Do other students benefit from the overrepresentation of the wealthiest 0.1% at T20s and top SLACs?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sorry to be blunt but do you hang out with people much lower income than you?

OP here, fair question. My job is high income, but I often interact with lower income coworkers throughout the course of the day - spending hours with them at a time so I do meet many lower income folks. I do have friends and socialize with lower income and higher income groups, but there is not much overlap between the two.

My experience at one of these institutions was that the truly wealthy can often afford to major in subjects that don’t directly map into or lead to employment (art history, philosophy, “semiotics “) while us regular people majored in Econ cuz we needed a job. Not a lot of overlap between the art history and Econ majors.

[Anonymous]

My Ivy DC knows several kids going to platforms similar to this - weirdly there’s a niche art market in banking and you need a different skill set.

https://newsroom.bankofamerica.com/content/newsroom/press-releases/2026/02/bank-of-america-launches-art-consulting-service.html

[Anonymous]

I have 2 kids at Ivies. We are upper middle class/upper class professionals: nice house, vacation internationally yearly, kids went to a top private school but high school only.
My older child (college junior) hangs out with a mix of normal people: incomes likes ours, some above us, some on aid. I doubt their own life trajectory will ever be impacted by going to a school with an outsized percentage of the 0.1%.

My younger child has always been very charismatic and outgoing and has fallen into the boarding school, NYC, multi-millionaire and billionaire crowd at their school. The kids have friends outside this group but the core friend group is this demographic (plus my son and one or two others like him) and they are a pretty tight pack. The wealth is absurd. My child grew up with enough money to relate to their life experiences and to hang in the present day, largely within the confines of college, but his friends' families' money is thousands of times what we have. The kids are all very smart, funny, quick-witted. I have no idea if these relationships will impact his career prospects or life direction or if they will even last into adulthood. At this point (end of freshman year) his friends have all walked into top NYC, Boston, Bay area summer internships and he will be working a normal job.
Frankly this dynamic makes me uncomfortable. It feels very "Talented Mr. Ripley."

[Anonymous]

I guess this is my kid at a top 10 SLAC. Her core group of friends are from her NYC private school days, and they connect one another with friends met in their respective colleges. That being said, she has made friends across the SES spectrum in college.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My cousin and their friends were private jetted to Europe for their super wealthy classmate's wedding. DD was friends with son of a mega millionaire but he was too humble and simple, most people didn't even know he was wealthy and son of a celebrity.

Years ago my buddy and his friend were flown on a private jet to an island for a wedding. They were so excited! When I asked afterward how it went the two less-enthused bachelors said they shared the jet with nuns and a priest.

[Anonymous]

You are all forgetting that life doesn’t end at college graduation. Everyone goes out in the world and earns their own money eventually, and there is social value in being someone who isn’t supported by their parents.

[Anonymous]

Is it so much to ask that my kid is just happy in their college experience no matter who they become friends with? We silo ourselves so much that we overlook differences among all sets of experiences make us fuller humans. Extreme wealth, access and connections are for sure a bonus, but part of me wishes people valued integrity, trust, passion, and soul-enriching connections more.

[Anonymous]

Based on my own experience, the ultra-wealthy—especially those from old money—tended to socialize within their own private properties. Many of them had known each other since childhood, often spending time together in places like family ski homes in Switzerland. As others have mentioned, some chose majors that weren’t geared toward traditional careers unlike umc

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My cousin and their friends were private jetted to Europe for their super wealthy classmate's wedding. DD was friends with son of a mega millionaire but he was too humble and simple, most people didn't even know he was wealthy and son of a celebrity.

Years ago my buddy and his friend were flown on a private jet to an island for a wedding. They were so excited! When I asked afterward how it went the two less-enthused bachelors said they shared the jet with nuns and a priest.

It wasn't "THE ISLAND" was it? It might be why they contend it was only people of the cloth on the plane...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I see plenty of mixing between UMC and really wealthy students at granola schools. If you ski, climb, backpack, etc. it’s easy to do with others and not break the bank. Especially schools with local skiing like Middlebury or CU Boulder.

Nailed it. The teams also hang out together and with each other as well without regard to wealth.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kid at an Ivy says that the 20-30 kids from Andover/Exeter/Choate/Groton etc all merged friend groups and only keep to themselves.

Sorry but your kid doesn't know that and if they did they'd have no reason to tell you. Why just make stuff up?

[Anonymous]

I went to an Ivy and had friends who were from lower income backgrounds and I don't think they benefited from my UMC background (my dad was in a niche field with no useful connections). I had some super wealthy friends from Hong Kong. They were fun and used to give me rides to the grocery store in their fancy cars but otherwise I did not benefit from those connections at all and they moved back to HK after college.

[Anonymous]

This topic comes up on here periodically. I went to an elite Ivy 30 years ago and the same phenomena existed back then. There were the very rich kids and they were insular to themselves. And there's also cliques within that world too. My own cohort was the nice UMC kids from day schools or high performing public schools in affluent suburbs, and we overlapped a bit with a Park Ave/boarding school cohort. They were nice enough and we were friendly, but it was also always clear who they were and who we were. And then there was even another level of wealth above them. Jet setters, famous last names like Rockefeller or Rothschild, kids of famous actors. They were entirely unto themselves.

After graduation, all that went away. The Park Avenue kids retreated to their own world. The super rich went back to being totally invisible. The same will happen to your kids too, whatever friendships they may form in college.

I will add that I flew back from a work trip to London a few weeks back and in front of me in the boarding queue at the airport was a small group of very groomed college girls. And I couldn't help but notice one transfer $7,000 to another's bank account on her phone and it was for a trip of some sort. And I had flashbacks to my own college days and had to laugh. Rich girls are always rich girls.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid at an Ivy says that the 20-30 kids from Andover/Exeter/Choate/Groton etc all merged friend groups and only keep to themselves.

Sorry but your kid doesn't know that and if they did they'd have no reason to tell you. Why just make stuff up?

What makes you think that is made up? Lots of the private school kids stick together and why wouldn't they? Attending an ivy is a front row seat to how connections lubricate lots of things that happen in the world.

[Anonymous]

My kid goes to one of the schools that’s renowned for having the offspring of billionaires and celebrities. We’re UMC so don’t run in those circles. My sense is most of those kids keep to themselves and don’t slum it with students who don’t go to St. Barts for Christmas. There’s a whole NYC private school world that is pretty self-contained and they kind of stick to themselves. So I don’t think they add any value to the college experience. But they are more likely to be big donors to the school and have the connections for internships, which makes them useful for a college.