Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Because those colleges know that the parents cannot afford it, and think that they will decline, thereby impacting the yield.

I think it's as simple as this. I saw this trend with my 2 kids - one attended private, the other public. It wasn't super clear-cut - in fact more kids attended top 3 ivy's from the public than the private, but for schools like Colgate, Vanderbilt, Bucknell, Wake Forest, W&L etc. it seemed like private school applicants were the sweet spots and the public kids didn't get as many offers. My DC was not Ivy material, but with okay grades got into all of the private colleges they applied to and I think our demonstrated ability to pay full freight was part of it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are kids with low income actually more likely to get into Yale, or are they more likely to be eliminated from the applicant pool before they even put together an application? Are kids in that 4 to 5% group really underrepresented relative to their percent in the population, or just relative to their percent in the applicant pool?

I have trouble reading this article about a kid who got into a prestigious K-12 prep school, and then a prestigious college that she chose to apply to and loved, as an evidence that she was disadvantaged.

This. They are looking at a socioeconomic bell curve among applicants, noting that schools have strong reasons to admit both the very wealthy and the poorest applicants at much higher rates, and of course the people in the middle of that bell curve (of which there are exponentially more) have the lowest admissions rate. This is not a surprising or even very interesting observation, and yet it's one that seems to perennially surprise UMC families who perceive themselves as being unique. We are not unique, we are a dime a dozen. Have your kid apply to a few of these schools if they have the grades/scores/desire, but aim for the state flagship (may not be your in-state flagship if you're in a very competitive state like VA, but another state flagship will do) or a less competitive SLAC because that's probably where your smart, hardworking, but otherwise incredibly basic kid is going. And guess what -- they'll probably do great there and might even be a lot better off than if they luck into a spot at Williams or Princeton where they will for sure discover, quickly, how prosaic their background is and how ill-prepared they are to compete with people who have trust funds and connections or who are genius-level talents or who are so aggressively ambitious that they will steamroll anyone who stands in their path. Which is who winds up at Ivies, for the most part.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are kids with low income actually more likely to get into Yale, or are they more likely to be eliminated from the applicant pool before they even put together an application? Are kids in that 4 to 5% group really underrepresented relative to their percent in the population, or just relative to their percent in the applicant pool?

I have trouble reading this article about a kid who got into a prestigious K-12 prep school, and then a prestigious college that she chose to apply to and loved, as an evidence that she was disadvantaged.

This. They are looking at a socioeconomic bell curve among applicants, noting that schools have strong reasons to admit both the very wealthy and the poorest applicants at much higher rates, and of course the people in the middle of that bell curve (of which there are exponentially more) have the lowest admissions rate. This is not a surprising or even very interesting observation, and yet it's one that seems to perennially surprise UMC families who perceive themselves as being unique. We are not unique, we are a dime a dozen. Have your kid apply to a few of these schools if they have the grades/scores/desire, but aim for the state flagship (may not be your in-state flagship if you're in a very competitive state like VA, but another state flagship will do) or a less competitive SLAC because that's probably where your smart, hardworking, but otherwise incredibly basic kid is going. And guess what -- they'll probably do great there and might even be a lot better off than if they luck into a spot at Williams or Princeton where they will for sure discover, quickly, how prosaic their background is and how ill-prepared they are to compete with people who have trust funds and connections or who are genius-level talents or who are so aggressively ambitious that they will steamroll anyone who stands in their path. Which is who winds up at Ivies, for the most part.

Anonymous wrote:Because those colleges know that the parents cannot afford it, and think that they will decline, thereby impacting the yield.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:only DCUM thinks this is unique to DCUM. You think Cleveland, Columbus, Chicago, Queens, St Paul, half of NJ, Colorado Springs etc aren't full of families making 225k with smart kids who have done all the same things???

I am sitting here reading this in Colorado Springs and cracking up appreciatively at the mention. We are smack dab this income and my son with a with a 35 ACT, unweighted, 4.0, and international sports experience ended up at a flagship out of state. Thank goodness for the western undergraduate exchange.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It will be fine my kid will get into Clemson, Johns Hopkins, Kenyon, Purdue, and Washington University in St. Louis. I'm not stuck on Ivy thank goodness. But he better get into Hopkins!

(from the article, kids from the top 5 to 10 percent attend at rates similar to, if not higher than, the wealthiest applicants.)

The article made these sound like great alternatives if you can’t get into an Ivy, but they’re not all that easy to get into either.

The acceptance rate at Washington University is 11% and at Johns Hopkins it’s 7%.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It will be fine my kid will get into Clemson, Johns Hopkins, Kenyon, Purdue, and Washington University in St. Louis. I'm not stuck on Ivy thank goodness. But he better get into Hopkins!

(from the article, kids from the top 5 to 10 percent attend at rates similar to, if not higher than, the wealthiest applicants.)

The article made these sound like great alternatives if you can’t get into an Ivy, but they’re not all that easy to get into either.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You mean, the DCUM low class?

+1. $222,000 is low for 1 DC earner, much less a combined HHI.

Oh F off and get your head out of your sheltered behind.

Anonymous wrote:only DCUM thinks this is unique to DCUM. You think Cleveland, Columbus, Chicago, Queens, St Paul, half of NJ, Colorado Springs etc aren't full of families making 225k with smart kids who have done all the same things???

Anonymous wrote:The parents interviewed for this article are pathetic.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You mean, the DCUM low class?

+1. $222,000 is low for 1 DC earner, much less a combined HHI.

Anonymous wrote:It will be fine my kid will get into Clemson, Johns Hopkins, Kenyon, Purdue, and Washington University in St. Louis. I'm not stuck on Ivy thank goodness. But he better get into Hopkins!

(from the article, kids from the top 5 to 10 percent attend at rates similar to, if not higher than, the wealthiest applicants.)