<p>Mombot raises the good point that to a lot of high school students, the issue of attending college or not seems a lot more important than the issue of attending this college rather than that one. There are a lot of college choices for any student who completes high school, and some even for those who drop out of high school, so it shouldn’t look anomalous that not every high school graduate applies to a “top tier” college. </p>
<p>But Karabel’s point, and I think this is an important point too, is that currently colleges in that top tier have actual admission results contrary to what they say their admission policies are. That is, the colleges say they will cut a break to a student who comes from a poor background and DOES apply to that college, and not expect such a student to have the same level of admission factors (grades, test scores, extracurricular achievements) as a student from a wealthy family. But despite this stated policy, the Bowen study suggested that, controlling for other factors, students from poor families were held to quite the same standards as students from rich families–which to my mind makes it hard for them to have the opportunity to show what they can do if they enter a college environment where everyone shares the same on-campus resources. </p>
<p>As I wrote above, I think letting Harvard, Princeton, and Virginia show a way to gain more low-income students by “affirmative action” in the right sense of that term is a better policy suggestion than instituting an explicit lottery for admission to any of the top tier colleges. But the great thing about American higher education is that it is pluralistic, and if some other college has some other plan for seeking out and admitting low-income students, it is welcome to try it out.</p>