<p>
Stanford admissions has said they don’t have limits on the number of spots per high school or region, and I’ve heard of >25 acceptances from the same high school before. Also how do you know if you are in the top 5 kids from your HS by Stanford’s admission criteria? If you mean class rank or other stats, lots of kids are admitted who don’t have stats in the top 5 applying. I was ~70th in my HS class by GPA/rank. I’d probably be ~100th if you included a combination of all stats. Nevertheless, I was the only one from my HS admitted to Stanford in my year.</p>
<p>
I’ll compare some specific scenarios using Stanford’s net price calc. In each case I calculated as if married with 2 kids, one of whom is in college; savings of half a year’s income; a 15% income tax rate; my CA zip code; and owning a home with value of 3x annual salary of which 20% is home equity.</p>
<p>Annual Income – Cost to Parents
$60,000 – $0
$80,000 – $9,000
$100,000 – $17,000
$125,000 – $21,000
$150,000 – $26,000
$175,000 – $41,000
$200,000 – $51,000
$225,000 – Full Price</p>
<p>Yes, the lower income group that has $0 cost to parents has the greatest benefits. However, the group I’d call middle class appears to have large FA benefits. There is rapid decrease in FA once you get above an income of $150,000, which is what I’d consider out of middle class. Nevertheless, there is some FA even at incomes of above $200,000.</p>