<p>yeah hxcstl, what determined if I was going to retake the SATs or not was how my dad reacted to the idea of paying $42 for a test…</p>
<p>Thank you - the last two posters - we need to hear from you who are going through this right now. I am now the parent of a senior in HS, but when I was a senior, my parents hadn’t completed HS and college was a mystery. I took a full load of AP classes, but no tests because my daddy wouldn’t pay a fee for a test and I didn’t know how to check into fee waivers.
I think sometimes people who haven’t lived throug this just can’t imagine trying to wade your way through as a 17 or 18 year old, usually while working (I was working too, like you - and had 5 siblings).
Keep posting and good luck!!</p>
<p>I applied to different universities and when hope seemed obsolete, I prayed and it worked.</p>
<p>I will graduate with 67 college hours from a local community college with my Associates of Science degree (only 2 seniors doing it this year) and I feel honored. I didn’t hire any guidance, pay for any prep classes, or anything that’s associated with a better chance at University.</p>
<p>I did most of my information gathering by reading school catalogs and websites, including this one. Before my senior year, college was, to me, only reachable by the rich and I didn’t care too much for it. I decided to take the SAT my junior year and bombed it. Then I worked hard at reading and raised my score 300 points. </p>
<p>Thankfully, my school picked up a new guidance counselor or I would’ve been screwed by the subjective old one. If daddy wasn’t donating–then your child wasn’t going to college was her mindset. </p>
<p>btw, i worked five jobs while in HS, and many times, working two at once.</p>
<p>I continue to believe that particularly due to the wide range of information on the Internet as well as elsewhere (libraries, magazine racks, and, yes GC offices), there is little excuse for most motivated low income students not finding out about workable college options.</p>
<p>Does that mean that most would be able to go to the very best college that is a match for them? No. But the same is true of the majority of students in this country. Most go to public colleges within a 2-hour drive. Most apply to only a couple of colleges. Most certainly do not apply to 10 colleges after an extensive countrywide search. While that kind of search may be the norm for many on College Confidential, it’s not necessary or needed in order to get a college degree, to have a fulfilling college experience or a successful life however one defines it.</p>
<p>If one has good grades, there’s a very good chance that one’s local public college or community college will give one merit aid and need based aid and be very affordable if one commutes. There are plenty of people who started at third tiers or community colleges and then went on to places like law school and even medical school. One doesn’t need to go to the very top college that one is capable of gaining admission to in order to get to graduate school or professional school. </p>
<p>One does need to take maximum advantages of the opportunities at one’s colleges,but if one is very bright and hard working and is at a CC or even a third tier, from what I’ve seen (and I worked at a 3rd tier plus have friends who are community college professors), one will often get more individual mentoring and other assistance than one would at a top college, where a first gen college student may be very overshadowed by students who come from very sophisticated backgrounds, and professors are often much more interested in their research than in mentoring.</p>
<p>I could tell you many stories about former students who came from low income, uneducated backgrounds and who due to their own high levels of motivation (including a willingness to actively research their options) and mentoring dod extremely well in college and professionally.</p>
<p>For that matter, my husband was the first person in his immediate family to graduate from high school. He grew up in a Chicago neighborhood where he probably was the only one headed for college. His parents loved him and wanted him to go to college, but weren’t active in helping him search for colleges.</p>
<p>He was the valedictorian of his class and a National Achievement scholar, and applied to 3 colleges; a local 2nd or 3rd tier public in his midwestern city, a historically black college and a church-related 2nd tier LAC, which he chose to go to. He had the grades and scores to have gone to an Ivy, but didn’t know about such options. </p>
<p>At the LAC, he got excellent teaching and mentoring, received a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship as he graduated. By then,he knew how to research the quality of graduate programs, and got into the top programs in his field including Cornell and Wash U, both of which he turned down for Ohio State, which then was higher rated in his field than were the others. He did well at Ohio State, including spending a year studying abroad, and afterward got an excellent job and got good jobs afterward.</p>
<p>Due to merit and need- based aid, he graduated from college and grad school with no debt.</p>
<p>His success was in the preInternet days. I imagnie that if he were applying to college now, he’d probably have used the Internet, found out more about college options, and gone to college at a higher ranked college. Still, would that have changed the quality of his life? Probably not. He had an excellent education, in many respects better than my Ivy one because as an undergrad, he had professors who were dedicated to teaching. </p>
<p>Anyway, I have worked with a lot of low income students, both in my volunteer work in inner city schools and as 6 years as a prof at a second/third tier college. There really is plenty of info around about college options, financial aid, etc. (This includes stacks of books and other materials in GC’s offices that often go untouched as do applications for local scholarships) , and the ones who are most highly motivated take advantage of that info and do fine, which may include going to the local public university just like many of students from more affluent backgrounds do. </p>
<p>There are plenty of others who, if they had educated parents, would be the type of students whose parents would be researching options and virtually filling out their applications. Such unmotivated (even if bright) students typically don’t do well in college anyway regardless of what kind of family background they have. They may need to spend time in the work world – lots of time in the work world – before becoming motivated to go to college. </p>
<p>HXCstl said that at their school, an impressive ACT was a 30, and about 10 students a year got that. From my standpoint, that was a reasonably strong high school. When I lived in Detroit, the average ACT there was a 12, and when one of my mentees got a 14, her GC told her not to retake the ACT since she had “scored above average.” The mentee (whose gpa put her near the top of her class) ignored my advice to retake the ACT after studying for it. I even had given her a review book. However, my mentee still became the first person in her family to go to college, and went to a 4-year public college.</p>
<p>I was first generation college attendee in our family and my two younger brothers did not attend college either. Looking back I think how uninformed and naive I was about the whole college “thing”. And I wasn’t that great a student either-no AP courses and ranked near the top quarter but no better.</p>
<p>I do remember taking the PSAT and SAT once; but study? You got to be kidding. I know I had some meetings with my GC but frankly do not remember any great advice coming my way.</p>
<p>I do applied to only 3 colleges, UBuffalo, Penn State and Ohio State. Accepted to UB and OSU. Of course there were no campus visits. We didn’t even consider such a thing.</p>
<p>But I vividly remember reading the hugh college catalogue that Ohio State sent with the acceptance letter and being enthralled with the vastness of courses that i could consider taking. And I vividly remember the first day I stepped onto the Oval as if it were yesterday and understanding that this was the place where my life was going to take off.</p>
<p>Call it what you want-a childhood of limited expectations, naivette, or unsophistication. But from that first day of orientation, not a single day passed when I did not feel inspired by that place we called “The Big Farm”. And I get that same feeling whenever I return to campus or merely look back in recollection.</p>
<p>The point is that almost any low/middle class kid who is a decent student can experience what I did with a minimum of resources and just a gentle shove in the right direction. And if they are similarly inspired by the Orton Hall carillon chiming out the time on the half hour(not to mention the noon “concert”), it too can be a life changing opportunity.</p>
<p>BlahDeBlah
I do??? No, on the contrary, I am pretty sure that it does play a big role. I just don’t think the difference lies in the income level (at least definitely not between middle and upper-middle class); and I do not buy the idea that it is the colleges’ responsibility to remediate that difference. There are communities whose members do not give a damn about education? Too bad. Or maybe not too bad… well, we don’t cry that the poor Amish kids are depraved of opportunity to attend Harvard, do we? Their parents have the right to raise their kids as they see fit, right? Why should that be different for parents from, say, Alabama countryside? Anyway, it would be really immature to expect the colleges to chase after the kids from these communities and to force them to give a damn (or spoon-feed them the information). </p>
<p>Anyway, you can bring a horse to water… I find it really, really strange this hope that “somebody” must come and change your mindset for you. So non-American, no?
See, I don’t think it was entirely your responsibility. The process is complicated enough, and the involvement of the parents in many cases can make all the difference. But I also do not think that the colleges, or state, or anybody else must “reach out” and do the job instead of the parents, as it was implied in the original post. And no way I can buy the idea that the poor parents are by definition less involved or incapable of helping their kids to the same extent as the rich parents. Yes, the lack of parental education could impair their involvement (as in the case when the adults were not able to fill out a simple form). But not the income level itself. </p>
<p>Neither I think that all that suggested “reaching out” would help. If anything might be of help, it would be a complete revamp of the admissions system (is not going to happen) or, better yet, a complete revamp of the educational system - one would hope to expect the American school-age education to produce children who can read and use Internet, and who has enough of the “mindset” to be able to fill out a simple form. At least those of them who is college-bound. But other than that…</p>
<p>Oh, and about the NJ kid who “dropped out” during the admission process… He does have my sympathy, because his family failed him. But after that - he could have attended a CC for $3000 а year, or commute to Rutgers for $10000 a year… that is, if the family still does not qualify for finaid. Well, because he did not DO anything, it does look like he feels he is entitled to the same treatment as his sister, and refuses to “settle” for anything less… and *that * does not call for any sympathy. </p>
<p>The family in this case obviously was well-aware of the details of the admission process, they just made a choice. I do not see how any outside interference could change their attitude.</p>
<p>When I was in HS in MN ages ago, we were shown a film in one of our classes about the state college/University system. It was made very clear in that film that anyone who wanted to attend college could do so and that financial aid was available. At that point, the MN schools were extremely affordable for in-state students and the U of MN would admit any in-state student who applied (the lower performers were admitted to a remedial program called the General College). That’s the kind of thing that could be really helpful to students whose parents aren’t experienced with college.</p>
<p>I never said that I thought it was supposed to be the college’s responsibility to go around and make sure that every single student who might be a good fit at their school applied to it. I was just answering the question in the title, and my answer is…if the kid’s parents don’t know anything and they haven’t got a guidance counselor or some kind of other mentor at school who helps out…then no one supports them. If they manage to figure everything out on their own at 17, good for them, and if not, well it’s only 4 years. And I also think that whether or not the students’ parents and peers are aware of the admissions process and to what extent the school can help depends on how affluent the area is. There wouldn’t be such a big discrepancy among family incomes at top schools if everyone had an equal chance at it. </p>
<p>All the usual advice about going to community college and transferring to a 4-year state school really didn’t apply to me…NJIT is NJ’s only state school with an accredited architecture program and I had (and still have) no desire to spend 5 years of my life in Newark. Some people might think that makes me spoiled, but so be it. I don’t think the guidance office had a lot of experience in that matter.</p>
<p>yes, I completely agree Northstarmom. If someone really wants something, it’s attainable. I remember back when I was in 9th grade and I knew NOTHING about colleges (and certainly I thought that the Ivies were completely out of reach, actually I didn’t even know what Ivy League was, I just knew “Harvard”). But I knew that getting good grades was part of it. So what did I do? Living in a tw bedroom apartment with 5 people, I decided that when I got home from school, I would sleep, then wake up at night and do my work. That worked out well. In ninth grade I’m pretty sure I was in the top 1% of my class, and I attend an extrememly competitive public high school in Westchester (about 15 got into Ivies really).</p>
<p>But what happened? I got extremely depressed, (I’m pretty sure I’m bipolar) so I stopped carrying for school much. I still managed to graduate in the top 10%, but I knew if I wasn’t so depressed all the time, I would’ve done a whole lot better. But, oh well, can’t do nothing about it now…</p>
<p>My twin brother and I are low income and our school gc basically knows nothing about the admissions process so we did everything alone.</p>
<p>For me there was a simple answer to the question: Who Supports Low/Middle Income Kids During App Process?</p>
<p>COLLEGE CONFIDENTIAL!</p>
<p>Granted I only applied to 2 schools and one was a huge reach and the other a safety. Thank god I got into both.</p>
<p>taebubu,
Congratulations! Glad that CC was such good help for you. Congratulations, too, on having the motivation to find it.</p>
<p>Marmat and Northstarmom, Although college app information is abundantly “there” in all the catalogues and websites, for those who attack it, I think we’re hearing from students that they need better HUMAN guidance during high school, a mentor with a broad worldview.<br>
When I began the thread, I guessed that the problems might be mechanical (forms, etc.) but now, the more I listen to the students’ voices, I hear them describe the importance of finances (even SAT fees), imagination and confidence. When someone needs human guidance from a larger vantage point, I wouldn’t call them “unmotivated.” I’d call them young. </p>
<p>Northstarmom, I’m glad that there’s mentorship at CC’s, and you’re confirming something I’d heard. But we’re talking about before they appear on your teaching roster.</p>
<p>Back in the day (1968) I attended an inner-city highschool, graduating the year MLK and RFK were shot. Nonetheless, the one black student in our “top track” academic stream who wished to apply to Radcliffe that year (Harvard wasn’t for girls then) was told by her (white) GC she’d only support an app to Morgan State Teachers College (historically black). This student was EXACTLY what Radcliffe was looking for at that moment in time, but the GC misadvised her.
So that was racial “steering” then, but I wonder if “income/class steering” is still being practiced by high school GC’s today. IF so, it’s wrong. Fortunately, the girl defied her GC, went on to Radcliffe and had a much more remarkable life than if she had gone to Morgan State. Yes, more remarkable.</p>
<p>I’m especially learning from the posts by students in this thread. Many thanks.</p>
<p>I’m kind of dismayed that we are hearing (at least it’s my impression) from one kid who <em>is</em> the high school student we’re talking about, but we don’t seem to be listening to what s/he says.
This reflects my personal experience of where a lot of the trouble lies. My own step-grandson fits this mold. Some of you who followed my posts re helping him apply (he’s a sophomore at his in-state flagship now) know that he fell through the cracks due to, in my opinion, just the factors BlahdeBlah cites. He never even applied to college out of high school.</p>
<p>A lot of what these kids lack is not information or resources (although they do lack these), but an environment which even puts college - <em>for them personally</em> - on the radar screen. Some of these kids are not the valedictorians or top 10% so many on this thread are concerned with. Some are like my step-grandson, an average student, a B student. But we believe college is essential to his future as much as it is to our own high-achieving son. Our step-grandson was lucky that we noticed him falling through the cracks and were there to step up to help. And we were lucky that he wanted this for himself when someone made a little noise to indicate that, yes, it was for him, too.</p>
<p>He also suffered from of the syndrome described by another poster (forgive me for not remembering who it was)
One side of my step-grandson’s family is what I guess you could call “actively suspicious” of a college education. They successfully steered him toward “lucrative” construction jobs, whose pay rate sounded exciting to a 17-year old. Those jobs didn’t pan out for him on any kind of a reliable basis. And it wasn’t what he really wanted for himself. But the point is: too many times these kids have limited knowledge of what to want <em>for themselves</em> due to parental and other environmental influences. I’m not talking about the academic superstars and I’m not saying they don’t know that college exists - they just don’t see it in their own futures.</p>
<p>i think that the key to going to the college of ur choice (if ur a low-middle income student like me) is self-motivation</p>
<p>i mean, i paid for all my college apps with the money that i got from my part time job, applied to 10 schools, sent SAT + ACT scores, filed fafsa and css. Coming from a background where i lived in a third world country for half of my life, i think that just having self-motivation and taking the time to research the college apps prepares you for the real world cuz eventually, most of us will stop getting spoon-fed. However, I also think that colleges should take this into account, esp if we don’t have enough money to get SAT tutoring or whatever cuz low-middle income students have to work that much harder just to stay at the same level as their wealthy counterparts.</p>
<p>“Marmat and Northstarmom, Although college app information is abundantly “there” in all the catalogues and websites, for those who attack it, I think we’re hearing from students that they need better HUMAN guidance during high school, a mentor with a broad worldview.”</p>
<p>Where possibly we differ is that I don’t think that it’s a tragedy if a kid ends up being like many others and going to a college that is less competitive than he or she might be able to get into with more guidance. I know many smart people who have done that, including people from very educated as well as uneducated homes. In fact, most very bright people probably don’t go to the quality of college that they are capable of going to. They still can have very successful lives (as can people who aren’t that bright!)</p>
<p>My husband, for example, was Ivy material, but went to a 2nd tier LAC, still has done very well in life. In fact, he got some opps from the LAC that he probably wouldn’t have gotten in an Ivy, because he probably would not have stood out as much in an Ivy where there would have been many more students who were more well traveled, sophisticated, etc.</p>
<p>The low income students from uneducated parents whom I know and have mentored (and there have been many) have gotten to college by taking advantage of various resources – GCs, teachers, ministers, library materials, etc. They got mentors because they sought out these people, which included displaying their interest in education,etc. when they encountered people who might be able to help them. </p>
<p>It’s a fallacy that mentors just show up. In fact, virtually everyone whom I have been assigned to mentor has not shown any interest. They’d forget, for example, to show up at mentoring sessions even though those sessions were in their own schools.</p>
<p>THe students who are self motivated, however, manage to find mentors. They talk after class to the teachers who clearly are interested in helping students. They establish ties with the parents of friends who appear to be supportive. They really care about getting an education, so they aren’t passive.</p>
<p>When I lived in Detroit, I volunteered making career, scholarship, college presentations in various inner city school classes. Many times, most of the students would be disruptive, asleep, etc. </p>
<p>Once, I remember that only one girl showed any interest. I ended up being in touch with her for years. She was in middle school when I met her. She now is a broadcast journalist. Last I saw her was several years ago when she saw me at a conference, recognized me (I hadn’t seen her since she was in 7th grade!) and thanked me for helping her.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, too many students think that mentors can drag them to education, but that’s not the case. This is also true for many solidly middle and upper class students, but the difference is that these kind of students may have parents who are willing to drag them or to pay for counselors who will (Thought, from what I’ve seen, the dragged students tend to flunk out of college because no one will drag them there to education).</p>
<p>“Back in the day (1968) I attended an inner-city highschool, graduating the year MLK and RFK were shot. Nonetheless, the one black student in our “top track” academic stream who wished to apply to Radcliffe that year (Harvard wasn’t for girls then) was told by her (white) GC she’d only support an app to Morgan State Teachers College (historically black). This student was EXACTLY what Radcliffe was looking for at that moment in time, but the GC misadvised her.
So that was racial “steering” then, but I wonder if “income/class steering” is still being practiced by high school GC’s today. IF so, it’s wrong. Fortunately, the girl defied her GC, went on to Radcliffe and had a much more remarkable life than if she had gone to Morgan State. Yes, more remarkable.”</p>
<p>Yes, this kind of thing happened before, and it happens now. While it’s more likely to happen to low income students and URMs, it still can happen to any student.</p>
<p>Still, we don’t know whether a student would have had a more remarkable life if they had gone to Morgan State, not Harvard. I know some people who went to very weak colleges who were superstar students there and have had very remarkable lives including going on to Ivies afterward. So, you never know…</p>
<p>I certainly agree with Northstarmom that we don’t need to consider it a tragedy that a student “only” goes to the in-state U or cc. For my step-grandson and for the kids I mentor at our state youth center (whose lives have obviously gone off track), it is the moving on to higher education <em>at all</em> that is life-changing for them. Concern about what tier they attend is totally secondary, imho. Like her H (and my H, too), they can have thoroughly satisfying careers having attended a lower-tier school. These careers can be as remunerative as they wish as well, as I think most of us will agree that the name on your degree matters less and less as time goes on than do your achievements in your workplace.</p>
<p>I do find it sad that students who <em>want</em> the higher tier/elite schools are diverted from them by uninformed folks. There are GC’s who are out of their comfort zone with such schools and steer students in other directions. There are still parents out there who believe that there is no way they can afford such schools, not being aware of need-based aid. OTOH, we see the converse too often, when naive folks assume full rides will fall into the laps of all straight-A students.</p>
<p>Yeah, I think it has more to do with attending college at all. I mean, when I felt like giving up, it was for ALL my schools, not just top ones (even though applying to CUNYs and SUNYs is a very simple) .</p>
<p>A website like this one made me go from:
Reach-Stony Brook Match-Lehman Safety-Community college
to having Stony Brook as my safety and the Ivies as my reaches.</p>
<p>And the person that has kept me from giving up completely I actually met in this site. One of the best things to EVER happen to me.</p>
<p>So yeah, I’m extremely grateful for this site, especially for parents like you guys :)</p>
<p>THANK YOU!! :)</p>
<p>I kind of fit the hypothetical student you guys are talking about : low middle-class, maybe even low class to some people’s standards, but you wouldn’t even guess that because of how lucky i’ve been. my parents have been great and made so many little sacrifices for us, that some at my school, even my friends, probably mistake me for upper-middle class, esp. when they hear what schools i’m applying to. </p>
<p>my parents are foreign, so they have always valued education - it was always a given that we’d all go to college. It’s not as if the didnt go to college themselves; my father has a phd, my mother went to college too, but specifically, they couldn’t help much. they thought apps to ivy league and the state u was all i needed; though I gotta admit they didn’t know “ivy league”. they only knew harvard, princeton, brown, yale, stanford. my apps/searches, etc. was all up to me, and the financial aid forms, other than the actual tax filing. all they could d was be supportive and make me work, haha, but that should be enough for a motivated college-bound kid, I think. </p>
<p>my school isn’t much help, especially when compared with some of those people on here attend. my counselor, a great person, but kind of clueless in the college process : calls penn “penn state”, asked why I was applying to so many schools, etc. Only about 30 percent of the kis from my high school go on to a 4yr college, most to cc, etc. few even apply out of state, most apply to 1-4 in state schools. People look at the schools I’m applying to and think I am insanely rich or something. That’s the outlook around here.</p>
<p>My point is, for kids like meadweb, me, and countless others, this site is pretty invaluable. I don’t even remember how I found it, but I’m glad I did. And, just for the record, even with this ‘diastvantaged’ background, I’m pretty sure I can say I’ve got a great future ahead of me college-wise, barrng some unforeseen financial aid mishap. I will admt that it would have probably been a lot easier as an upper-class student in a top high school, etc</p>