@ucbalumnus, actually there are plenty of less selective schools than Amherst that are much more top heavy. At Amherst 60% are from the top-20%, at Gettysburg it’s 70%, Bucknell it’s 73%, Trinity it’s 75%, and Colorado College it’s 78%,
10-24-2017 at 11:26 pm
@kalons, did you apply to colleges before deciding to wait a year to attend as that may shed some insight on admission chances at different selectivity levels?
OP, Thought I would circle back on this question as it would be materiel to your search process.
Yes, there are others that are more top-heavy. But Amherst is still top-heavy.
@ucbalumnus, nope it’s not a perfect world as those with the means are in first place for a college education. That said the schools where the top-20% is more than 50% of the student population is by no means limited to highly selective schools -it’s is across the board with Delaware is at 68%, Michigan at 66%, Virginia Tech at 66%, University of Dallas at 65%, UNC Chapel Hill at 60%, Georgia at 60%, Kansas 59%…
I’ve got no horse in this race, though do plan on visiting Amherst with D2 soon, but Amherst does deserve credit among the LACS for having one of the biggest commitments to recruiting diversity and it shows in the numbers with about 45% of kids being students of color. That’s much, much higher than a lot of other selective LACs. They also have gone to no loan aid packages which very few schools have done, and are a need blind/meets 100% demonstrated need school. The fact that they have full pay kids from top income families - I say so what. I don’t subscribe to some of the CC sentiment that kids from wealthy families are all evil and self absorbed and are going to make the experiences of those on financial aid miserable.
@wisteria100, agree. The NYT’s article has a great chart that provides the “Chance a poor student has to become a rich adult” - there are many of the need blind/meet 100% demonstrated need schools at the top of the list, which are also many of the most selective schools in the country; our DD’s attend #36 - ethnic and socioeconomic diversity in a great academic LAC environment was very important to them and to us. While they are full pay, they still buy clothes at H&M and Target like every other college student that is on a limited personal spending budget. And nope they don’t judge their friends based on where they are from or how much money they have.
Correction to posting #45 “DD’s attend #33”. For some reason list changed when I re-initialized - #33 of All Colleges is Hamilton College.
@kalons Re: Emory - consider applying to Oxford. Average test scores are lower there so it’s an easier admit and you get a LAC for 2 years before you move to the “city” for the second 2 years. The app allows you to choose either one or both with just a checkbox. Agree to look at Wooster in Ohio and Earlham in Indiana.
Have you looked at finances? You said there’s a recent divorce? Do you know what your parents can afford to pay for you each year? Have you run the net price calculators at any schools to see if that # matches? That’s an important filter.
@wisteria100 In my parent experience, family income level matters little in friendships made. My kid’s are all over the place.
Actual stats from NY Times, a small LAC has a class size of 1781, 22.8% of students come from families which earn over 630K per year. That is 406 kids per class!! So, if it is 22…8 % of each class, there are 1600 kids on campus who are very very wealthy. That’s 1/4 of the school!! Yikes.
^^ There are no small LACs with 1,781 per class. That must be total student population. And if a quarter are very wealthy, that means 75% are not. I would wager a guess that at least half the kids at that school get financial aid.
When you pull back the covers, you see that many large universities, including many state flagships, also have large percentages of students from families with incomes in the top-20% (above $110,000) - Auburn at 65%, Georgia 59%, Alabama 59%, Texas A&M 59%, University of Oregon 56%, Colorado State 56%, University of Texas 56%.
To level set it, only 63 “elite schools - including both universities and LAC’s” have more than 55% of students from the top-20%; in total there are 217 universities and colleges, both public and private, that reach that level so it’s a broad issue.
Yes, my example was total school enrollment @1781. My point is that if 25% earn top 1% (>630,000.00) that having 25% of students raised that wealthy is a significant percentage.