citymom

Also it is so popular to refer to access to tutoring. But the funny thing is that high-achieving students rarely use it. At from my experience tutors ae more common for B students (and down). Similar with prep courses (plus their usefullness for strong students is very questionable). So it is really strange to discuss punishing kids for something they have not used.

Columbia_Student

^In this area, there are a lot of students being tutored. In fact, when my daughter had problem with a certain subject, the teacher looked surprised that she did not have a tutor to ask questions.

Keshira

I read her book. She said colleges would rather admit a poor kid with a 2100 than a rich kid with a 2300 because the rich one had access to resources such as tutoring. I believe she had an example where they looked at an affluent girl with a Harvard grad parent (or something like that) who had 600s on her SAT, and judged her mediocre, whereas a child from down South and poor parents with the same scores would be looked at in a different light.

I was saying I don't think that should happen, as long as they can also guarantee that preference the other way around, that is, favoring a rich kid with the same SAT and the same EC involvement because he could pay more, wouldn't happen either.

mini

Where Hernandez is dead wrong, though (and the data clearly indicate it), is that they are NOT looking hard for them (because there are plenty out there). If they turn up in the application pile, that's a different matter.

tokenadult

It's plain that colleges have not been recruiting low-income students very actively at all until recently. It's still unclear how well college admission offices will respond THIS YEAR to otherwise similar applicants, some of whom are low-income and some of whom are high-income. In recent years, at most colleges, the high-income students still got the nod from the admission committees.

csleslie51

Admission is one thing, retention is another. Tokenadult, do you have a references for retention of students from the lower socioeconomical classes? I ask that because our area is full of lower income students. A few apply to and are admitted to the more elite school but don't last there for a variety of reasons. Lack of preparedness is not the most common reason. More often it is a case of not feeling like they are fitting in with the majority of students attending a particular institution (ethnically, financially, etc).

beefs

after looking at the college board profiles, most of the top 10-15 elite colleges have retention rates in the high 90's(95,98,96...)

tokenadult

I think staying in a degree program until graduation is addressed in the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation report.

http://www.jackkentcooke.org/jkcf_we...%202-21-08.pdf

NearL

Is picking a low-income student who took advantage of everything offered to her/him that attends a less competitive high school with a 2100 SAT, over a rich one from a competitive private with a 2200 really lowering standards?

sup

Because the rich student did better on the SAT, admitting the low-income student over the wealthier one would count as lowering standards in my opinion.

Whether the rich student took additional prep classes or not doesn't invalidate the fact that he knows more than the low-income student and can therefore contribute more (intellectually) to the school.

tokenadult

I would argue that the rich student in the hypothetical case proposed knows LESS than the poor student--he is certainly less resourceful in maximizing the effect of the opportunities available to him. Colleges claim that they care about which applicants can best make use of the opportunities that college education provides.

classic3020

So it looks as if those of us who are really screwed are the ones who are rich yet didn't get any tutoring/special help/SAT prep courses/have brilliant parents with 149124 degrees. Wonderful.

But I think that colleges actually prefer the wealthy applicants in a number of cases. Wealthier students means more money for the university.

Mr Payne

No, the people who would be "really screwed" are the people who just aren't that intelligent to begin with.

classic3020

.
Touche.

virtuoso_735

How about admitting the poor kid with the 2200?