“Most Admissions officers I have met at selective schools truly want to get the top candidates regardless of ability to pay, and also make an impact on the demographics of their campuses with diversity and give those socially and economically disadvantaged an opportunity to move out of that position.”
You have to believe what they do, not what they say. Here are the rankings for social mobility for some selective schools:
Harvard - 186 (one of the better ones)
Princeton - 186
Brown - 224
Hopkins - 241
Stanford - 241
Yale - 285
Vanderbilt - 291
Dartmouth - 303
Chicago - 335
WUSTL - 381
So if an adcom from a selective schools says we really want social mobility, don’t believe them. Now if someone from say a Cal State or UC says it, for sure, believe them, their mission is social mobility and they do a superb job.
UC Riverside - 1
UC Santa Cruz - 2
UC Irvine - 3
UC Merced - 7
UC Davis - 9
“I believe the answer for many top colleges is yes.”
I disagree, and again a lot of it is lip service. If you really want to improve SES diversity, you’d recruit poor whites as well as poor blacks. I think your son/daughter goes to Williams, the highest poverty rates for whites are in places like WV, Ark, Ok, the highest poverty rates for blacks are in places like LA, MS. There are probably a lot of low-income whites in places like the Dakotas, WY, but not at poverty. Williams has zero from WV and the Dakotas, one from Arkansas, 3 from OK, while have 5 from LA and 6 from MS. I do credit Williams for not accepting anyone just to say they have 50 states, but no credit for trying to get poor whites.