How many of the minorities are from families with generational wealth? The finances of Yale depend on attracting and keeping families with generational wealth, regardless or race, ethnicity, or religion. There is no lack of very wealthy families who aren’t White. I would like to know what the income distribution of these minorities are, and I would also like to know the income distribution of a pplicant pool from whom these students were selected.
The increase in the percent receiving financial aid wasn’t something that these colleges did out of the goodness of their hearts. They were pressured to do so by the Senate, and their non-profit status was threatened because their endowments were increasing, but they were increasing tuition. They were required to increase spending from their endowment on things like financial aid in order to maintain their non-profit statuses.
*billed costs of tuition, required fees, room, board, does not include estimated books and personal expenses
The increasing list price of Yale means that if the parent income and wealth distribution remains the same across the years, the percentage of students needing financial aid to attend Yale increases.
While these may be interesting pieces of data to unearth, I think we can comfortably speculate that the median household income by racial group of admittees is going to be much higher than the group overall, and this would include Whites. It’s just the nature of selective colleges that they are going to draw from a more affluent demographic as a whole, and students from more affluent backgrounds are going to have advantages in meeting the types of academic hurdles that these schools set.
This tangent though is in reaction to the views that going from TO back to test required is really not about sharper targeting of students from disadvantaged backgrounds and is a smoke screen to allow those schools to go back to the status quo of favoring the privileged like they always have. I was pointing out the demographic outcomes at Yale have changed significantly for at least the past 40 years, well before the Covid driven policy of going TO at most of these schools. These changes are not 1 dimensional based only on wealth. Changes in racial diversity reflect a change in admissions priorities by themselves. The Yale I went to in the late 70’s was predominantly White with a lot of legacies and prep school kids. The Yale my son attended (Class '21) was incredibly diverse. Three out of 4 freshmen suitemates were POC. If we are looking only at differences in wealth, absent granular family income data, the only thing we can easily see is that percentage of Pell Grant recipients went up by 70% in the last 10 years. While total Pell Grant recipients are below the national average, it reflects a large change for the institution.
As far as FA is concerned, that has also evolved with time as to how generous FA is. Yale was need blind as early as 1966. It became meets full need sometime in the '90’s. I dug up an article from 2001 about cutting expected student contribution by about $14,000 over 4 years. https://news.yale.edu/2001/09/05/yale-increases-undergraduate-financial-aid Yale went to 100% grant in 2008. Sure there was political pressure on the wealthy schools to increase support for students, but making Yale affordable to all qualified students has been part of Yale policy well prior to 2008.
To the experts (@skieurope@MWolf@BKSquared@Mwfan1921@NiceUnparticularMan and others), one of you might have answered this question already, but what do you think is a good SAT score for a STEM major at these top schools?
S25 has 1540 (800 math) in SAT and his school’s average is around 1100. He’s from a decent competitive public school. To give you some perspective on his STEM focus, he would’ve taken 14 APs at the end of his senior year that includes quite a few STEM APs offered at his school (CS A, CS Principles, Calc BC, Physics Mechanic, senior year - environmental science, stats, and I am missing one more STEM AP here). He’s done well academically- rank 2/550.
Does he need to retake his SAT? Purely from the perspective of academic readiness at these schools (ECs are a different story ). We told him he doesn’t have to retake the test, but he insists on taking it one more time. Is that necessary? Appreciate your thoughts on this.
A 1540 is not going to be the reason he doesn’t get in, especially with an 800 math as a STEM focused kid.
The question really is utilization of time. Are his efforts better spent on his essays, EC’s or even just relaxing/having some fun. If your S is dead set on trying to raise the 740 ERW and is not going to burn too much time or mental energy, I would not stop him, but he should be aware a 1600 does not guarantee acceptance at the schools he is targeting.
Thank you @hebegebe@Mwfan1921@skieurope@NiceUnparticularMan@BKSquared
We’re glad that you all agree. We were giving him the same advice. He should be spending that time working on his essays and ECs (or just have fun) @BKSquared I agree that a 1600 wouldn’t guarantee anything and that’s exactly the point I am trying to make with him. Thank you!
We hope to convince him not to retake it, especially because he has to drive quite far for the next test + waste of money
No need to retake, as his scores are excellent. As pointed out already, focus on the essays. I am not an expert but can offer one data point. My son who scored a 730 in the literature SAT subject test (now defunct), chose to spend all his free time in a two-month period to study intensively for the retake and managed to repeat the score of 730. Evidently, these tests are designed for score-consistency.
Thank you. Point taken. We do want him to do it his own way and we don’t want to interfere. He’s very sincere in whatever he does. But I feel like this is an overkill. Plus he has to spend time on his essays and more time on the research work he’s doing… I want him to have a bit of fun this summer, he enjoys playing basket ball with his buddies… and not stress about these scores…
I’m not sure who @MITChris is or where he came from - assuming he works with MIT admissions - but he’s a fountain of knowledge and in depth understanding!!
). We told him he doesn’t have to retake the test, but he insists on taking it one more time. Is that necessary? Appreciate your thoughts on this.
As you said, ECs and essays will be more of a differentiator, help him stand out.