<p>Don’t understand the point of this thread at all, but, as previously mentioned, it’s sure to generate lots of comments. You did it again, DadII.</p>
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<p>I don’t disagree with this sentiment at all, but I would note that it reflects the typical CC assumption that everyone from your high school is chasing after elite schools and that you’d therefore have a sufficient “pool” to be able to have that sense or feel. Remember there are 25-30K high schools in this country. The number of high schools where there has been a sufficient critical mass of “enough students applying to top schools to get a sense what is required” seriously cannot be more than 1,000 total once you add up the nation’s elite boarding schools, elite private day schools, specialized academic magnets and “rich suburb” high schools.</p>
<p>Hi, mathmom and others,</p>
<p>Just thought I would comment on the issue of the definition of the middle class. I think the middle class reaches higher into the income percentiles than most people would guess–either that, or the upper class nevertheless contains people like us, who have more than 150,000 miles on both vehicles (neither of them Cadillacs, Mr. Romney) and have a dishwasher that broke down completely 9 months ago, and hasn’t been replaced. Granite countertops in the kitchen? No. I’d like them sometime in the future, though. The 20-somethings on the house-hunting TV shows would think that our kitchen had to be completely remodeled before they could possibly use it.</p>
<p>Without being ungrateful for our good fortune, and while acknowledging the main point that saintfan made some posts back, I think it should be pointed out that a significant share of the disposable income attributed to the $150,000-a-year family is probably “disposed of” by shipping it to the IRS. </p>
<p>Middle class people generally do not reap significant benefits from the 15% tax rate on capital gains or the “carried interest” classification of the income of hedge fund managers.</p>
<p>The high-income tail of the wealth distribution stretches quite a long way out. I would consider a family to be upper class, if they could pay HYP tuition without really even thinking about it.</p>
<p>mathmom–I agree, mostly, with your analysis–however, the HYP acceptance outside of the top 5% doesn’t hold true for our high school. Top 10% probably though. We had a top 10% student that didn’t have perfect everything get accepted to every Ivy he applied to (5 of them) as well as some of the controversial “Ivy like” schools outside of the east coast :D. For him it came down to the fact that he was every college’s “dream” candidate–articulate, hard worker, extremely well rounded, great student without being a drone, funny, charismatic without being sappy, etc. The whole package is what got him into those schools, not any one piece of the pie.</p>
<p>Oh, he is also a “full-need” kid too.</p>
<p>Pizzagirl, I didn’t mean to make it sound like everyone is chasing after elite schools at our high school because they aren’t. It’s a big enough school that there is good info for the east coast schools - but you have to guess when you go further afield. I’d give the same advice though for figuring out if you are a viable candidate for SUNY Binghamton vs one of the other ones though. </p>
<p>SteveMA, you don’t have to have perfect everything from our high school, but the kids who get accepted everywhere usually have amazing stats along with the rest of the package.</p>
<p>BTW I don’t have granite countertops in my kitchen either - I have chipped formica in a color best described as caca d’oie (doesn’t it sound better in French?). I am currently finally redoing my bubble gum pink bathroom.</p>
<p>I think anybody with only one house considers himself to be middle class, no matter how big it is.</p>
<p>I believe anyone who is still depend on his/her job for whatever(health insurance) is in the middle class category.</p>
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<p>I think this is wrong, but in an interesting way. I agree with Hunt (and even if I didn’t agree, the statistics would pretty effectively show) that a greater percentage of kids with 2400 SATs will get in to the most selective schools than the percentage admitted of kids with 2250 SATs. But I am reasonably sure that’s because getting 2400 vs. 2250 SATs correlates to some degree with a whole bunch of other qualities that the most selective colleges actually care about, not because they particularly value 2400 SATs. In all the reports I have ever heard or descriptions I have read of actual admissions deliberations, no one has ever suggested that ANYONE said “We ought to admit X instead of Y or Z because his SATs are higher,” or even that anyone even included SATs as part of the case for a marginal student. I think kids can get excluded from consideration based on low SATs, combined with other factors (or an absence of strong countervailing factors). And high SATs probably contribute marginally to a candidate’s rating in a system that rates candidates, as I think most do. A kid rated B+ with 2200 SATs might get rated A- with 2400 SATs (and in a handful of cases that might be enough to make the candidate an automatic admit rather than a topic for discussion). But once their applications are getting full consideration, no one is very interested in SATs anymore. (There may be exceptions to that. I think URMs or athletes with SATs that are relatively high may be preferred over equivalent candidates with lower SATs largely on that basis.) Too many kids with 2400 (or 2350) SATs are rejected to let me believe that it’s an important positive factor in and of itself.</p>
<p>Sure, SATs are one of the few objective criteria for ranking applicants available. And colleges don’t seem to think enough of them to make much use of them.</p>
<p>Well, I’m not entirely persuaded, but you may be right–it would be interesting to actually study it, somehow.</p>
<p>DrGoogle–my plumber makes upwards of $200,000 year (take home) is he middle class? He gets’s his health insurance through his job…I’m confused why you think this is a “middle class” definition. Every CEO I know is on the company health insurance plan.</p>
<p>Can we agree that a degree in religious study from Harvard does not necessarily provide you a better employment opportunity than a CS degree from UC Berkeley or Michigan?</p>
<p>Yes, I even think middleclass is for a family income of $300K+. You can get sick, you can loose your job, etc, and back to zero easily. The insurance is not there if this family does not have a job.</p>
<p>^ This definition makes absolutely no sense. The top 1.5% of wage earners is middle class?</p>
<p>Post #53, you must have missed this.
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<p>I like the OPs thread on planning for 2012 graduations better than this one. Can we all agree on that?</p>
<p>Can we all agree that, just by posting on this thread, we have no lives?</p>
<p>I read somewhere middleclass definition is income between 50k - 500k. I guess you may not feel that you belong to the rich unless your income is above 500k.</p>
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What do you mean by “better?” If your ambition is to be a professor of religious studies, that CS degree won’t help you at all.</p>
<p>Here’s the problem with “middle class.” Nobody thinks they are “lower class” or “upper class” in this country. If you referred to middle income then people might be willing to categorize themselves as lower income or upper income.</p>
<p>My roommate who majored in Comparative religion at Harvard is a Lutheran minister, she may not be paid as well as the Microsoft guys, but she’s doing what she wanted and what she’s good at.</p>