chances for indian nerd from jersey?

making_a_point
Mon, 10 Aug 2009 17:44:36 +0000

Unless you are not following the news, all Ivies and top schools have lost tons of endowment during this past year. The notion that fin. aid is need-blind is somewhat disingeneous on the part of the schools saying it. Because of this false advertising, many working class rising seniors are applying to all the top Ivies in the hope of getting fin. aid. It would actually be cheaper than attending the local State school. At the same time, the surge in applications create a false sense of exclusivity for the Ivies and top schools when their admission rate goes down to single digit since they have to reject so many good candidates.

I know of a couple of top Asian scorers who have almost identical stats and ECs as the OP but got rejected to most of his/ her reach schools because he/she applied for fin. aid. Just be cognizant of the fact that even Harvard is in pain and they are cutting back real hard. Go read the Vanity Fair article that came out recently about Harvard’s woes.

I am not saying that fin. aid will not be given. It is merely reserve for academic superstars that have great ECs and accomplishment like Intel, Seimen awards etc. For these kids they will gradly throw them a sort of life lines to pull them in.

Unfortunately, kids that have moderately good stats and ECs and can afford full fare will have better chance of reaching their reach schools than kids who needs fin aid. It does not take a rocket scientis to figure this out. What I said above would not be true if the financial markets did not implode back in 2008!