jet lag.

There was also the Harvard student who inquired very solicitously of me whether I thought I had obtained a good education at my large public university. It was not the question so much as the patronizing tone of voice, which is not possible to replicate here.

There were the Harvard students who stated that the Oxbridge universities ought to revamp their educational programs to become more like . . . wait for it . . . Harvard!

At my grad school, the Harvard students seemed to be rather hung up on the Harvard experience, to judge by their conversations–more so than the students from Yale or Princeton, who seemed to be more involved with their subjects and less with their alma mater.

This is a different type of elitism from the purely socioeconomic type. You will hear or read students talking about the “H-bomb,” as if mentioning that they went to Harvard will stop the conversational partner dead in his/her tracks. I was in a group of young scientists once when one of the group announced that he went to Harvard. The Ohio State University student in the group said casually, “Yeah, I’ve heard of it.” This still makes me laugh.

My spouse was a post-doc at Harvard, so we wound up reading the student newspaper from time to time, and seeing some of the official messages that were sent out by various administrators. Harvard considers itself to be the world’s leading university, which all others aspire to emulate. The communications from the university pump the students’ egos in ways I have not seen elsewhere. The material in the student newspaper did that doubly.

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My great-aunt, born in 1906, used to say “You can always tell a Harvard Man . . . but you can’t tell him much!”

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The elementary school I attended from grades 4-6 drew from the surrounding neighbourhood where I lived which was predominantly middle income. While there wasn’t a huge difference in our lifestyles there was quite a cultural mix between the kids who were 1st generation and those from families who were multi-generational. The first generation kids predominantly came from 1 of 3 backgrounds. Those whose parents had immigrated from Italy or Portugal, didn’t speak much English, had limited educations, and worked in unskilled labour. Those whose parents were from English speaking Common Wealth Caribbean countries (mostly Jamaica or Trinidad), with community college educations, and worked in lower paying white collar jobs. And finally those who had come from China or eastern Europe, were fully bilingual, and university educated, and had better paying white collar jobs. The multi-generational kids were British Canadian whose parents predominantly had post-secondary educations and worked in white collar jobs. Nobody’s parents were doctors or lawyers though they might have been accountants or teachers. While there was a range of incomes no one would have been considered wealthy but neither were they poor.

I straddled the two groups with my mother coming from a Spanish speaking Caribbean country (though completely bilingual and with a university education) and my father being multi-generational British Canadian with a community college education. Our income was comparable to that of the other similarly white collar families but we were a larger family so financially I was more similar to the kids who came from blue-collar backgrounds. I felt a bit of envy towards the kids who came from more affluent families but there wasn’t a huge disparity.

That all changed in middle school and high school. The subdivision we lived in was relatively new and there was no middle or high school nearby. We were all bused to school and those schools were located in neighbourhoods that were significantly wealthier and the kids who lived there came from non-immigrant families with parents who were professionals. The disparity in wealth was significant and we self-segregated between income classes. These schools were also fairly small so the dichotomy between the average and wealthy was very apparent. I found the middle to high school years very difficult to navigate and my experiences during those years have had a profound affect on me even to this day and we were by no means poor.

The university I attended also attracted a significant number of high SES students (it was a popular university with the wealthy kids at my high school). Even so I found it significantly easier to deal with the income disparity there than in middle school and high school. One factor was that the university was a large one so while many students came from wealthier backgrounds there were also a fair number of students who came from more modest means and from less metropolitan areas. What the school did not have though was a large amount of cultural diversity. The vast majority of students were from predominantly non-immigrant WASP backgrounds and the school did not have a very large international student population at that time. I think one of the levellers was that at that time a large proportion of the population still did not attend university so regardless of economic background we were judged more on our academic ability rather than our wealth.

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We live in an affluent area. I’ve worked at a private school in that area for many years now. My kids also attended the same school and had many friends who were quite wealthy. Our school does have a lot of wealthy students, but it also has a lot of kids on full or partial scholarships. There are also a lot of families where both parents work to pay tuition and they drive less fancy cars, go on fewer vacations, live in a modest home and make other sacrifices so their kids can go to this school. They’d have much more disposable income if they sent their kids to the local public school. All children of school employees get a tuition discount, so we got a great discount for D and S. That said, they still had to be tested to get in to the school.

I will say that all the kids at our school have wonderful opportunities. And that applies to all the kids not just the wealthiest. We have had plenty of wealthy kids who’ve gone to less expensive non elite schools. Then again, we’ve had a good amount of wealthy kids who’ve gone to elite schools. A lot of our scholarship kids go to elite school and end up doing well. We had one kid who was full scholarship, Hispanic, first in family to go to college. He went to Boston College, Harvard Medical School and he is just finishing up his residency. A lot of our scholarship kids fit in well with the wealthy kids. My D had plenty of wealthy friends and kids who were on full scholarships…they all seemed to get along and wealth wasn’t a factor.

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In the USA, wealth disparities are rarely an issue, for the wealthy. Barring a small group of very old money snobs, and a large chunk of “Havahd” graduates, most wealthy and very wealthy kids don’t put a lot of thought into wealth disparities. That’s been the repeated counterargument as to the claim that it’s difficult to be poor.

In the USA as in everywhere else in the world, being poor is considered to be something about which to be ashamed*. Wealthy people do not have to treat poor people badly to make them feel bad. It is part and parcel of being poor, and being reminded that one is poor.

Yes, I do think that wealthy kids at college should actually think a bit more about their wealth and the privilege, rather than ignore that. The resulting behavior would do a lot more for helping poor kids feel better than a rich kids pretending that there is no difference between them and a poor kid.

*This is something that has been demonstrated by a fairly large number of studies, so please do not posts responses denying this based on opinions, feelings, or anecdotes

@natty1988 “Scholarship kids” at private high schools are generally not actually poor. At Exeter, for example, any kid with a family income of 75% or less gets free tuition. That is about the median income for the USA, meaning within the mid quintile by income. I would be extremely surprised if anything but a small fraction of your “scholarship kids” was actually from a poor family.

This is a repeated theme of this thread - the lack of any understanding or even knowledge of poverty in the USA. People seem to actually think that “poor” means having an income of $60,000 a year.

Here is a fact - the bottom 10% by income, which are about 30 million, people make less than $14,600 a year. That’s the income range within which a family does not know whether they will have money for food, heat, rent, etc. Last year, there were about 300,000 kids of the high school graduating age who were in that income class.

PS. BTW, privilege isn’t something dirty, or something that people should reject. Wealthy people shouldn’t give away all of their money any more than people who have the privilege of being able to walk without issues should stop doing that. However, in the same manner that we help those who cannot walk, people with the privilege of wealth should help provide those who are at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder, especially kids who grew up there, with the basic opportunities that are lacking for poor kids.

In my opinion, an ideal world is not one that has no rich people, it’s one that has no poor people.

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Despite “studies,” I still wonder if you have first hand experience at these elite colleges, with these poorer kids. After all, you seem to be on the side of, “Yes, elite colleges are elitest.”

Elitism is not measured by how many rich vs poorer. Etc, etc.

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I really appreciate the post by MWolf and agree with most of it.

I don’t actually buy the idea that the very wealthy do not think about wealth disparities, however. Perhaps our family has been unusually unfortunate in the billionaires with whom we have interacted. There are some who have treated us as the next thing to nonexistent, when we have worked with them on community foundations on economic development. The whole group is trying to promote community development, we are not employed to do that, we are receiving nothing personally for it, and we anticipate no personal gain whatever. Nor are we asking for any favors. (Also, despite what you might conclude from my CC posts, we are not idiots. :slight_smile: )

There are venture capitalists who have closed down, cherry-picked, or forced sales of successful companies that were started by my colleagues on the basis of their (the colleagues’) scientific discoveries. The venture capitalists have usually made a profit for themselves in the process, but left the inventors with nothing. I suppose the inventors should be grateful not to have been left with debt.

We have a few colleagues who have been tremendously successful with their companies and do not understand why they are not admired more for having made a lot of money.

The level of wealth that in some cases causes one to ignore other people appears to set in quite high within the top 1%. I am sure that many people in the extremely wealthy category are generous. In fact, I know that many are. But among my extremely wealthy personal acquaintances, that group seems to be in the minority.

One certainly reads reports from time to time about students’ experiences at the Ivies that suggest that the super-wealthy younger generation are not that much different from the super-wealthy older generation. For other students to ignore snubs, or just write them off–sure, that is the healthiest response. But it seems to me that from time to time, the students would have a sense of being excluded–over a very wide range of family income percentiles.