<p>I concur with your sentiments. I’m sure those applicants are passed over and anything otherwise would be ridiculous. Again, due to the sheer no. of applicants, “diamonds in the rough” do appear and get noticed. Also, tons of “I’ll apply just to see” applications do come in.</p>
<p>whitecadillac: SAT scores are not achievement, and getting high SAT scores is not achieving “GREATLY”. You (and most other students here on CC) generally fail to recognize this: Kids who are basically only meeting the high expectations that their parents and communities set for them, who grow up in a resource- and education-rich environment and show the benefits of that, are not that impressive. As I once said about my own kid, who had 2330 SATs and a single-digit class rank at a competitive school, “the next truly independent choice he makes will be his first”. Meanwhile, a kid who does not grow up with the same swaddling of expectations, opportunities, and resources may have to make one independent choice after another, and against significant family and cultural resistance, just to be in a position to have the kind of “mediocre” stats you are sneering at. That’s a lot more impressive.</p>
<p>I agree with JHS, even though he could be describing my own kid. She has met “the high expectations of her parents and community, growing up in a resource and education-rich environment and has shown the benefits of that”. </p>
<p>Interestingly, she herself does not want to arrive at Yale only to find other kids just like her. A smart rural kid who grew up working in a farm (and got a 2050 SAT) would be a more interesting roommate than a kid from an affluent suburb who juggled soccer games and piano lessons while scoring a 2350 SAT. Of course, she realizes this type of thinking might just keep her out!</p>
<p>^Indeed. This thread makes me feel good about being from a small town (and glad I wrote my essay about working in the local diner which farmers frequent). Although, since I know so many farm kids, it might be more interesting to room with a city dweller!</p>
<p>^^ Maybe you will be my D’s roommate?!</p>
<p>:) Hehe. If I’m lucky enough to get accepted, that is. I’m hoping. :)</p>
<p>you guys are blowing it way out of proportion and seem to have not actually read what i’ve said. i’ll say it once more: kids who happen to be born in high-education environments should not be discriminated against because of it. there are plenty of kids who grow up rich or in good high schools with good families but still do not achieve as highly as those kids who work hard and do their best at everything they take on. so to say that their achievements and hard work are “not impressive” because they grew up in a good environment is ridiculous. they can’t help what kind of family they had or what school they go to or what resources were available to them. the thing that should be considered is WHAT THEY DID with the resources that were available to them. </p>
<p>so, if a rural kid grows up with few resources but manages to use them all and perform greatly, good for him. if a kid grows up rich and uses all the opportunities available to him and performs greatly, good for him too. these two applicants have equal potential in my eyes. </p>
<p>and give me a break when you say high sat’s aren’t achievement, JHS. we all know that this is true, everyone on CC knows that this is true, but guess what? sat’s matter. no one can dispute this. sat’s can and often do give admissions officers a glimpse at one’s intelligence or at least their ability to study hard and get high scores. i agree that they shouldn’t be considered ultra-important, but they are categorized as “very important” factors at almost all selective colleges. you can’t say yale doesn’t think sat’s are important; you just can’t.</p>
<p>so for a rural kid to get a break of 300-400 points based on HIS LOCATION ALONE…that’s stupid. the kid could prep for the sat if he wanted to. he could study on his own, MAKE USE OF WHAT RESOURCES HE HAS. it all goes back to that. the truly impressive applicant would make use of all their resources and perform at high levels, whether they’re rich, poor, whatever. </p>
<p>and don’t make generalizations that all kids who get 2300+, etc, are just living up to their parents’ expectations or something. there are plenty of kids (myself included) who have lived up to my own expectations. my parents couldn’t care less if i went to college at all. but guess what? i live in a fairly wealthy neighborhood, so suddenly i’m categorized as just “one of many sheep blindly following their parents’ expectations”. it makes me sick to think that all white, wealthy kids are just ASSUMED to be all the same, all just following a preordained path, no independent thinking, etc, and all poor kids are assumed to be “discouraged from getting education”, etc.</p>
<p>you know what? even rich kids have to work hard to get where they are. it’s hard for many to live up to high expectations and a ton of work goes into actually being able to do so. and yes, some do have more resources than others. but if they use the resources and work hard to perform well in their classes, etc, then what’s the problem?</p>
<p>whitecadillac: I don’t think anyone is saying that affluent, high-stat applicants who have plenty of parental support and encouragement are unworthy as a category. And Yale certainly doesn’t spurn them. Plenty of wealthy kids with high SAT scores are admitted; the median SAT at Yale was 750 for the Class of 2013, and in 07-08 (I can’t find figures for this year) 44% of students received no need-based aid – at an institution where families earning up to $200,000 are eligible for at least some aid. </p>
<p>What posters are saying is that affluent kids have had more opportunities than their lower SES peers – a category that generally includes kids from rural areas. It’s not just more money. It’s everything that comes with that money – better schools, better counseling, parents who are savvy about the college admissions process, the ability to pursue ECs that lower SES families would find prohibitively expensive (assuming they even knew about them). So the applications of higher SES kids must reflect that they’ve taken advantage of those opportunities. There is nothing inequitable about setting the bar higher for wealthier students. And I say that as the parent of one.</p>
<p>^Absolutely, completely agreed with wjb. The bar SHOULD be higher for kids from wealthy, educated backgrounds. The discrimination you speak of doesn’t exist, since as wjb pointed out, nearly half the students at Y receive NO aid despite the fact that it is especially generous with its aid. There are plenty of high-income students at Yale.</p>
<p>I can tell you, as a student from a small, working-class hamlet (700 people with a town of 50k nearby), that there are fewer resources here. Very few kids take prep courses, can afford summer programs, or get any real help from the overworked guidance counselors. If applications from my school are a bit rougher than ones from Choate or schools in upper-class suburbs, I think that is understandable. Admissions officers realize this.</p>
<p>EDIT: And I live up to my own expectations also, not my parents’.</p>
<p>i agree with you. as long as a poorer kid takes advantage of all his resources and performs very well, i see the logic. i just don’t see the logic of admitting a mediocre applicant merely cuz he’s from an area with “less opportunity”. a high-performing applicant from such an area? yes, makes sense.</p>
<p>take two applicants: both have a 2240 sat, 4.0 gpa. one is from a wealthy, educated background. the other is from a poor, uneducated background. i can see the logic in preferring the latter, under the assumption (which might be false, though) that the kid had to make the decision himself to work hard and with few resources available, succeeded.</p>
<p>but if a poor kid’s overall profile is mediocre, i just don’t see why he should be considered a “stand out” applicant merely cuz he’s from a disadvantaged area. </p>
<p>and it’s good to know that people aren’t discounted cuz they happen to be born and raised in good environments. cuz seriously i know a LOT of people at my school who are wealthy with educated parents, etc, that still don’t perform well in school, sat’s, ec’s because they don’t have the drive, intelligence, motivation, etc. so a good, wealthy, educated background doesn’t mean that it’s EASY for a student to perform well.</p>
<p>for example, what’s harder? a poor kid taking all regular classes at a poor school since his school doesn’t offer ap’s and he has to work to support his family, etc?</p>
<p>or a kid who goes to a prestigious, rigorous school who takes every ap class offered and succeeds in all them in addition to dedicating time to several passionate ec’s, though not having a job or whatever?</p>
<p>they both call for hard work, and i just hope the admissions officers realize that just because someone grows up in a good environment, it doesn’t mean achievement is easy to them or that their achievements shouldn’t be considered impressive.</p>
<p>Ok…wat about this. I attend a school that almost never sends kids to ivies (we did have one girl go to dartmouth 2 years ago and another go to duke 2 years before that…but thats about it). Additionally, I live in Elkhorn, Nebraska which is right outside of Omaha. I mean…I live in the suburbs and live in a middle class home, but the resources around me simply are no where near as great as they would be in say boston. For example, literally 0% of my school (including my GCs), could tell me what Siemens is or where Vanderbilt is. So, would this kind of background be any notable boon to me in the admissions process?</p>
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<p>Yale doesn’t accept anyone merely because they’re from a disadvantaged background, nor does Yale accept students whose “overall profile is mediocre.” You can rest assured that the rural kid who gets into Yale is a stand-out in his/her own community.</p>
<p>“Yale doesn’t accept anyone merely because they’re from a disadvantaged background, nor does Yale accept students whose “overall profile is mediocre.” You can rest assured that the rural kid who gets into Yale is a stand-out in his/her own community.”</p>
<p>ok, i hope that’s true! :)</p>
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<p>At least in theory, the urban kid, the suburban kid, the rural kid, the rich kid, the poor kid, the kid from New York City, the kid from Wyoming, are all evaluated according the the same two criteria: </p>
<p>1) Does this kid stand out within the context of his/her school/family/community?</p>
<p>2) Will this kid enrich the academic/extracurricular/social climate on campus?</p>
<p>You can keep parsing this. Take the rural community issue, for instance. A low-income kid who goes to a low-performing public high school in a rural area is going to be judged by a different standard than a kid from the very same rural high school whose parent happens to be a faculty member or administrator at a local university. To get Yale’s attention, the latter kid will have to supplement his/her high school’s limited resources.</p>
<p>^the former kid should have to supplement his high school’s limited resources too to stand out to yale, imo. like you said before, every kid admitted to yale has to be a stand-out in his own context. so both the former and latter kids in your situation should have to do something to stand out, not just perform adequately under their circumstances.</p>
<p>But wc, let’s say the first kid is is at the top of the class, plays a varsity sport, and is editor of the school newspaper. He’s also eligible for the reduced lunch program and spends 20 hours a week working on the family farm. His family can’t afford to supplement the high school’s limited resources by enrolling him in dual curriculum classes at the university where the second kid’s mom teaches. And even if they could afford it, he’s needed to work on the farm. Do you see how important context is?</p>
<p>^oh, i understand that completely. that’s not what i was saying. the fact that you say the kid is top of his class, varsity sport, editor of newspaper, and working is what i meant by “being a stand out in his context”. i meant that, if the kid is poor and does nothing but perform adequately, there’s no reason to set standard lower for him or prefer him over a kid with similar–though slightly better–circumstances who happens to utilize the benefits he was born with (like taking the dual enrollment, etc).</p>
<p>wc: I don’t think Yale admissions would give much thought to that scenario. Don’t worry.</p>