@EconPop I couldn’t agree more. Especially the part about it not being the fault of any of the children…the ones denied and the ones accepted.
The constant complaining about how unfair it is to get the coveted spots at the most elite schools diminishes the perception of the value of the colleges that are accepting the Ivy-esque rejects. But the reality is these “second tier” schools are amazing and can offer students amazing educational opportunities and position them well for amazing careers.
First, we have to define rich. Rich to me means you are close to full pay. That seems to be, depending on the school, where your combined household gross income plus combined taxable interest/dividend/rental income is about $225k for a married couple. The calculations in cases of divorce get more complicated. What percentage of kids in your son’s high school class met my definition of rich? Admitting students from rich high schools is a good way to ensure a college gets a high number of full pay or almost full pay students, while pretending to be need blind.
I read the article and the metrics the adversity score includes.
From what I can tell, the colleges are already getting this information from the high school counselor or principal via the mandatory “school report.”
My daughter applied to colleges as a freshman for the 2018-2019 admissions year and will start at Amherst College.
She is a high school dropout so I had no college counselor to write her school report.
What I did, instead, was write about the statistics of our one and only local public school, and how her grades, classes, and test scores compared. I wrote about the racial and economic makeup of our town, as well as the percentage of college graduates.
The reason I included this information is I had no idea what a school report was. I called the high school guidance counselor who was of no help. So I started calling the admissions departments of the various colleges. They told me what they wanted to see.
Now, they have never heard of our little town. At schools that are recognizable, such as Thoms Jefferson or St. Paul’s, adcomms have a very good idea of where applicants stand against each other, and they have essays and CSS Profile forms to give a very detailed idea of financial situations.
Seems to me this just boils down the high school report so that it’s easy to compare. I also think it’s a marketing ploy to make the SAT more competitive against the ACT, to which it’s losing ground.
Kids on each coast take the SAT. The ones in the middle take the ACT, which is often state-mandated for high school graduation.
I expect this furor will only cause middle-class families to abandon the SAT.
But colleges are still getting this type of information directly from your high school guidance counselor, just like they always have.
Don’t think that just because you avoid the College Board, that the colleges won’t see similar information and compare your student to the community.
@roethlisburger We are not rich nor are we even close to full pay. We received a considerable amount of FA. More than a substantial amount. The other person admitted to my son’s school for our HS is also not full pay. He worked at a grocery store to support his family during high school. Many colleges are done looking at class rank because it tells you close to nothing about the student. My 25% percentile kid with a 5.6 out of 6 GPA could move across the street and go to a different HS and be in the top 2% with his grades.
And FWIW the town we live in is very diverse so you’d be taking a real crap shot if you’re thinking you’re accepting a full pay kid.
The College Board is going to report a SAT class rank for each high school. Technically, they’re only reporting the 25%, 50%, and 75% values, but with that information it’s a trivial statistics problem to calculate your kid’s SAT percentile rank for their high school.
https://professionals.collegeboard.org/environmental-context-dashboard/detailed-data-description
@roethlisburger Yes I’m well aware and our school profile gives us a grade distribution anyways. Colleges can get a general idea of how your kid stacks up. My point is that selective schools will take kids from that top 25-30% because they know those students are still excellent from the strong high schools and not just because they assume they are full pay.