<p>I’m really curious and so are two of my friends. we want to see if we are lucky enough to get into harvard will we fit in with most of you, or will we be like farm boys/girls in a big city?</p>
<p>Will you describe your family as (1) wealthy (2) upper middle (3) lower middle (4) kind of poor?</p>
<p>What kind of vacation do you take? (1) visit the Moon or Mars (2) going to Europe? (3) Egypt? (4) China (5) East coast and west coast (6) national parks in the U.S. (7) stay home and study (8) other</p>
<p>i know there are super rich families, legacies, etc. we don’t really care about those, but students who get in due to good scores and other stuff.</p>
<p>Question 2: We take a variety. And some years we take none at all.
2, 5, 7, 8</p>
<p>My parents don’t get along too well, especially on vacation since they have to actually see each other and communicate, so sometimes we do 8 to not bother with it. We don’t study, just stay home and waste our days playing the Sims. And visit our grandparents/families, but that’s not vacation.
We’ve only done 2 once for real, when we stayed for just under a month, and then I just relinquished the retirement account my mother would have made for me + spent some of my own money to go to England in early December, but that was strictly work.
We do 5 the most. A lot of those trips were not actually with my family but rather with my grandparents and aunt’s family. My parents have come along twice in the past. This summer, they’re coming with me and my sister and my aunt’s family to Oak Bluffs.
By 7, I meant the Caribbean. We only did that once because my sister <em>hates</em> the beach.</p>
<p>I wish I got to do 3 and 4! And 1 too, but that’s way out there.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t worry too much. The parents of my friends at Harvard have incomes that might be described as 2 and 3, respectively, and they’re all perfectly happy. To some extent I think the campus environment equalizes people. My sister has some very well-off friends at her college (not Havahhd), but you’d never guess.</p>
<p>Lol. Yes, Harvard has a tendency to equalize things. The lower-income kids experience fantastic expenses-paid international internships, while the upper-middle-class kids stay home and work for pocket-money since there’s no $$ left for extravagant vacations.</p>
<p>“Lol. Yes, Harvard has a tendency to equalize things. The lower-income kids experience fantastic expenses-paid international internships, while the upper-middle-class kids stay home and work for pocket-money since there’s no $$ left for extravagant vacations.”</p>
<p>Indeed. Summer is a whole new set of face-in-the-mud moments for the full-freighters.</p>
<p>Bay, you went this route with two kids. Hats off. I find myself trying to talk my second one in high school down from her 4.0 and into a more earthbound college that will reward her with merit.</p>
<p>And please someone out there tell me this really, really, really is going to be worth it. Just need to hear it every now and then.</p>
<p>Honestly, the ultra-elitist stereotypes you may have heard about Harvard are out of date. I know - our family once had them too. But the campus diversity includes socioeconomic as well as racial and ethnic.</p>
<p>Another standard stereotype is that there must be a lot of haughtiness and arrogance among the students. I was really surprised at first to not find it and I mentioned that several years ago on this board. A recent alum responded “Are you kidding? Meeting your classmates at Harvard freshman orientation may be the most humbling experience there is!”</p>
<p>There’s no point in conducting a survey on CC. But to answer your question, I’d say that most, or at least a plurality, of students at Harvard are upper-middle class, i.e., the sons and daughters of white-collar professionals who have above-average incomes and advanced degrees.</p>
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<p>I take it you’re joking, because this is certainly not the case. Lower-income students have to compete for internships alongside everyone else; there are no handouts. In fact, what tends to happen is that the wealthier students use their social and cultural capital to land impressive internships while the lower-income students go back home to earn money to meet their contribution requirements (this from a proctor at the university). The financial aid office is trying to counter this trend by making it easier for students to get loans to cover their summer earnings expectations.</p>
<p>Well, all I know is that the paid internship applications my D looked at had a “need” component. She definitely “needs” the $$ or she won’t get to go, because we don’t have room in our budget for it, but we’re fairly certain she won’t get the award because we are a full-pay family. Maybe we will be pleasantly surprised. I doubt it.</p>
<p>A small number of paid internships do favour applicants from “non-traditional”, “unique”, or “disadvantaged” backgrounds, but the vast majority do not. Maybe your daughter should apply to one of those.</p>
<p>Or maybe the organization your daughter applied to has a small budget for internships and asks about “need” only because it doesn’t want to disperse more money than is necessary. This is quite common.</p>
<p>Harvard’s financial aid initiative helps middle class students attend (cost is 10% of income even for those making $180,000, free for those with incomes under $60,000). Economic diversity will only increase as the financial aid initiative takes hold (as long as Harvard can still do it, financially).</p>
<p>What’s especially nice is when your kid spends hours on the application only to encounter the caveat at the end that by the way you can only qualify if there happens to be any funds left over after taking care of all the kids on FA. </p>
<p>yes they check savings and stocks. havent you started your fafsa? you should if you plan on getting any aid, or even a work study. or a stafford loan.</p>