Does full pay help you at Ivies?

[Anonymous]

To get admitted?

[Anonymous]

No. More than enough full pay applicants and plenty of financial aid.

[Anonymous]

No. Last bastion of need-blind admissions.

[Anonymous]

So why are there so many students from wealthy families at Ivies?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So why are there so many students from wealthy families at Ivies?

60-70% of students at ivies get need based aid so they aren't all wealthy. And high test scores and high school achievement is correlated with SES.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So why are there so many students from wealthy families at Ivies?

Because money can buy you higher SAT scores, more extracurricular activities, research activities, publishing deals, college essays, and the will to even apply.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No. Last bastion of need-blind admissions.

Not quite, though they say that officially.

It costs 60k a year to attend an Ivy, and a disproportionate amount of students have parents who can easily afford that. I've met kids whose family attended Cornell and other Ivies multigenerationally.

Also they recruit in certain geographic areas (particularly at certain private schools) that have high percentages of wealthy.

Ivies will have lots of students from the Northeast, California, Texas, and the wealthiest parts of the South (Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas). Basically they emphasize recruiting from the wealthier states). And of course there will be a decent percentage of international students who are either wealthy or who have foreign government paying all their tuition for them (foreign students cannot get financial aid as undergraduates though they can get graduate fellowships).

I'm not saying poor students don't get in (for those of us who do you get excellent financial aid which was donated to the universities by wealthy alumnae and wealthy parents) but no one should be under the illusion that having money doesn't help you get into a top university. It's a major factor, directly. Indirectly wealthy people have the money for tutors, test preparation, the best schools, so money helps indirectly as well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:To get admitted?[/quote

Depends on the schooll, think only aharvqrd and maybe Yale/Princeton still need blind. Everywhere else,it helps.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No. Last bastion of need-blind admissions.

Not quite, though they say that officially.

It costs 60k a year to attend an Ivy, and a disproportionate amount of students have parents who can easily afford that. I've met kids whose family attended Cornell and other Ivies multigenerationally.

Also they recruit in certain geographic areas (particularly at certain private schools) that have high percentages of wealthy.

Ivies will have lots of students from the Northeast, California, Texas, and the wealthiest parts of the South (Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas). Basically they emphasize recruiting from the wealthier states). And of course there will be a decent percentage of international students who are either wealthy or who have foreign government paying all their tuition for them (foreign students cannot get financial aid as undergraduates though they can get graduate fellowships).

I'm not saying poor students don't get in (for those of us who do you get excellent financial aid which was donated to the universities by wealthy alumnae and wealthy parents) but no one should be under the illusion that having money doesn't help you get into a top university. It's a major factor, directly. Indirectly wealthy people have the money for tutors, test preparation, the best schools, so money helps indirectly as well.

Of course money buys advantages and opportunities. But admissions is still need-blind, so all else being equal, being full pay doesn't help. This is in contrast to many schools which are need-aware.

[Anonymous]

Being full pay doesn't help, but being from a family that has given megabucks to the university in the past clearly does.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So why are there so many students from wealthy families at Ivies?

Because money can buy you higher SAT scores, more extracurricular activities, research activities, publishing deals, college essays, and the will to even apply.

Well put.

[Anonymous]

If you meet the general requirements and you are full pay -- duh. They also love the poor. that leaves the middle class out.

[Anonymous]

When I applied to college, Brown was the only non-need-blind Ivy.

[Anonymous]

It's easier to be an exceptional student with exceptional accomplishments and test scores when you are high SES. Academic performance is strongly correlated to SES, so if they are selecting only for the top applicants, it makes sense that many fewer would come from poor or truly middle class backgrounds.

[Anonymous]

I recall reading somehwhere that "need blind" admissions end with the waiting list, i.e., you are more likely to get off the waitlist if you are full pay. Can anyone else corrobortae this or is it fiction?