Reply to What commonly known thing did you learn at an embarrassingly older age?

Forum Index » Off-Topic

Reply to "What commonly known thing did you learn at an embarrassingly older age?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I was super late to learn just how much the college process is money related.

Hard work by the student is critical, but the money part is such a huge role. (I am not taking about the poor performing exception kid who gets in due to legacy/donor.)

My awesome young cousins worked hard and attended elite SLACs. My child had similar stats that gained admittance.

This is great and an achievement on all counts (no hooks).

But, here is the difference that I learned late: Great academic achievement and scores intersect with family income to determine the outcome.

Our family makes just above the amount resulting in less aid, making many schools too expensive. We’ve made a financial decision and I am confident my kid will do fine and thrive at the local state school.

My cousins family could pay full freight and their kids graduated from upper tier SLACs.

So when parents are like “yay, kid is going to/graduated from school X.” Unless earned as a full ride, the families don’t add “good thing we make $Y to have made it a reality.”

The dumb part is my older sister encountered this exact scenario in 1990s, but somehow I didn’t really get it.

Wish I’d learned earlier. Duh. 
[/quote]

I would agree with all of this.  I am amazed at how much money can buy.  I was working at a university abroad and a youngish AMerican grad student showed up 'for a visit'.  She set up meetings with faculty and administrators, etc.  Apparently she was 'greasing the skids' for her upcoming Fulbright application by making sure that everyone (including the educational affairs officer at the embassy in small country X) would already have met her and know how great she was.  She bought her own plane ticket and stayed a week.  How can another young grad student who doesn't have money for international travel, hotels, etc.  compete with this kind of back door mularkey?  I later heard another story about a woman who didn't get a Fulbright, so she went and lived in the country for a year at her own expense and got herself invited to all of the embassy functions, 'volunteered' at the university and lo and behold, she got the grant the following year.  I literally had not idea that people did this kind of thing or that it was considered legal or par for the course.
[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics