This may have been covered previously so I apologize if I am bringing up an old discussion. Most top tier colleges outwardly proclaim that admission is NOT considered based on FA need. However statistics prove that this is indeed not the case…not even close!
“At 38 colleges in America, including five in the Ivy League – Dartmouth, Princeton, Yale, Penn and Brown – more students came from the top 1 percent of the income scale than from the entire bottom 60 percent.”
If what they are saying is true how can they explain this discrepancy? Full link below.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/01/18/upshot/some-colleges-have-more-students-from-the-top-1-percent-than-the-bottom-60.html
Beaten to death. Usually by folks who don’t know how admissions works and just hope they can figure something out from the apparent numbers. And then get others agitated (and get a few more clicks on the NYTweb site, lol.)
Statistics don’t “prove” how decisions are made. They’re snapshots, after the fact.
The Need Blind I know best has no idea of income or assets when reviewing.
Lots of people think the rich apllicants have more priveleged experiences, so are more likely to get a plum admit. Really? It’s such an odd myth that money somehow makes one kid “better” than the next. Each applicant has his own app to fill out.
It would be very interesting to see what percentage of applicants come from the bottom vs the top. I suspect that really is the issue and the fix needs to come long before kids are ready to apply to college.
They could be telling the truth that reading of individual applicants’ applications for admission does not consider financial need.
However, the design of admission processes and criteria can certainly affect the financial need of the class as a whole, and usually consciously and intentionally so, since colleges need to avoid overrunning their financial aid budgets.
Here are some examples of how admission processes and criteria can correlate to financial need of the class as a whole, even if financial need is not considered for individual applicants’ applications:
- Heavy use of early decision: less likely to be used by those who need to compare financial aid offers.
- Use of CSS Noncustodial Profile: screens out financially needy students with uncooperative divorced parents, who are more common at lower income levels.
- Use of recommendations: financially needy students are less likely to be in high schools where counselors and teachers have practice and experience writing good recommendations.
- Use of interviews: since alumni are usually upper middle to upper class, they may connect better with applicants from upper middle to upper class backgrounds in terms of social norms and habits; those from other backgrounds may need to specifically prepare for upper middle to upper class social norms and habits in interviews.
- More application requirements generally (CSS Profile, SAT subject tests, recommendations, etc.): financially needy students are less likely to be in high schools with a well-oiled college admissions express train that ensures that all students meet the requirements on schedule.
- Use of legacy preference: an additional unearned advantage for some of those who are more likely to have grown up in financially and otherwise advantaged families with college educated parents.
- Use of level of applicant's interest: financially needy applicants may not be able to show interest through use of early decision or visiting the college.
- Emphasizing test scores: stronger correlation to family income than other academic credentials.
I agree with @ucbalumnus and would add low-income individuals particularly from poor states/school districts have many disadvantages in the admission process:
• PSAT not offered till 11th grade vs. 8th, 9th or 10th in some wealthier areas/states.
• Some students’ families can’t afford to travel in general, or to colleges, so the idea of attending college OOS and in a city or state they have never been to is intimidating. Applying early decision just isn’t done except by a very few. I’m curious what the percentage of ED is in wealthy public school districts.
• Don’t know how or that they should show interest in ways other than visiting which they can’t do (requesting interview, emailing, etc.) so at a disadvantage at some schools where this is important.
And probably most important:
• Don’t get support from home in the application and/or educational process in general.
• Don’t know how to take advantage of potential opportunities such as internships, community service, etc. which are really open to everyone regardless of income. A student can pursue these but how often are connections, good teachers/counselors who encourage them for a particular student and parent involvement a factor in making these opportunities happen for students (which then get listed on the common app)?
Bodangles, rich kids can squander those opportunities or still not be bright enough to get it. And nothing says lax camp or tutoring is what drives an admit.
And again, when we speak of Need Blind (what OP brought up,) we’re usually talking top and very top colleges. In general, it’s a mistake to assume kids qualified for these get no mentoring or support, just because it doesn’t come from their parents (or that their teachers are lousy.) These kids are often out there doing meaningful comm service, eg, and enrichment opps.
No, not all. But neither are all rich kids “advantaged” cuz their parents can pay for things. These kids still need to be able to think.
Adding to @ucbalumnus list, is that many colleges ‘recruit’ or visit high performing high schools in wealthy suburbs and court private school applicants.
Adding to @cafe9999 point is that a great portion of the bottom income kids, attend failing schools or low quality schools where students aren’t meeting standards, or getting the education necessary to compete for spots at selective colleges.
Many top colleges carefully focus on lower SES high schools, look for their best.
C’mon. The kids who aren’t doing well in hs are NOT the targets of the top colleges. Apples and oranges. They wouldn’t thrive. It’s a completely different argument whether more low income kids should be better prepped for college, in general.
You have to look beyond stereotypes.
It’s also nuts to assume a grad of a top college can only successfully interview a certain class of kids. They aren’t looking to chat about their country clubs.
I was a low income kid. It was never mentioned – ever – that colleges offered money to low income kids with high stats. My low income friends and I couldn’t participate in the competition for spots because we weren’t aware one existed.
My family didn’t have the money to pay for residential college, so I never applied to one. I went to a cc and spent the next 9 years taking classes as I could afford them. I was an honors student with above average stats. Had I known aid existed, I would have pursued it.
Today’s advantages, austin, far exceed what was available back then. It’s not perfect today, but better.
Of course money can’t buy a kid critical thinking skills but it can buy tutors, prep, better school districts, and on and on.
Rich kids have an ENORMOUS advantage in college admissions.
Sample size of one but the low SES high school I was supposed to go to (moved in middle school) did NOT have any of the top colleges targeting. I went to their college fairs and they were basically just schools within commuting distance.
This wasn’t that long ago.
College admissions directors at the top schools aren’t stupid. They know how to shape their admissions policies to get any desired percentage of both full pay and Pell Grant recipients. To focus on how an individual app is rated instead of the aggregate statistics is to miss the big picture.
The few schools that both meet full need and are need blind have such large endowments that they don’t need to be concerned about percentage of full pay vs. Pell.
Even Harvard-level endowments are not infinite, and some endowment money is restricted by donor stipulations. So even the wealthiest colleges do need to practice some financial planning with respect to how much financial aid they expect to offer to their students (as well as other spending decisions, such as whether to spend $45,000 per student or $15,000 per student on instructional and academic support costs).
@lookingforward, how do you account for the disparity between top 1% and bottom 60% that the OP mentions, if not for admission officers being able to approximate need when reviewing apps (even if they’re not given specific FA info)?
While admission readers can often guess applicant SES from the application, they do not really need to do so for individual applicants for the purpose of financial aid budgeting. High level policies and procedures set before application season can be designed to give an expected level of financial need for the entering class. See reply #4 for examples of such policies and procedures and their effect on the financial need for the entering class.
Not sure this was OP’s question. The way the thread has been meandering.
Lets say you are a rich parent, who could full-pay with minor sacrifices.
Is it better to apply indicating that you are full pay, or is it ok to apply for merit/loans?
Would the chances be reduced if you did, even though colleges claim there is no difference?
OP’s statistic does not prove it one way or another.
@rgosula - The questions you’re raising needs a separate thread. What OP is addressing is the issue of economic divide and whether the “need-blind” is truly blind, not what your admissions chances might be if you indicate full-pay or not. There are multiple threads on that very issue.
I’d also add to the list of factors that ucbalumus and others have already pointed out, namely, the possible causes of the economic divide among top schools: the long-held perception among the poor that these schools are for the rich, too expensive for them, and therefore out of their reach.
This traditional and wide-spread perception is, after all, what gave the rise to the “need-blind” admissions policy to begin with as a way of combating the prevalent problem that has existed for centuries. To say now that need-blind is not really blind doesn’t fly in the face of the concerted efforts that the leaders in higher education have been putting earnest investments in for the past couple of decades. Only a decade ago, no one mentioned FLI (first-generation, low-income) in the same breath with “hook.” Now, it is – a lot.
At Princeton, among the latest crop of 1,322 students who accepted offers of admission,16.9 percent are first-generation – mostly of poor income family – college students, the most in Princeton’s history. The Dean of Admissions, Rapelye, said 22 percent of the incoming class are eligible for Pell grants. Expect these figures to grow in the future as Eisgruber, President of Princeton, is very seriously committed to bridging the economic divide among incoming classes.