Anonymous
Post 09/12/2014 18:40     Subject: Discriminatory College Advising @ Big 3
Anonymous wrote:If your child is interested in research - please apply to Washington University in St. Louis. I am an alum and know that there is a lot of money for a child with your child's profile.


I am an alum too. It sounds like the student would be a good fit for Wash U, but I respectfully disagree that there is a "lot of money" for a child with this profile. Wash U has gotten so competitive, and a student with this profile would just not be a good candidate for merit money there.
Anonymous
Post 09/12/2014 18:13     Subject: Discriminatory College Advising @ Big 3
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:One angle might be whether the counselor is wondering if your working class family can afford an Ivy. The Ivies don't give out merit aid and the cutoff for financial is extremely low at many of them. Have you talked to the counselor about this?

That said, you might be right in your suspicions. We just don't have enough info to help you know for sure whether the counselor is getting lots of pressure from other families, thinks your child won't get in because of having no hook.

I've also suspected that Ivies go to the private schools for full-pay kids who will subsidize the FA kids. Maybe you don't fit the counselor's thinking here.

If your DC doesn't like the state school, then DO NOT apply ED there. It's very reasonable to apply to a mix of reaches, targets and safeties. You are completely within your rights to apply to more reaches than your counselor wants. Just make sure to apply to at least some targets and safeties because, as PP said, kids who apply only to HPYSM sometimes end up with no acceptances.


Many Ivies give NEED based aid, which sounds like exactly what the OP may need. And actually, the cut off for financial aid is quite high. I believe that under the new financial aid guidelines there, you can qualify for aid even if your family makes 200K a year.
I went to Harvard and found that while there were certainly kids of the super rich (i.e. british nobility, scion of Hong Kong casino mogul, etc) there were plenty of kids from working class or otherwise middling middle class backgrounds who were super smart, motivated, or otherwise had an extraordinary life story that made their accomplishment stand out in the face of adverse conditions. Their freshman year may have been a slightly harder adjustment period, but almost all the freshman I knew were dealing with similar insecurities about their abilities.

Schools that have a high endowment are able to admit people without giving consideration to their need to pay. I bet there is more economic diversity at a place like HYP than a second tier, expensive private school that may not have enough of an endowment to be need blind in its admissions decisions.

I say, you should encourage your kid to go for the reach schools, while at the same including backups or safeties. Above a certain level of academic and extracurricular qualifications, there is a great deal of randomness in the admissions decisions.


I know of someone at Harvard now, black and from a poor family in Brooklyn, and attended PS. No way can her parents afford to pay for tuition. Child is super bright though, and parents wrote the book on flying a helicopter, zero social media etc in HS..
Anonymous
Post 09/12/2014 18:09     Subject: Discriminatory College Advising @ Big 3
+1 on randomness
Anonymous
Post 09/12/2014 18:07     Subject: Discriminatory College Advising @ Big 3
Anonymous wrote:One angle might be whether the counselor is wondering if your working class family can afford an Ivy. The Ivies don't give out merit aid and the cutoff for financial is extremely low at many of them. Have you talked to the counselor about this?

That said, you might be right in your suspicions. We just don't have enough info to help you know for sure whether the counselor is getting lots of pressure from other families, thinks your child won't get in because of having no hook.

I've also suspected that Ivies go to the private schools for full-pay kids who will subsidize the FA kids. Maybe you don't fit the counselor's thinking here.

If your DC doesn't like the state school, then DO NOT apply ED there. It's very reasonable to apply to a mix of reaches, targets and safeties. You are completely within your rights to apply to more reaches than your counselor wants. Just make sure to apply to at least some targets and safeties because, as PP said, kids who apply only to HPYSM sometimes end up with no acceptances.


Many Ivies give NEED based aid, which sounds like exactly what the OP may need. And actually, the cut off for financial aid is quite high. I believe that under the new financial aid guidelines there, you can qualify for aid even if your family makes 200K a year.
I went to Harvard and found that while there were certainly kids of the super rich (i.e. british nobility, scion of Hong Kong casino mogul, etc) there were plenty of kids from working class or otherwise middling middle class backgrounds who were super smart, motivated, or otherwise had an extraordinary life story that made their accomplishment stand out in the face of adverse conditions. Their freshman year may have been a slightly harder adjustment period, but almost all the freshman I knew were dealing with similar insecurities about their abilities.

Schools that have a high endowment are able to admit people without giving consideration to their need to pay. I bet there is more economic diversity at a place like HYP than a second tier, expensive private school that may not have enough of an endowment to be need blind in its admissions decisions.

I say, you should encourage your kid to go for the reach schools, while at the same including backups or safeties. Above a certain level of academic and extracurricular qualifications, there is a great deal of randomness in the admissions decisions.
Anonymous
Post 09/12/2014 18:00     Subject: Discriminatory College Advising @ Big 3
Anonymous wrote:OP here. I'm not going to go into the details of my family's finances. All I will say is that at a well-endowed school DC will likely receive a full-ride or something close to it. Even being working class, it's possible to save a couple thousand for living expenses and books, etc.


Yes, I know. But we put any extra money toward our DC's current tuition so other parents don't have to foot the bill for our DC to attend the school.
Anonymous
Post 09/12/2014 17:56     Subject: Discriminatory College Advising @ Big 3
OP I concur that you might get a second opinion with someone who is more up to speed on minority admissions. I work at an ivy league school and see a lot of undergrad dossiers. You'd probably get in where I work.

Don't apply ED anywhere your child doesn't want to go.

If money is no object for college for you, I recommend spending the few hundred $ to find a college counselor good with minority students and get a consult from them.

Use the opinions of both the counselor at your school and the counselor you pay to make a decision.


Anonymous
Post 09/12/2014 17:52     Subject: Discriminatory College Advising @ Big 3
OP here. I'm not going to go into the details of my family's finances. All I will say is that at a well-endowed school DC will likely receive a full-ride or something close to it. Even being working class, it's possible to save a couple thousand for living expenses and books, etc.
Anonymous
Post 09/12/2014 17:49     Subject: Discriminatory College Advising @ Big 3
Anonymous wrote:College financial aid policies are well publicised. Princeton makes you pay 10% of your family income up to a household income of 250k. It's called student and parent loans.


Are you OP?
Anonymous
Post 09/12/2014 17:48     Subject: Discriminatory College Advising @ Big 3
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:I don't get how you can be on a scholarship to a big 3 school yet have the finance to pay for college.


I don't understand that either, especially given that the OP said her family is truly working class in the sociological sense.


PP, I was just going to write this. OP, can you address this? We also receive significant FA, but have not had any extra money for college savings. I know you have to report college savings on your Financial Aid application.
Anonymous
Post 09/12/2014 17:45     Subject: Discriminatory College Advising @ Big 3
College financial aid policies are well publicised. Princeton makes you pay 10% of your family income up to a household income of 250k. It's called student and parent loans.
Anonymous
Post 09/12/2014 17:43     Subject: Discriminatory College Advising @ Big 3
Anonymous wrote:I don't get how you can be on a scholarship to a big 3 school yet have the finance to pay for college.


I don't understand that either, especially given that the OP said her family is truly working class in the sociological sense.
Anonymous
Post 09/12/2014 17:41     Subject: Re:Discriminatory College Advising @ Big 3
OP, you said yourself that you are an "outsider" to this school's community. How do you know what the counselor is saying to the other parents/students? Maybe there are MANY parents who have received this same message from this counselor. Don't most parents send their DCs to the area privates and hope they get into HYPS?

Anonymous
Post 09/12/2014 17:01     Subject: Discriminatory College Advising @ Big 3
Oh come on. My kids went to STA and everyone knew whose parents were CEOs or White House aides. Let's not pretend that there isn't an element of privilege to college admissions and advising when schools like STA and Sidwell know that parents will hold them accountable for college admissions.
Anonymous
Post 09/12/2014 16:58     Subject: Discriminatory College Advising @ Big 3
Also Brown seems to have a commitment to first gen students (don't know if you went to college, op?)
Anonymous
Post 09/12/2014 16:57     Subject: Discriminatory College Advising @ Big 3
I don't get how you can be on a scholarship to a big 3 school yet have the finance to pay for college.