<p>USNAgolden2014,
You are not completely understanding me here. It won’t make any difference whether you check the box for financial aid or not. If only it was that simple.
While these schools pretend they have no quotas, because they don’t have an exact “set” number for the various races, you can bet the farm that next year the racial diversity will look a whole lot like this year, i.e. 650-700 white kids. That part is obvious and well-publicized.
What is not obvious and well-publicized is that they have the same sort of non-quota quota for full-paid students as well. You can bet the farm that next year’s stats on how many students received financial aid will look very similar as well.
They don’t achieve this quota by looking at who checked the box asking for financial aid. They achieve it by taking students from schools where they know it is likely that the student will be paying full price. Unfortunately for you, most of those kids will be white.
You can’t calculate your odds the common sense way you are trying to do, looking at relative SAT scores, because that doesn’t take into account how few slots will be left after they take the full-pay quota. I would guess that your chances are 2-3% at best.
Now this is just my opinion, and I can’t prove any of it. But I have been watching this process for a few years now, wondering why one brilliant student after another fails to get into HYPS, and trying to explain it by saying, well, he didn’t have enough leadership, or he must have done a poor job on his essays, etc., and I have come to realize that it is none of those things. Now, I don’t blame these schools for wanting to take a reasonable percentage of paying customers. But I do fault them for being disingenuous about being need-blind, and causing all these kids to second guess themselves and their applications, when the truth is that they didn’t have much of a chance to begin with. Your grades and your scores at least get you a ticket into the lottery, and by all means enter it. Just have reasonable expectations, plan accordingly, and don’t blame yourself if you don’t get in.
You have a more reasonable shot at getting into Duke, because they have a little more respect for high SAT scores and they take more white kids, but even there, your odds are not quite as good as you would think. Read the common data set for the schools you are applying to, and check out the number of degrees they gave out in the area of study you are interested in, and that will help you calculate your chances as well.
Good luck, and who knows, the NROTC thing may help you stand out, and you may be one of the fortunate ones. Stanford is the epicenter of political correctness, but in the name of diversity, who knows?</p>
<p>okay I get what you’re saying
I thought that you were implying that applying for financial aid hurt your chances, but it’s the preppy/elite HS that decide your chances</p>
<p>Obviously I hope you’re wrong XD, but I must say that A) I completely agree with the fallacy of “need-blind” and B) I’m appalled that 1/2 of the admitted class doesn’t need aid,
which means that roughly 50% of the admits’ families make 200k+ (assuming that under that level you would at least get SOME aid), obviously only 2.7% of the US population makes over 200k so…</p>
<p>there is certainly a bias in the process that heavily favors the rich.</p>
<p>Thank you Graddis, hopefully I’m one of the lucky ones =D, but now I understand that my 30-50% chance was certainly (overly) optimistic.</p>
<p>USNA- While Stanford claims that 1/2 of the class doesn’t need aid, that’s according to their fin aid calculations. I have talked to tons of kids who were sure that they would get aid, didn’t get any, and are now having to take out loans/look for other options. All the top colleges make it look like they give out far more aid than they actually do. The brochures that places like HYPS release are designed to make it seem like they give out aid to almost everyone, unless they’re filthy rich, when in reality, only kids who clearly have lots of need are given aid. Also, the FAFSA and the individual college supplements do not paint a very clear picture of each family’s financial need, and thus Stanford is left with the impression that a family can spend $50K of their income a year on tuition and fees, while, in reality, the family doesn’t actually have that $50K to spend on school since it is required to help feed, clothe, and give opportunities to the other members of the family. I’m just glad that I was one of the lucky ones who clearly needed aid…
So you can’t trust that “1/2 of the class needed aid” statement. A much higher percentage of the class needed aid; they just didn’t get it, since their package didn’t line up with what Stanford is looking for.</p>
<p>lol I think I’m just giving up XD I’ll put my heart into my essays, but thinking about it is killing me and I’m starting to hate this whole process</p>
<p>don’t worry, you’ll hate it even more as the months go by… lol</p>
<p>you look like you have a great chance just about anywhere.
i would say wait on it though, because Stanford especially seems to be moving towards being harder to get in EA</p>