07-10-2025, 03:26 PM
Times have changed as far as college admissions, and there is still fallout from the COVID 19 pandemic. Things will be even more uncertain than ever with Federal funding, loan, and policy changes.
As far as Ivy League schools - I know anecdotally of a straight A student who had an SAT score above 1550 and ACT score above 33, 5's on many core AP exams like english, calculus, sciences, was a state qualifying athlete in their sport every year of high school, participated in several extracurriculars - but did not lead any; the kid is an excellent writer and had a hook for their essays that indicated how they would contribute to the school community.
The family's financial situation was solidly upper middle class but the parents both worked and no one was independently wealthy. It would have been a stretch to afford top tier private schools' average $70k annual tuition versus the state schools.
They were NOT accepted at any of the top 25-level private institutions that they applied to. They were accepted at every place else including nationally and globally ranked state flagship universities (not in California tho as the out of state cost of the UCs made it infeasible.)
A number of top 50 to 100 institutions offered scholarships, grants, and tuition rebates.
This is the kind of kid who, 30-50 years ago, likely would have gotten in to some place like Northwestern or Stanford or and would have gotten a free ride if their family lacked means. Now, the student in question did not have any particular overwhelming desire to attend one of these prestigious institutions... no "need" to go to NYU or Brown.
Two things are going on and neither of them good for talented middle class students.
The "common app" used to apply for college allows applications to up to 20 schools mostly free of charge (some institutions do have their separate application requirements that have a cost associated with them, but it's usually like $50-150.) So kids will max out those applications to "improve their chances" of getting in somewhere. Then it becomes an arms race as the top institutions receive more applications from which they can accept a very limited number of students - and perversely this improves a school's ranking because of it's desireability.
Also the top tier institutions see great benefit from their network of alumni and they appear to be focused on bringing in new students that they perceive will help expand that network. So it helps to get accepted if you are (1) already wealthy and can afford college without a second thought as this implies you already have access to networks of means that will benefit the school (2) from a diverse background, again expanding the network to new areas of support (3) have truly unique, exceptional generational talent. The most elite schools can overlook #1 if the student is strong in 2-3, but they're unlikely to accept students from middle income and certainly there's no financial aid on the table for families making above $200k or so. As such, then, colleges are more likely to accept the kids who have less means or who can fully afford it because they fear the negative impact of admitting students who don't attend because parents convinced them to go to the much less expensive $10-40k year state schools.
Even then all of this is a sort of legacy of the old days where a certain class of parents is paying for the college experience of being in dorms, eating at the cafeteria, free of direct adult supervision, learning how to navigate living and learning. Many of these kids would be better served by actually affordable community college within everyone's reach, and getting work experience in jobs that interest them and are accessible to them.
As far as Ivy League schools - I know anecdotally of a straight A student who had an SAT score above 1550 and ACT score above 33, 5's on many core AP exams like english, calculus, sciences, was a state qualifying athlete in their sport every year of high school, participated in several extracurriculars - but did not lead any; the kid is an excellent writer and had a hook for their essays that indicated how they would contribute to the school community.
The family's financial situation was solidly upper middle class but the parents both worked and no one was independently wealthy. It would have been a stretch to afford top tier private schools' average $70k annual tuition versus the state schools.
They were NOT accepted at any of the top 25-level private institutions that they applied to. They were accepted at every place else including nationally and globally ranked state flagship universities (not in California tho as the out of state cost of the UCs made it infeasible.)
A number of top 50 to 100 institutions offered scholarships, grants, and tuition rebates.
This is the kind of kid who, 30-50 years ago, likely would have gotten in to some place like Northwestern or Stanford or and would have gotten a free ride if their family lacked means. Now, the student in question did not have any particular overwhelming desire to attend one of these prestigious institutions... no "need" to go to NYU or Brown.
Two things are going on and neither of them good for talented middle class students.
The "common app" used to apply for college allows applications to up to 20 schools mostly free of charge (some institutions do have their separate application requirements that have a cost associated with them, but it's usually like $50-150.) So kids will max out those applications to "improve their chances" of getting in somewhere. Then it becomes an arms race as the top institutions receive more applications from which they can accept a very limited number of students - and perversely this improves a school's ranking because of it's desireability.
Also the top tier institutions see great benefit from their network of alumni and they appear to be focused on bringing in new students that they perceive will help expand that network. So it helps to get accepted if you are (1) already wealthy and can afford college without a second thought as this implies you already have access to networks of means that will benefit the school (2) from a diverse background, again expanding the network to new areas of support (3) have truly unique, exceptional generational talent. The most elite schools can overlook #1 if the student is strong in 2-3, but they're unlikely to accept students from middle income and certainly there's no financial aid on the table for families making above $200k or so. As such, then, colleges are more likely to accept the kids who have less means or who can fully afford it because they fear the negative impact of admitting students who don't attend because parents convinced them to go to the much less expensive $10-40k year state schools.
Even then all of this is a sort of legacy of the old days where a certain class of parents is paying for the college experience of being in dorms, eating at the cafeteria, free of direct adult supervision, learning how to navigate living and learning. Many of these kids would be better served by actually affordable community college within everyone's reach, and getting work experience in jobs that interest them and are accessible to them.
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