What should colleges do to manage the increase in apps?

MWolf
Mon, 26 Apr 2021 19:58:50 +0000

You are claiming that having one shared college day, when all the students in all of these poor schools have to travel to one school, is the same as Yale representatives visiting each individual school?

Basically, you are admitting that the poor schools in your area do not actually get visits by Yale representatives, yet when I said exactly that, you claim that it is “total hyperbole”. I do not know what to say.

You also even admit that “feeder schools” which are, invariably, the wealthiest private schools, get more attention.

So, what you are saying is that wealthy schools get individual visits and extra attention, while poor schools do not, right?

As for an increase in poor students, well, that does not really seem what is going in, if one looks at the actual numbers. Yale has been claiming close to 20% of their students being Pell Grant recipients since 2018.

In 2013, Yale claimed that 52% of their incoming class of 2017 received financial aid, and the average grant was 72.7% of CoA (https://oir.yale.edu/sites/default/files/factsheet_2014-15_0.pdf). According to their CDS, 11.5% of that class of 2017 were Pell grant recipients (https://oir.yale.edu/sites/default/files/cds_2020-2021_yale_vf_030521.pdf).

In 2019, they claim that 53% of class of 2023 received aid, and that their average grant was 73.8% of CoA (https://oir.yale.edu/sites/default/files/factsheet_2021_vf_04062021.pdf).

How can they be providing the same amount of money in grants to the same number of students, while claiming that they accepted 2x as many poor students?

Since the average amount of aid, proportional to the cost, did not change, that means that the new Pell Grant awardees replaced students who had similar levels of aid.

I mean, if you replace 20% of the 53% who receive aid with 20% who receive 40%-62% more aid (that’s how much more aid a $0 EFC students gets than a student from a family which has an income of $150K-$250K+), then the average amount of financial aid should show a substantial proportional increase. It did not.

https://finaid.yale.edu/costs-affordability/affordability

So those Pell grant students almost certainly were accepted instead of students from families who made less than $65,000 and who were eligible for similar amounts of aid as the Pell grant students.

Also, while Yale is trumpeting those numbers, their official numbers on the College Scoreboard differ (only 16% receive Pell grants): College Scorecard | College Scorecard

Furthermore, according to Yale (Affordability | Financial Aid) those 53% included families in the top 5%. So 53% receiving financial aid does not mean 53% who are low income or even close to that. It does, however, mean that 47% are full pay, and mostly in the top 5%.

Since the NYT article showed that Yale had 45% in the top 5% in 2009, that shows how little things have changed.

As for “legacy”, I am skeptical of their numbers, since only Yale has that data, and it is only reported unofficially.

Finally, the composition of the Yale student body which is USA citizens and permeant residents is 49% non-Hispanic White, 20.8% Asian, 13.5% Hispanic, including White Hispanic, 8.4% Black, 0.3 % indigenous American 0.2% Hawaiian and other Pacific Islander, 6.3% two or more, and 1% unknown.

oir.yale.edu

factsheet_2021_vf_04062021.pdf

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So I’m sorry but “55% aren’t White”, is not the same as “55% are underrepresented minorities”. Not even close.

I am sorry, but Yale will never be egalitarian, no matter how much they make this claim, and no matter how much their alumni make this claim. It simply cannot afford to be so.

The financial models of the Ivies is based on mostly serving the wealthy and the powerful. If they changed this model, they would not be able to afford being Ivies.

The very reasons that so many lower and middle income families all want to attend the Ivies is based on this economic model, and if admissions became truly egalitarian, in a decade or so, the popularity of these places would plunge, including among the mid and lower income brackets.

BTW, I have absolutely no problem with how the Ivies maintain themselves as elitist institutions. I just wish that they would admit it, instead of always trying to “prove” that they are The Very Mostest Fairest And Egalitarianist.

PS. MIT and Caltech can afford to be more egalitarian, since
A. alumni donations make up a lot less of their funding (research contracts FTW!)
B. engineers think differently.