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

MWolf, you are minimizing my points to make yours.

The two common assumptions are that poor kids at elites were not exposed to a solid education and that they’re deer in headlights, socially. Perhaps predicated on a view that they’re taken as tokens and left without support. I believe that’s false. We’re talking elites, not high admit colleges that admit nearly anyone and leave them to sink or swim.

An anecdote or two- or 10, or some study of quintile mobility, or percentages of minorities or low SES, don’t express their abilities as a group. Nor as individuals. At elites, they’re vetted through an admission process that includes a look a factors needed to succeed.

Of course, the achievers admitted to elites had AP opportunities. Even in under-resourced high schools. Of course they’re out in their communities, interacting, having impact. These achievers are the ones coveted by elites. Is it the luxury of richer kids? The extra advantages? Nope. But you’re pulling in extreme examples.

The stereotypes strike me as unfair. To both rich and poor.

I just got my hands on a copy of The Privileged Poor: How Elite Colleges Are Failing Disadvantaged Students by Anthony Abraham Jack and I am only 30 pages in so far. It talks about some of the factors that affect lower SES students at elite institutions. One thing that I have not seen talked about, but has affected many of the lower SES students at top schools I have had the privilege to interact with, is the struggles of the family/friends that those students leave behind. There is a guilt that is felt by most students in that situation and it sometimes affects how those students socialize in elite college settings. It can be hard for a student who sends work study money home to help keep the lights on to flow in the same social circles as kids from wealthy families, but I have seen that some students have no issues doing so. But I have also talked to students who have clustered within a group and rarely socialize outside of that group.

I know that one of my biggest fears that I had even going to a HBCU was a fear of going out to a restaurant and not knowing the customs and etiquette of fine dining (I did not eat at all at the 1st banquet I went to for my scholarship program because of that fear). It is sometimes the little things that causes people to cluster into groups that they are comfortable with, but we all should encourage students of all backgrounds to spread their wings and interact with one another because I believe that it helps us all become less judgmental and more understanding of one another.

There are high schools within 25 miles of my home where there is no high school physics class at all, let alone AP physics. Of course the students from those schools are not among the students who are admitted to the Ivies, from poor families.

We have a local public high school that is among the top 10 in the state, by various rankings. I also have colleagues “of wealth” who have moved 60 to 90 minutes away in order to send their children to private schools that are better than the reasonably good local high school, which offers quite a few AP courses (though none of the AP physics courses).

It is of course possible to learn to navigate in a world that is quite foreign, on a socioeconomic basis. One of my grandfathers dropped out of school in ninth grade and worked as a tobacco stripper for a while, before he quit that, too. His later life trajectory did not look like what you would predict from that information.

We are pretty solidly upper middle-class. My daughter had multiple opportunities to travel while in high school–many more than I had, growing up. But she claimed that “everyone” at her college had traveled more than she had.

I am not dumping on poor students who are admitted to the Ivies. I would guess that they are generally quite spectacular. But I have to suspect that most of their classmates cannot really relate to their life circumstances.

I am also not dumping on rich students who are admitted to the Ivies. I have talked with quite a few of them who have worked in soup kitchens and homeless shelters. At one level, they “get it” about being poor in America, but at another level, they really do not get it. Aside from that, most of them do not get where the actual middle class stands, socioeconomically.

I generally agree with MWolf, and think the points made are valid and on topic.

College is a time of mixing of students of different belief systems, cultures, experiences etc. Yes, the poor might have a harder time fitting into the elite colleges social structure, but so do a lot of other students say international students etc. Such is life.

I look at it from a “what is an administration supposed to do” standpoint. I see very clearly elite schools wanting and admitting more low SES students, elite sports and legacies notwithstanding. 60% of the Princeton class of 2022 are getting financial aid. 14% are first gen. That is a great trend, no?

But this change of demographic leads to a learning curve about how to best support those students. I see administrations earnestly trying to figure that out, but it takes time and mistakes will be made.

With that backdrop, I just don’t understand why people think elite schools are monolithic institutions whose goal is to reinforce the divide between the wealthy and the rabble. That’s the problem I have with this discussion- the assumption of intentionality behind the challenges some low ses students have. What I see is the opposite- an intention to break down that classism. Fact is, a campus is much more interesting with hard-working, accomplished students of all stripes, not just wealthy scions. Schools want that diversity and see it as essential to their staying “elite.”

For the people who see the poor students struggling, what are the administrations supposed to do differently?

Also, what about the racial minorities who have to navigate a place that most likely is very different than one they grew up in and which may or may not have a support system in place?

I don’t think there is any assumption of intentionality about the challenges low ses students face at the Ivies. If that is somewhere on this thread, could you point it out to me?

The colleges cannot undo the past. They can’t give the students from lower ses groups a trip to Rome at age 15, or a trip to Bora Bora at age 16. Nor can they give the poorer students a BMW at age 16. They could perhaps have them arrive at the college by private jet–that would be interesting. The colleges cannot undo the more pervasive, constant differences in opportunities and comforts in the students’ pasts, and continuing at least a while for their families. (In saying this, I am not discounting amazing things that Ivy students from lower ses groups have managed to do.)

Perhaps the Ivies could give all of their students a better picture of the breadth of economic conditions in the US. That might help. It could reduce insensitive comments based on mistaken assumptions.

Offensive assumptions are sometimes made by students “of wealth” about poorer families, because they just don’t know. I don’t want to point fingers inaccurately, so I won’t attempt to name names, but there was news not that long ago of two young men at Princeton who were the children of a relatively well-known figure, and who made comments that were rather nasty, based on their assumed position due to their family’s wealth. I am sure that they are in the great minority, but there are such people around.

F. Scott Fitzgerald observed that the very rich are “different from you and me.” Ernest Hemingway countered that of course they are, “they have more money.” But of the two, based on my observations, I think that Fitzgerald was actually a bit closer to the truth.

There are people around us (locally or in the extended locality) who expect to be admired based on their wealth, which is substantial. In a lot of cases, they have earned the wealth themselves, by their inventiveness or by providing items or services that are needed. It is interesting to me to observe their expectation of admiration.

The opinions on this thread, can’t hang on anecdotes. There are not-great kids everywhere and challenges, of course.

Any kid could have issues relating to a peer who’s been to Bora Bora or drives her own Mercedes.

And no, the underprivileged kid who struggles through high school, is likely not a candidate for an “elite” (as usually defined.) But there are kids who triumph, for many reasons. Sometimes, family drives, a mentor/program, etc.

The problem for poor kids needs to be separated for those who, for whatever reasons, struggle through comm college or an easy-access college, rack up debt and frustrations, vs those who’ve gained entry to an elite. Many top colleges have academic and other support that extends past schoolwork. These include proactive contact of various sorts.

Not all hs offer AP, true. That includes middle class +. But to state there are no advanced educational opps in poorer communities because you know of some that don’t offer advanced classes, is to miss the fact others do.

And this notion that some subcultures hang with their own needs some open thinking, as well.

It starts with the title itself and runs throughout. The very premise of the thread is that the schools themselves are “elitist” ie, trying to maintain a separation between the haves and the have nots.

I agree completely that a lot of wealthy folk have a false sense of entitlement to a spot at an elite school. I just don’t think that these days the schools are filled with scions who don’t belong there on merit. In fact, I think that is what is fueling so much of the Varsity Blues crap. What was once a foregone conclusion that Buffy would attend, now is the opposite, because so many others of diverse backgrounds earn the spot that Buffy would have walked into 50 years ago.

This discussion is going around in circles. I think the more interesting question is how do schools better support the lower SES students who are struggling. I am in the camp of people who didn’t see the economic divide at the student-on-student level, but I believe it is there. Still, the majority of students are getting substantial financial aid. People can find their tribe and ignore the snooty wealthy people. Those are in the minority. Who cares where they jet off to on spring break? Who cares if they get a cushy job at daddy’s company? With the right support from the school for lower SES students, the existence of snooty wealthy people on campus should be irrelevant.

^ And that institutional support is growing.

From the outside, I’ll agree, some of it seems unclear. I know of schools that identify kids based on “being” whatever, not necessarily needing support of any kind. But these efforts work to provide a sense of (sub) community. All sorts of ideas are out there and we’ll see them refined.

Is it the responsibility of an elite to teach rich kids how the other half lives? Outside the social sciences? No. But they can facilitate interaction and if you dig, I believe you will find ways. Perfect? Of course not.

An individual kid, regardless of SES, is limited by parental circumstances and choices. That some other K-12 schools are good does not help if s/he happens to be in a low quality one.

Ucb, don’t underestimate parental drives to see their kids succeed. Even lowest SES.
No, not all families.

I think, behind this thread, some ARE thinking of kids whose family circumstances make chances in life tough. But no, those aren’t the sort of poorer kids who generally end up in elites. (I do worry about the bright ones with few chances.)

What you state is a white middle class+ issue, as well. Remember posts from families living rural, where opps are few. Or whose best hs choice is a pseudo magnet that focuses as much on pre-professional studies and clubs vs more purely academic experiences and ECs.

I happily acknowledge that students from lower ses groups who get into Ivies are exceptional in personal characteristics and accomplishments, and that they may have had very strong high school preparation.

It seems to me that the opportunities those students have had are unusual for their ses group, though. Parental drive to see their kids succeed may be very high, but not enough. In this category, I think of the woman in Ohio who gave the school a relative’s address in order to get her children into a better school, who was sentenced to prison for that.

It is just not possible to remove the differences in life circumstances pre-college, even if the students successfully use their college experiences to move into the upper 1% socioeconomically. I have not seen evidence that says that the differences do not matter at all. Yes, the bright, but poor students will succeed, yes they will most likely interact with people from all walks of life, and they may even be generally comfortable doing that, but there are also bound to be sticky or uncomfortable situations for them, because of their earlier life circumstances.

Everyday life is just very, very different for students coming from wealthy families versus those in the middle class and the lower socioeconomic class. These illustrations are admittedly anecdotal, but I believe they are relevant: I thought that my fiancé’s family was rich, because the towels, bathmat, and shower curtain in their bathroom were color-coordinated. It always makes me uncomfortable when I eat in a restaurant where the bill exceeds the cost of my clothing–occasionally that has been true of the the bill for my food alone, not just of the bill for the whole table.

Another anecdote: I had a friend who was staggered that an Ivy-educated acquaintance of his purchased $400 shoes, when they were together shortly after college. At the store, he tried to warn the friend how much the shoes cost, thinking that he did not know. The friend said that he knew, he had purchased shoes like that before, and he liked them.

The Yale interviewer asked my daughter one question that I thought might have been designed to flush out upper-class envy, if it existed–probably because had it existed, it would have made Yale more difficult to negotiate (despite our now being solidly upper middle-class).

@ MWolf…

You say

There is no direct correlation between college prestige & percentage of rich kids. If you plot college prestige against family income of student body there is not a neat graph showing a straight line.Using the chart @Data10 linked to https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/college-mobility/ put in High Point U. Median family income $161,600. 9.2% from the top 1%; 68% from the top 20%, and 2.1% from the bottom 20%. Compare its numbers with Swarthmore’s: $165,500; 9% from the top 1%; 66% from the top 20% and 4.3% from the bottom 20%. From a financial viewpoint, the two colleges have similar students. I don’t think High Point is as prestigious as Swarthmore.

Look at Saint Joe’s ¶/Median family income is $175,200; 8.8% from the top 1%'; 74% from the top 20%, and 1.1% from the bottom 20%. I think it’s a fine college, but I don’t think it’s as prestigious as Swarthmore even if it’s student body is a bit more affluent.

Look at Colgate: Median family income, $270,000; 23% from the top 1%; 77% from the top 20% and 2.5% from the bottom 20%. Is Colgate more prestigious than Harvard at $168,800; 15% from the top 1%; 67% from the top 20% and 4.5% from the bottom 20%? Is Colgate more prestigious than Swarthmore (numbers above)? I don’t think so.

Do you think Kenyon College is more prestigious than Harvard or Swarthmore? I don’t. It’s median family income is $213,500; 20% from the top 1%, 75% from the top 20% and 1.7% from the bottom 20%. USNews ranks it #27 among national LACs, so it’s definitely a fine college, but it’s not as prestigious as Swarthmore,which has a somewhat less affluent student body.

Tied at #27 with Kenyon is Colorado College with a student body as affluent as Colgate’s. Median family income is $277,500; 24% from the top 1%; 78% from the top 20% and 2% from the bottom 20%

While the most prestigious universities DO attract many wealthy students–I admit that–there is NO 1 to 1 correlation between prestige and the family income of the student body.

Next, you claim that the lower the percentage of rich kids the more likely they are to step out of their bubble. I just don’t think that’s true. I think how much students from different socioeconomic backgrounds interact is dependent on many other factors. There are colleges with relatively small percentages of rich students at which most of those students still only socialize with one another.

You also say

Wealthy kids don’t attend Harvard to make connections with other wealthy kids. Even if I accepted your bubble theory–I don’t–they already know each other and there will be other ways to meet more of the moneyed class during summers and after college. That’s not their purpose in going to college.

Now, some of the rich kids who go to H will stay within the bubble of rich kids. But some of the rich kids who go to Indiana U or U Texas-Austin or High Point U or St. Joseph’s will do the same. THAT’S the point some of us are trying to make. You can’t tell from the percentage of rich kids how steep the barriers will be for poor kids.

There are lots of famous stories about rich and poor roommates becoming close friends at Ivy League–and other–colleges. One of the best-known is the friendship between Al Gore, son of a senator, & actor Tommy Lee Jones, who was from a working class family. They roomed together at Harvard & became very close personal friends.

Then there is the remarkable story of Sidney Frank, the largest donor to Brown University. Frank was only able to afford ONE year at Brown. That year changed his life. His Brown roommate was Edward Sarnoff, the son of the president of RCA. The two clicked and became fast friends. Sarnoff introduced Frank to his wealthy friends.It was through Sarnoff that Frank met his wife Skippy Rosensteil, daughter of the owner of Schenley Distilleries. Frank really enjoyed his year at Brown and he was determined that no Brown students should be forced to drop out for financial reasons as he had. So, he gave the largest gift in university history to make Brown need blind. https://www.brownalumnimagazine.com/articles/2007-06-13/the-giver

My own Ivy’s kid’s poorest first year roommate ended up marrying a classmate whose family is most definitely from the top 1%. They lived in the same dorm; that’s how they met. But boy did that young woman teach their richest roommate a lesson first year! Said roommate said something clueless first year and poorer roommate really reamed her out. Rich roommate learned quickly.

(The younger) Barbara Bush was at Yale while her father was president. One of her closest friends was a gay African-American who was definitely from the bottom 20%. He is a very talented artist and Barbara Bush is very interested in art. A shared interest in art was the basis of their friendship. She had a lot of other friends who weren’t particularly wealthy. (She also had some very wealthy ones.)

You also ask

Sometimes they do. More often, they give some other help. There’s the story of a wealthy young woman at a top school who started a course on table manners for students doing job interviews. Now, that’s not getting them a job, but it sure made a lot of students more comfortable when part of the interview involved eating lunch in a posh restaurant.

My own kid was neither rich nor poor, but due to participation in an EC, she had a number of business suits suitable for job interviews. During interview season, they were loaned out often! One of her close friends had participated in the pageant world. (She was Miss Teen__(a state). She had a collection of formals and those got borrowed a lot too.

One of my kid’s working-class friends admitted he wasn’t interviewing for NYC summer internships because there was no way he could afford a housing deposit for a place to stay. Within a couple of hours, he had offers from several classmates from NYC who had called their parents and gotten permission for him to live with their families during the summer. He interviewed and got a job, which lead to high paying post-college employment. Did the classmate’s parents get him a job? No, but they made it possible for him to accept a summer internship and save up enough money to pay for some of his post-graduation getting a job expenses by allowing him to stay with them for the summer rent-free.

You asked how rich & poor could meet through music. Pre-Julliard, orchestras, summer programs, etc. all include kids from a broad economic spectrum.

Again, YES, it’s tough to be a poor kid and go to a 4 year “sleep away” college. That’s 100% true. I just don’t think how tough it is is determined by the prestige of the college.

There is definitely a correlation between prestige and percent high/low income kids. However, that correlation is noisy with many exceptions because many other factors are relevant to what colleges high/low income kids are most likely to attend besides prestige. For example, comparing Stanford to its far less prestigious homonym Samford, the percent higher and lower income kids appear similar, as summarized below:

Stanford (4% admit rate) – Median = $167k, 52% in top 10% income, 66% in top 20% income, 4% in bottom 20% income
Samford (91% admit rate) – Median = $150k, 47% in top 10% income, 66% in top 20% income, 3.5% in bottom 20% income

One key factor is cost. Stanford is far more affordable for lower income students than Sanford, nearly all publics, and the overwhelming majority of other colleges in the United States. Stanford’s NPC suggest near $0 cost to parents (I realize actual cost may be more than NPC) for less than ~median US income through grant aid, not loans. In contrast, Samford’s FA focuses on loans. Among students with less than $30k income who claim federal FA, Stanford has an average net price of $2k, while Samford costs $20k. Among students with $30k to $60k income who claim federal FA, Stanford has an average net price of $5k, while Samford costs $25k.

Another key factor is admissions preference. Stanford is highly selective with admissions criteria that emphasizes areas where lower income students are often at a disadvantage. In this way percent high/low income tends to be correlated with selectivity, regardless of prestige. Stanford has some unique admissions preferences that favor higher income groups, but also most likely applies some degree of direct preference for SES disadvantaged applicants, like Harvard was observed to do in the lawsuit. Samford does the reverse and discourages lower income students via need aware policies, although it’s debatable how much impact need aware admission selection can have with a 91% admit rate.

Another key factor is location. The study at https://www.nber.org/papers/w18586.pdf found that being located <10 miles home from home was the most influential factor in where high achieving lower income students chose to attend. Samford likely has the advantage over Stanford in proximity of lower income students. However, they a big disadvantage in proximity of lower cost alternatives that are more known among lower income students. Most students who do choose Samford are out of state… likely wealthier kids who couldn’t get into a more selective college, not local Alabama residents. Instead Alabama residents tend to favor the lower cost Alabama public/community options. If lower income residents know people who attended or are connected to colleges, it’s most likely a public/community college, not Samford. Samford’s Birgmingham neighbor U Alamaba Birmingham also has a small portion of lower income students, but far better than Samford and Stanford, as summarized below.

U Alabama: Birmingham – Median = $81k, 15% in top 10% income, 31% in top 20% income, 8% in bottom 20% income

Among Birmingham colleges, lower income students appear to be highly concentrated at 2 year colleges. For example, Lawson State Community College shows a completely different distribution than the 4 year colleges above. Lawson State is less expensive than the other Birmingham options above, but not as low cost as Stanford for lower income federal FA recipients. I expect this pattern relates to both higher income students avoiding 2-year colleges and lower income students favoring such colleges.

Lawson State (2-year) – Median = $27k, <1% in top 10% income, 4% in top 20% income, 28% in bottom 20% income

I wouldn’t be so fast to group in international students into this dilemma. My observation is many hang out with each other and many are the richest kids at the school. FWIW

Very few students come from truly poor families at Ivy-plus colleges.

Princeton gives FA to some families with incomes of >$250k. A large portion of Princeton students receiving FA is not a good indication of having a large portion of low income students. In contrast, the linked NYT study found that 72% of Princeton parents families were from the top quintile income, which was the highest in the Ivy League + selected “elites” group. Only 2% of Princeton students were in the lowest quintile income, which was the 2nd lowest of in the Ivy + “elites” group. There appear to be very few lower income students at Princeton.

While some lower income students will face a variety of challenges at “elite” colleges, I think they are largely successful at the colleges. One supporting reference is the study linked in my earlier post. Rather than poor students struggling at “elite” college, my concern is more with admission policies to increase enrollment of lower income students, and there are many things administrators could do differently in that regard. `I’ll use Harvard as an example of an “elite” college because more information is available about Harvard, with the lawsuit. As I noted in earlier in the thread, Harvard does many things very well to encourage lower income students to attend. There are many, far more problematic colleges than Harvard. However, if Harvard wanted to increase lower income enrollment, there are areas that could be changed, some of which are mentioned below.

Harvard has a great FA package that makes it one of the most affordable colleges for typical lower and middle income families. Unfortunately few lay persons know about this great FA. Lower income students are probably less likely than most to know that Harvard may be affordable, in spite of the high sticker price. There could be a greater degree of outreach towards lower income students to increase awareness of affordability. Harvard was noted to have a large increase in URM applications after they changed the score thresholds for mailings encouraging students to apply. There are probably similar options to increase awareness of lower income students, emphasizing how affordable the college is likely to be for their families. There may also be outreach options to increase general knowledge of the school by working with existing pre-college organizations, as many/most lower income students have never known anyone who attended Harvard or similar.

As discussed, Harvard gives some degree of preference to applicants readers flag as SES “disadvantaged”, which seems to correlate to applicants with less than ~median US income. However, both sides of the lawsuit found that this lower SES preference was only applied to certain races. Lower SES enrollment would increase, if they applied the lower SES preference to all races, not just some races.

Harvard and most other elites favor a variety of hooks that tend to be dominated by wealthy applicants including legacy, athletic recruiting in less popular sports, donor/special interest list, and Z list admits. I’d also put early applicants in this group to a lesser extent. Harvard’s expert found that the student body would admitted class would follows if these hook groups were eliminated and replaced with a preference for lower income students. I realize eliminating most of these groups isn’t practical for a variety of reasons including ability to maintain the same degree of generous FA mentioned above, but it may be practical to reduce the degree of preference for some of these groups.

Class of 2019 without Listed Hook Preferences
Number of Athletes Admits – Decrease 93%
Number of Legacy Admits – Decreases 70%
Number of Special Interest List Admits – Decrease 69%

I would not anticipate that lower income students who are admitted to the Ivies would struggle very much. However, I would anticipate that poorer students would have moments of unhappiness when they compare their pre-college economically driven opportunities with those of their wealthier classmates. It is hard to avoid this entirely, even if the poorer students are extremely mature and accepting of the socioeconomic differences.

In my experience, the unhappiness is likely to be intensified if the classmates appear to be in any way critical of the parents of the poorer students. Such critical attitudes have been taken in the past, and there is certainly anecdotal evidence that this sort of thing still happens.

I don’t really buy into the “all one big happy undifferentiated family” vision of the Ivy admits, once they get to college. There is some truth in that, but not full truth.

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One of the things Yale does is the AO hires current students to do outreach over Spring break. S was not assigned to the schools that typically send kids to the elite schools in our city, but the low SES high schools and surrounding rural districts. Part of his pitch was an explanation of the generous financial aid offered. A “typical” family with AGI of $100,000 with modest savings and some home equity would have an EFC of 1/3 the cost of going to our state flagship (assuming full pay).

While it is an obvious truth that lower, middle and upper class kids/families have very different life experiences, the wealthy elite schools that this thread was started about probably provide a more egalitarian college experience than any State U. For HYPS and other schools that have gone 100% grant aid, there is no looming mountain of debt. Having $20,000, $40,000 or higher debt upon graduation limits student choice in majors, activities and interests to pursue during and after college. On campus living/dining is typically the norm, so the vast majority of students live/eat under the same conditions and within the same physical facilities. Clubs and activities are heavily subsidized so that any monetary barrier is very very low or non-existent. The end effect is students are pretty free to socialize/group themselves based on shared interests. This certainly was the case for me and is the case for S.