The data doesn’t support that belief — it’s just that the test scores provide something of a short-hand proxy – vs. a more in-depth, holistic approach. But in any case, the point is that in the context of college admissions, it does serve to keep admissions skewed toward wealthier students overall. That is why Chicago shifted to test-optional when they wanted to expand outreach to needier students. The scores do play gatekeeping role, and I think the college admissions staff are very much aware of it.
I always found it interesting that at my daughter’s alma mater, qualification for HEOP (and the college’s own, privately funded equivalent) require a test score BELOW a certain threshold. (Students currently must have a 24 or below on the ACT English – way, way below the college median of 32-35). Part of that might be tied to the college’s perception of the mission of HEOP (to provide opportunity to students from disadvantaged backgrounds) – but since the college also want to admit students with the potential to succeed, that seems to reflect a determination that the test scores are also tied to some level of economic advantage.
(I’d just note that I don’t really have a problem with colleges doing this – they either have to have a set of criteria that works to keep the money flowing the way they want, or they are going to have to either move away from promising full need or shift to need-aware admissions policies. Either way, when private college tuitions are in the $70K+ range, the vast majority of college matriculants are going to come from upper middle class and wealthy families. )
I think it is safe to say that most admissions committees, although well meaning, are not remotely capable of disentangling correlation from causation.
And re UChicago, Nondorf has been playing games with admissions since 2016 in order to continue to boost admissions and selectivity. It went from having the most flexible and transparent systems (unrestricted EA and RD) to one of the most opaque systems (EA, ED1, ED2, and RD). He keeps trying to pull another rabbit out of his hat, and he is hoping test optional is it. Time will tell, as the academics there are unforgiving.
I’ve seen some research posted here at one point on higher iq parents and how offspring revert towards the mean over time. So smart parents don’t always mean equal or higher iq levels of offspring.
But why would the AO care if the applicant is rich or poor? The AO doesn’t have a budget to meet at a true meets need school. Every single admit could need full FA and Harvard could deal with that. The AO just doesn’t care (for FA reasons) about the zip code or HS. And really, a few of us sneak into the best zip codes and schools and still can’t afford $70k, and some of us even have advanced degrees)
If the true meet needs schools cared, they could become need aware schools. It is their choice not to consider financial need.
Regression to the mean certainly exists, but interestingly it supports heritability rather than rejects it. The concept of regression to the mean was first discovered with regards to height. The children of extremely tall parents were likely to be shorter than the parents, but still likely above average. But if there was no heritability, the children would be expected to be average height, not above average.
The heritability of height is estimated at about 80%, and people readily accept this, in part because they see it everyday. The heritability of intelligence is also estimated at about 80%, but that makes some people uncomfortable.
Every school and enrollment management department, even those at meet full need schools, has a net revenue target/budget (COA revenues less FA), no matter the college’s endowment. Colleges are businesses and businesses have budgets.
Yes, there are a handful schools whose endowments could fund every single student, but none of those schools has yet made that choice. Instead, those schools have a disproportionate number of students from families with high incomes. Harvard had 15.1% students from families in the top 1% of income, and 20.4% from the bottom 60%. (From the 2017 NYTimes study, which is getting dated and many would like to see it updated!)
Absolutely their choice…among the 75 or so meet full need schools, 30ish are need-aware, 45ish need-blind.
Looking at it another way…out of around 3,000 4 year colleges, there are 110ish need-blind colleges (some meet full need, some don’t)…that’s sure not many, and that number is probably not going to grow significantly because numbers and budgets tend to be important when determining policies.
There are more schools that have chosen to change from need-blind to need-aware than vice verse in the recent past (Wesleyan, Macalester, Haverford all were need-blind and went to need-aware, Hamilton became need-blind).
After 86 posts we have finally hit on what is missing from CC’s admissions discussions. Being full pay at a private school during the ED round is a big deal. It’s not a full hook, but it’s definitely a BIG boost. I think our culture makes it tough for us to talk about money. It’s ok when it’s an athlete or an URM, but they idea that parental wealth is a big bump strikes a nerve.
You’re completely right @circuitrider. Intelligence doesn’t measure grit or EQ, both critical factors to future success.
But you’re also right in a different way. Many, perhaps most, highly intelligent kids don’t get the supportive environment in high school that allows them to fully develop their abilities. They are expected to shine because of their natural talent, but what happens is that they are highly bored in school and often don’t perform very well. Test scores identify those kids, who can often excel in college because they finally found their academic peers.
I think folks here are greatly overestimating the boost from being full pay. It might factor in at many schools but at the most selective schools I hardly think it is much of a factor. Included in many ED admissions numbers are Posse and Questbridge students and similar who are definitely not full pay.
For the selective schools most talked about on CC, there are plenty of qualified, full pay applicants to choose from.
The article takes a pretty deep dive into the issues we have been discussing here.
Some interesting bullet points:
[QUOTE=""]
“In public, university leaders like to advertise the diversity of their freshman classes and their institutions’ generosity with financial aid. In private, they feel immense pressure to maintain tuition revenue and protect their school’s elite status.”
“‘Admissions for us is not a matter of turning down students we’d like to admit. It’s a matter of admitting students we’d like to turn down.’”
“American colleges collectively now give more aid to each student with a family income over $100,000, on average, than they do to each student with a family income under $20,000.”
Colleges’ predictive models and the specific nature of their inputs may differ somewhat from one institution to another, but the output is always the same: *Admit more rich kids. *
The Posse & Questbridge students are a very tiny fraction of the ED admits – the vast majority of ED students are full play or close to full pay — it simply does not make sense to apply ED unless one is confident they can afford to attend if admitted. And binding early admission is and always has been a way for the colleges to lock in tuition-paying students.
The admissions boost may not seem apparent on an individual level, to kids and parents who are deferred or rejected in the ED pool – but that ignores the fact that the pool of applicants trends wealthy, and that the overall percentage of students admitted in the ED round is higher than in the RD round. And those who are deferred also have the opportunity for a second bite at the apple – they can submit more material or info post-deferral to strengthen their initial app.
The vast majority of middle-class students who aspire to elite schools but are reliant on financial aid are pretty much shut out of the ED process.
What’s the percentage of ED applicants who are athletes and may or may not be full pay. The seniors at my kids school that I know of who ED’d were all athletes who need significant fa. One mom was saying they were shocked at the limited aid they got (they’d gotten used to the prep schools generosity) and were wondering how they’d pay.
I can only speak from my personal experience and therefore for only one university on the veracity of this statement, but it is pretty clear at this university.
My D was accepted to a T20 college that she was ecstatic to attend. She was staying with me and on that same day, she enrolled and sent in her deposit forgetting in her euphoria to even tell her mother (my ex-). A few days later, she was contacted by the Financial Aid Office to ask her to, “Please send in your financial aid forms, because the FAO have not received the forms, but we see you have enrolled.”
My ex- must initiate all financial aid forms to the various colleges per the custodial arrangement and I follow with non-custodial forms only upon request of the individual institution(s). My D contacted her mother to ask why she didn’t file at this university, although she did at the other colleges. She replied, “Because I knew it would be too expensive for you to attend.” My D was distraught and told her to please send in the forms pronto to find out before making a unilateral decision on one college.
She finally sent in the forms. The financial aid package was the best and blew all of us away.
The Admissions Office obviously did not communicate with the Financial Aid Office at any point during the application or decision-making process. The AO had no idea how much they were inevitably going to stump up and clearly, did not care. After the acceptance and enrollment, the FAO had no incentive to ask for the forms, and had no incentive to give any award, let alone a massive award.
After my 2nd daughter was accepted to the same university a few years later, the FAO sent out her financial aid package and my 2nd D enrolled. A couple of weeks later, the FAO office contacted my ex- to point out that it appeared she had made a mistake on one of the forms that ended up just about doubling her financial aid package. Now, that is above and beyond the call of duty!
I would categorize my two Ds’ university as categorically need-blind.
Admissions officers can be truly need-blind, but policies made above their pay grade can still tilt the playing field towards higher wealth students.
This is most blatant when it comes to legacy. There are some tangible benefits to having legacy students on campus, such as coming in already knowing the college culture and traditions. But the real benefit is that a large percentage of these students will be full-pay and their parents will be generous donors.
All of the HYPSMs could do just fine without the financial quid pro quo expected from a legacy bump. MIT doesn’t consider it as it is antithetical to their merit-based culture. HYP certainly do, and I believe Stanford does so as well.
@bloomfield88 – the colleges are need-blind on an individual basis, but on a collective basis they run admissions using enrollment management algorithms that are skewed toward maintaining their financial goals, and that is skewed toward wealth. And they followup on that throughout the admissions seasons – that is, the admissions committee is in regular communication with the financial aid office, and if they are coming up short then they will adjust their algorithms accordingly, as they continue to make admission decisions.
The fact that some kids who have high need get in doesn’t change the fact that statistically they have things engineered to produce a desired result. The colleges doall want to accept some needy students, but the point is that none of them want to accept too many. “Too many” may vary from one college to another depending on their institutional priorities and the size of their endowment. But they will set their overall admissions standards in a way that pretty much guarantees the outcomes they want.
Because SAT & ACT scores correlate very strongly and consistently with family income, that is one very easy metric that will impact the collective need of the admitted students. So if a given student has a 1500 SAT, the odds are that student comes from a financially well-off family. It doesn’t mean that there are no poor students who score 1500 or above – it just means that of all students with test scores in that range, the vast majority come from higher wealth families.
If we look at a school and the median score range is for each part of the SAT is, say, 670-770 – MOST of the students are going to be from upper-income families. We know that because the average scores for students from families in the $40-$60K range is roughly 100 points lower (per test – about 200 points combined) than the average scores for students with family income of $200K and above.
@one1ofeach – colleges use binding ED to lock in students that give them something they want or need. Recruited athletes bring value in the eyes of the coaches who recruit them. And full-pay, nonathletes bring value in the form of their tuition dollars.
If a school awards athletic scholarships, they may have a separate fund to draw from that doesn’t impact their overall need-based financial aid budget. If not – and they are subsidizing financially needy athletes – then those $$ come out of the same pot that is available for other students, and it just means less funds available for the non-athletes. So it really doesn’t change the overall picture.