<p>Tristan wrote: “Do admissions actually look at your family income/salary and if you are under 60,000 or something, will that actually help you get in (somewhat)?”</p>
<p>Admissions will note the economic level of the HS you attend (based on quantitative nos. your school provides). This allows them to place you in the proper context (w/o checking each applicants’ exact income level). For example, say 30% of students at your HS qualify for federally funded reduced/free lunch – and that ~5% of graduates go to 4-year institutions and the drop out rate is about 30% – well this says a lot, no?</p>
<p>Now compare it to a school where ~5% qualify for reduced/free lunch, 11% dropout rate, 60% college attendance for graduates. Vast difference and Yale would infer a lot of different circumstances for the students who attend either school.</p>
<p>BTW, while I applied to top engineering programs, I recall distinctively that I put down “Biology” as a potential major in my Yale app. Looking back, my “tip” was probably I was a high academic achiever and a top student leader in a predominantly black school but I was Chinese – weird circumstances that probably grabbed peoples’ attention. But this is only a guess.</p>