One study found that persons with top 1% wealth averaged ~40% of income saved each year, while the bottom 90% averaged ~1% of income saved. Persons who have high income levels tend to have a good portion of income left over for things like savings and college expenses, making the cost less of a burden. While persons living paycheck to paycheck are more likely to struggle with college expenses, even if the paycheck-to-paycheck family is only paying 10% of income or whatever, while they $240k income family is paying a substantially higher percentage of income.
The $200-240k income group is tremendously over-represented among 'Doreâs, but far less among Bruins. According to the census based study linked at https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/college-mobility/vanderbilt-university , the median income among Vanderibilt parents was $205k. The $200-240k income group is right in the middle of the pack. In contrast the median income among UCLA families was $105k. As income increases, the ratio becomes more extreme with each income level, as summarized below.
Top 1% Income â 5x larger portion of Vanderbilt students than UCLA
Top 5% Income (the $200-$240k range in surveyed year) â 2.4x larger portion of Vanderbilt students than UCLA
Top 10% Income â 1.8x larger larger portion of Vanderbilt students than UCLA
Bottom 20% Income â 4.4x larger portion of UCLA students than Vanderbilt
However, there are a variety of key reasons for this trend beyond affordability. .Some highly selective colleges claim they are less expensive than state schools for 90% of US families, yet the 10% of families for which they are more expensive are more likely to be especially interested in attending. Below US average income families can often essentially get a full ride at highly selective, private colleges; yet most high achieving low income students do not apply to any highly selective colleges.
âBelow US average income families can often essentially get a full ride at highly selective, private colleges; yet most high achieving low income students do not apply to any highly selective colleges.â
Among a variety of reasons for this is that lingering perception, especially among the low-income and first-gen group of population, that those highly selective universities are out of reach for them financially. Highly selective universities are keenly aware of this and are using their resources and energy toward correcting the perception:
Mel â thanks for trying, but you really donât have the data to get where you are trying to go. Youâd really need an Espenshade type study to really prove/disprove.
For example, Penn tells legacies that they need to apply ED if they want the legacy boost. So every legacy app is also an ED app. So when they get in, is it because they applied ED, because they were legacies, or combination of both? Impossible to tell.
My spidey sense is that the Penn boost is more about ED than legacy. Especially since Penn has a much more expansive definition of legacy than other schools (compare Harvard for example). If you could get to the academic stats, I bet you would find (but no one can prove it) that legacy ED and non-legacy ED with the same stats tend to perform more similar than youâd think. I think Penn is mostly using the legacy program to encourage HQ ED applications.
I just go back to Duke. They are clear as can be that the ED advantage is big and real. Then I compare Dukeâs profile to all the other ED schools that are not so transparent. They all look pretty much the same. Half the class comes from ED. ED admit rate is 3X the overall admit rate. Hard to see how those other schools would produce Duke-like results if their ED programs werenât providing the same kind of boost that Duke does.
Or maybe you are right. The ED game at all the top schools is just a big con. Thereâs no admissions advantage, but the schools are convincing kids that there is (or at least letting kids believe there is) so they can jack up yield and ratchet down admit rates. ED is clearly done for the benefit of the schools, but I doubt that it is all a big lie.
âThe $200-240k income group is tremendously over-represented among 'Doreâs, but far less among Bruins.â
Sure. Because the sticker price for in-staters at UCLA (70% of students) is about one third of the sticker price at Vandy. Full pay in-state at UCLA costs a lot less than full pay Vandy.
If you are in the $200-240k income range, most families are taking UCLA at $25k and turning down $65k at Vandy. Youâd see the same pattern with folks lucky enough to consider IS offers to attend UNC, UVA, UMich level schools. Those are great deals and the yield on in-state offers proves it. UVA is usually about 60-65% yield (which is a Yale zone stat) for instaters vs. 20% for OOS-ers.
Breeding with the genetically appropriate mate is not the end of the job!
@manyloyalties Thank you very much! All made sense to me.
I have known students who scored the highest in their state on intelligence exams who could not gain admission to their state university because of a lack of focus and interest⊠call it motivation.
My parents were having marital problems and noticed a lackadaisical ninth grader who never did anything wrong, was bored and never did anything right except cut the lawn. They sent me off to boarding school where the entire day was managed by ex-WWII Marines. Mandatory meals on time, mandatory jobs two times a day on schedule, mandatory sports six days a week, mandatory chapel every night and no junk food on campus. The bored student came alive with interests in the busy world surrounding him. Yes, I got into an Ivy, but elected to go to a less well know STEM school.
It worked for me!
My roommate ran away twice as he missed his large family. His dad was an MIT graduate and VP of Engineering at Raytheon. His son was very bright, but would not stay in prison! While I gladly studied and played sports, he looked for ways to escape! The school would not take him back after his second jail break. It is not just genes! It is not just standardized test scores! He never finished any college anywhere! Believe me, he had talent!
You previously said Vanderbilt (and similar) were very often out of reach for $200-$240k income level because they were paying a higher percentage of income, and youâd expect families in this income range to attend UCLA instead of Vanderbilt. If that was the case, then I wouldnât expect a larger portion of families to have income in that range at Vanderbilt and similar than at UCLA. This pattern isnât limited to Vanderbilt and UCLA. You see the same pattern at nearly all highly selective private colleges with excellent FA. In freshman surveys at Harvard, Yale, and others; whatever income grouping includes the $200-240k range is often the grouping with the largest portion of parentsâ incomes. In the linked study, this $200-240k range was usually near median parentsâ income at Vanderbilt, HYPSM, and other similar highly selective private colleges. It certainly does not appear to be a doughnut hole region. Many families with this income range are choosing HYPSM⊠over their in-state option, as well as over various other full tuition merit scholarship options that they are likely eligible for.
UCLA gets far more applications than Vanderbilt, so Iâd expect most students are choosing UCLA over Vanderbilt as a whole, particularly ones from lower and middle income families. However, the admission stats suggest higher income families are more likely to attend Vanderbilt than other income levels. Yes, UCLA is cheaper than Vanderbilt or HYPSM⊠for many high income in-state families, but that is far from the only factor in college selections. Some of the reasons for this trend are discussed in the study at https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/2013a_hoxby.pdf .
@Data10 â you canât sort the data from the NY Times database perfectly to get at the point we are discussing. But hereâs what I can see.
50% of Vandy student families make less than $205k (since $205k is the median). That looks to be the 84th income percentile.
47% comes from the top 5%, which is probably about $250k and higher. But 23% of families make $630k or more â which is the 1%.
So the key point if that half (HALF!!) of the top 5% families are actually top 1% families. The top 1% is over-represented overall by 23X!!
So it probably looks something like this:
$0-205k. 50%
$630k and up 23%.
$250-630k 24%
Thatâs 97% of the students. So about 3% of the families are the ones who are right around the full pay line that we are discussing? Thatâs what Iâd expect.
Those families are the prime targets for nice merit deals at the usual suspect privates (Tulane, Miami, Case, etc.) or will take the IS deal if they happen to live in a state with a fancy flagship (UCB, UCLA, UVA, UNC, UMich, etc.). Those families are usually going to opt to spend $30-40k a year, but will struggle to pay $65-70k.
Studies show that two most important factors in college choice are price and prestige. UCLA @ $25k is way better value proposition than Vandy @ $65k. So UCLA (or Tulane/Miami merit) is going to win very often at the 5% line (where full pay starts).
Fin aid is not just about income. I suspect thereâs more truth in the savings/assets figures, among the wealthy, from the surplus of discretionary income, than some want to admit. Ater all, itâs easier to complain about a donut hole based on just known income.
There are no simple explanations why siblings achieve high- nor do they all. So many factors.
Now, for a bit of irony and ED: âYou canât believe everything adcoms sayâŠâ But folks sure do believe most everything they seen on blogs and forums. Lol.
You are guessing at the threshold. When you guess at numbers without evidence, it can lead to incorrect conclusions. The actual top 5% threshold used in the NYT references was $225k. You can confirm this by seeing that Tufts, which has a median income of $225k has 50% in top 5%, as listed at https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/college-mobility/tufts-university .
As stated above, the 3% of families you referenced only includes Vanderbilt families with incomes in the narrow range between $205k and $225k. ~1% of US families have incomes in this narrow range, so 3% of families at Vanderbilt is a ~3x over-representation.
A summary of the degree of over-representation among Vanderbilt parents at different income levels is below. The $205k to $225k range certainly doesnât look like a doughnut hole situation to me. Instead it looks like the natural progression of the trend, that as family income increases students are increasingly more likely to attend Vanderbilt (over UCLA or similar), and as family income decreases.students are more likely to attend UCLA (over Vanderbilt or similar).
Under ~$20k income â 11x under-representation
~$20k to $115k income â 3x under-representation
$115k to $160k income â Balanced representation
$160k to $205k income â 2x over-representation
$205k to $225k income â 3x over-representation
$225k to ~$600k â 6x over-representation
~$600k+ â 23x over-representation
Data â thatâs a clever way to back into $225 for the 96th (or is it 95th) percentile. Whatâs your percentile number for the $205k and how are you coming up with that?
Now, for a bit of irony and ED: âYou canât believe everything adcoms sayâŠâ But folks sure do believe most everything they seen on blogs and forums. Lol.
I think that are people cynical about what adcoms say, like myself, donât believe everything we read either.
Part of interpreting what the adcoms say is the non-quantitative way that the adcoms answer these questions.
ED or legacy status just provides a âsmallâ boost and you still have to be qualified. Thatâs true, but likely quite misleading. Letâs say ED and/or legacy improves your admit chances from 7% to 22%.
You still have a 78% chance of being rejected â sounds like no big deal. Or it triples your chances of admission â sounds like a pretty big deal. Both are true.
âJust a tie-breaker.â Sounds like no big deal. But elite college admissions is a game where many many thousands of applicants are qualified and have pretty much the same credentials. If you are playing a game that produces lots of ties, having âjustâ a tie breaker means a lot.
Again, are athletes and development admits capable of doing the work and present a âstunninglyâ good app?
Many donât but if theyâre on the list given to admissions that say, accept, theyâre in.
Schools have a list of things they want: diversity, brilliant minds, athletes who can also do the work and money and more. All of those things fill institutional needs and all of them bring something beyond merely âcapable.â However, for all of them, Iâm willing to bet that âcapableâ Is a threshold requirement.
âED or legacy status just provides a âsmallâ boost and you still have to be qualified. Thatâs true, but likely quite misleading. Letâs say ED and/or legacy improves your admit chances from 7% to 22%.â
Many replies refer to the whole population of applicants and the percent of acceptance. Reality is that your chances of being accepted are not only as part of the demographic that you personally belong to (no legacy boost, non-URM, male/female according to major, special talents and many more), more importantly your application is being looked at with any submitted from your town and high school and possibly state or country. So, if those other student(s) apply ED and get accepted, your application may not be considered in the same way.
This thread is about siblings. Admissions officers with siblings applying to the same school likely have access to some data (awards, Deanâs list, campus organization involvement, internships, application data) of the enrolled sibling. If child #2, #3 has similar or better application stats and ECs, has attended the same HS and was raised in the same household, one would assume they will have a similar predictable outcome once on campus. There may be less of a need for discussion and debate during the review process. Also, it is likely easier for the applicant to dig deep and find a department or research area of interest within the university during their HS years. Siblings attending the same university is very common at a local level, only questioned at top tier schools.
Unfortunately, once multiple siblings attend, outsiders have high expectations for #3, but they may not have the same level of academic interest or talent.
I wonder how much of this has to do with parental knowledge. For example, I had no idea about the science opportunities, contests, summer programs etc. It wasnât on our radar and certainly wasnât pushed at our school in any way. There are parents who start their kids in academic enrichment programs early on. In order to do that, they have to first be aware those programs exist.
Iâm not saying that all kids who get into top colleges have parents who push them. There are several posters on this thread who clearly have had a different experience. But if the familyâs goal is a top college for all the kids, it doesnât hurt to know what it takes and start the kids on the right track early on.
By the way, Iâm not suggesting that this is what parents should do and I donât think everyoneâs goal needs to be a top 10 school.
Ime, not so much awareness of enrichment or contests. More, the approach, how you learn about colleges and what. And a willingness to see both sides of this as about qualitative- the fuller opps your kid gets at certain colleges that match who they are today and their directions (not prestige.) And what you in turn offer that those college targets look for, value. (A former poster used to make the marriage analogy.) If thereâs a third prong, itâs a willingness to do what the college likes, not just what the high school student likes.
The first part is easy, nearly everyone on CC can talk about what they or their student âwants.â Fewer try to pull back the veil on what the college sees as match. (More than stats and some titles, not the simple idea of "passions, " any sort of passions, the word.)
Thereâs so much advice on CC to check your stats via the CDS, win national/intl awards, found something/anything, so you can call yourself founder, be odd (standing out isnât about odd or unusual, it has to do with how you show your merit.) I suspect lot of that isnât vetted. Supported by anecdote, sure. But thatâs a limited and slanted view. (âMy kid didnât do comm service, so itâs not important.â Or, âMy kid didnât have ECs related to the major, so itâs not important.â And those parents often canât point to what it was, then, that made up for that.)
And some families get it. The thing about legacies (the best of them) is they can know the college more broadly than prestige, job opps, my stats, they have my major, they offer study abroad, etc. Put another way, whatâs behind the veil.
@lookingforward Thats an interesting comment about legacies knowing the school and I think its spot on. My daughter will not be applying to the school I attended because I know it well enough to know that it would be a terrible fit for her. Iâve looked into it recently enough to know that it hasnât changed. I imagine there is a lot of that self selection going on. When your child applies to the school you attended, you know it well enough not only to make sure its a good fit, but to let the schools know WHY its a good fit.
And with sibling legacy, (whether or not itâs formally valued,) the applicant may mention talking with the current student, seeing the sibâs fit and satisfaction, how they adapt to the format, etc.
Of course, an applicant without these ties can do a solid job of matching in these various ways. But you donât just fall into it, because you have X high school stats (check) and Y club titles (check) and some career dreams.