Reply to How much help was your DC's HS counselor?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Wow, given the pretty dramatic financial aid initiatives some of the top universities have undertaken in the past decade, it would be a real shame if public school counselors weren't alerting high-achieving low-income first-generation college students that schools like Harvard, Princeton, and Stanford are trying to take money out of the mix for such applicants.  Harvard, for example, waives both tuition and room & board for admittees whose families' HHIs are<60K and the free tuition offer may extend to families with HHIs over 100K in some cases (these families would have to pay for room and board).

I was a first generation applicant (well, FT -- both parents went to night school PT) but realize that I know these kinds of FA details now primarily because I'm an alumn.

Re population growth.  Actually my birth cohort was larger than DC's.  To the extent that she's facing larger applicant pools, that's a function of factors like the Common App, more international applicants, and the fact that college is a more universal aspiration (and/or increasingly seen as a necessity) now.  College is the new HS in the US.[/quote]

9:43 here. Yes, I agree this would be a shame. I should clarify that I can't say for sure, but I suspect this is what's happening. Perhaps other kids get the "try for FA at HYP" pitch but we unconsciously sent off "we don't need FA as much" vibes to the counselor when we went in for our one, single, face-to-face meeting. Who really knows.

All I can say for certain is, we definitely got the "UMCP is probably the best option for you" pitch and if we got it, I'm sure kids who need FA also got it. I will also say that of the 20-something kids who went to Ivies from our MCPS during DC's year, I can't think of one who isn't at least middle class or who doesn't have college-educated parents. I can think of a few from single parent households who are probably (I don't know for sure) lower-middle income, but even there the single parent always has a college education and at least one of the kids is a legacy at a top Ivy.[/quote]

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