Sorry DCUM middle class, your kids are screwed for college

[Anonymous]

Nothing new here. There's already been 11 pages of discussion about this article:

https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/1175258.page

[Anonymous]

I think there's a huge misunderstanding: The analysis shows the relative likelihood of admission by income AMONG only those with similar test scores. That is, if you have super great test scores and are poor, you have a higher likelihood of admission to a top school than if you are upper-middle class and have great test scores. That makes sense: My kids (grad-school educated parents, going to a decent school) should score higher than kids with uneducated parents who go to a crappy school. If a student in that situation scores well, that indicates great potential. What's BAD is that rich kids with good scores ALSO have higher chances of admissions.

But OVERALL, upper middle class kids are more likely to get in BECAUSE they have higher test scores. Most kids with educated parents at good schools will be better prepared for college and therefore are more likely to be admitted. Among all test-taking students, lower-income kids are only about half as likely to attend Ivys as average (https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/09/11/upshot/college-income-lookup.html) And many poor kids don't even take the SAT/ACT.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes, we’ve been complaining about that here for years. That’s why our high stat, heavy EC, volunteer kids mostly end up taking a scholarship to Big State U. Our kids are too privileged for a hand up and not privileged enough for a handout. No one cares about them.

Your kid’s education was subsidized both by the state and by a scholarship but you didn’t get a handout?

Man why do kids living in poverty get all the breaks!!!!!

No one is saying they don’t deserve it. Some of us are acknowledging that being in the middle gets you ignored. Two things can be true at once.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes, we’ve been complaining about that here for years. That’s why our high stat, heavy EC, volunteer kids mostly end up taking a scholarship to Big State U. Our kids are too privileged for a hand up and not privileged enough for a handout. No one cares about them.

Wut.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes, we’ve been complaining about that here for years. That’s why our high stat, heavy EC, volunteer kids mostly end up taking a scholarship to Big State U. Our kids are too privileged for a hand up and not privileged enough for a handout. No one cares about them.

Your kid’s education was subsidized both by the state and by a scholarship but you didn’t get a handout?

No, they earned it with high stats and crazy hard work and they raise the test score and GPA stats for the school in return. As opposed to just the pure luck of being born into a wealthy or political family and getting an Ivy education that will continue to make them more wealthy than their state U middle class peers even if they had lower stats.

Well I’m glad you think your kid is special but nobody else does.

They can definitely be rewarded for their superb work with massive merit aid at the University of Alabama or even full scholarships at many midrange (but very nice) private schools that cost $55k a year and not $90k a year.

Tim Cook, who is CEO of the richest corporation in human history, went to Auburn.

The current President of the United States went to U Delaware. The VP went to Howard. The Speaker of the House went to Louisiana State.

Success comes from talent and work, nobody hands it out at Yale.

Anecdotes are really not an effective way to prove a point. For every Tim Cook, there are 100 Stanford, Harvard, etc graduates or dropouts that have a net worth probably 100x+ of Tim Cook considering he was not a company founder.

At least use the founder of Nvidia as an example…though while he did undergrad at Oregon State he did grad work at Stanford.

The Google guys also credit Stanford and its connections far more than UMD.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes, we’ve been complaining about that here for years. That’s why our high stat, heavy EC, volunteer kids mostly end up taking a scholarship to Big State U. Our kids are too privileged for a hand up and not privileged enough for a handout. No one cares about them.

Your kid’s education was subsidized both by the state and by a scholarship but you didn’t get a handout?

No, they earned it with high stats and crazy hard work and they raise the test score and GPA stats for the school in return. As opposed to just the pure luck of being born into a wealthy or political family and getting an Ivy education that will continue to make them more wealthy than their state U middle class peers even if they had lower stats.

Well I’m glad you think your kid is special but nobody else does.

They can definitely be rewarded for their superb work with massive merit aid at the University of Alabama or even full scholarships at many midrange (but very nice) private schools that cost $55k a year and not $90k a year.

Tim Cook, who is CEO of the richest corporation in human history, went to Auburn.

The current President of the United States went to U Delaware. The VP went to Howard. The Speaker of the House went to Louisiana State.

Success comes from talent and work, nobody hands it out at Yale.

Not sure why you enjoy being such an a$$ but you’re otherwise almost adorably naive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/college-acceptance-rates-ivy-league-schools-wealth.html

Basically it seems athlete, monied donor, first gen (the new proxy for race), legacy are about it.

I hate the examples that so many books give for how the balance the athletic “allotment” - they may need a piccolo player in the band. I was in the band at an Ivy; it’s run by the students and there is zero interaction with administrators other than permission to play at games and rent buses. It is nothing like the bureaucracy advocating for athletics. I guess MAYBE at a Big10 school with world class marching band? But theater and music and debate teams at T25 schools aren’t coordinating with admissions about their future slots or participating population, that’s just a polite fiction, there just isn’t enough administrative support to even make those assessments let alone factor into admittance.

I think the article is actually under reporting the dead zone salary - $222k in manhattan?! I’m guessing probably $150k to $500k — they are looking for donors and two Fed employees making $180k aren’t going to be writing big checks.

DCUM has argued for the longest time that poor white, first Gen students were shut out by wealthy AA students and suddenly being first Gen is a proxy for race?

[Anonymous]

As the article itself points out “All of which is to say there’s a real disadvantage here, but it’s impacting kids who, as a group, have had most every advantage in life”


They've had every advantage in life because their parents worked their butts off to get to the point where their kids would have every advantage. So the idea is to just strip away those advantages because someone else's parents didn't work as hard?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes, we’ve been complaining about that here for years. That’s why our high stat, heavy EC, volunteer kids mostly end up taking a scholarship to Big State U. Our kids are too privileged for a hand up and not privileged enough for a handout. No one cares about them.

Your kid’s education was subsidized both by the state and by a scholarship but you didn’t get a handout?

No, they earned it with high stats and crazy hard work and they raise the test score and GPA stats for the school in return. As opposed to just the pure luck of being born into a wealthy or political family and getting an Ivy education that will continue to make them more wealthy than their state U middle class peers even if they had lower stats.

I hate the hard work argument. MANY students work incredibly hard, not just yours, who was born with a silver spoon up their behind.

Middle class has a silver spoon? Your enthusiasm to attack anyone with more money than you is clouding your brain.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes, we’ve been complaining about that here for years. That’s why our high stat, heavy EC, volunteer kids mostly end up taking a scholarship to Big State U. Our kids are too privileged for a hand up and not privileged enough for a handout. No one cares about them.

Your kid’s education was subsidized both by the state and by a scholarship but you didn’t get a handout?

Man why do kids living in poverty get all the breaks!!!!!

No one is saying they don’t deserve it. Some of us are acknowledging that being in the middle gets you ignored. Two things can be true at once.

Fine, but what do you do with the argument there is a college for everyone, including some very good ones?

[Anonymous]

After years of being told colleges should look to class not race now we’re told if colleges look to class it’s just a proxy for race — guess there’s always something to grieve about

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes, we’ve been complaining about that here for years. That’s why our high stat, heavy EC, volunteer kids mostly end up taking a scholarship to Big State U. Our kids are too privileged for a hand up and not privileged enough for a handout. No one cares about them.

Your kid’s education was subsidized both by the state and by a scholarship but you didn’t get a handout?

No, they earned it with high stats and crazy hard work and they raise the test score and GPA stats for the school in return. As opposed to just the pure luck of being born into a wealthy or political family and getting an Ivy education that will continue to make them more wealthy than their state U middle class peers even if they had lower stats.

I hate the hard work argument. MANY students work incredibly hard, not just yours, who was born with a silver spoon up their behind.

Middle class has a silver spoon? Your enthusiasm to attack anyone with more money than you is clouding your brain.

You’d rather your kid be born into poverty? Those kids work harder than yours.

[Anonymous]

Large, competitive, suburban public high schools, magnet and non-magnet, with the most intense and yes competitive academic environments in the United States = middle class and upper middle class students

T20 universities = the very rich and the very poor

It's a societal challenge when such a large proportion of the nation's best students are shut out from studying at the nation's best universities purely for financial reasons.

"It's about choices. CHOICES. Choices, choices, choices! We lived in a spider hole and never bought oxygen. CHOICES!!!!

[Anonymous]

As a graduate of a state U, haver of tons of friends who went to state U, parent of state U kids, etc., all I can say is that I feel and they feel no disadvantage to not going to Cornell or Dartmouth or Brown.

That is just silly.

College is what you make if it and many state Us have more resources, opportunities, and connections than little schools in freezing climates.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Screwed because you're obsessed with colleges where it's statistically unlikely to be accepted?

Really, it's a self-imposed situation. If you just look beyond the few dozen schools that are like that and get excited about the hundreds (thousands?) of others, this process isn't nearly as stressful.

This x1000

My DD is going to a state school and got enough merit to cut the tuition in half and she couldn’t be more excited.