More precisely, it turns out that this is the right year to be applying to college if you’re the moderately talented child of exceptionally wealthy parents. Honestly, I had no idea there were so many ways around need-blind admissions.
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25 comments
March 30, 2009 at 9:54 pm
teofilo
Conversely, this is the worst year ever to be applying to grad school if you are not exceptionally wealthy. Trust me.
March 30, 2009 at 10:04 pm
ari
We would have found money for you.
March 30, 2009 at 10:21 pm
Bitchphd
It’s the American way, Ari.
March 30, 2009 at 10:28 pm
teofilo
I said “grad school,” not “peonage,” ari.
March 30, 2009 at 10:50 pm
andrew
I am just glad that a certain other country has schools that don’t charge so much for out-of-
stateprovince tuition. The loans, which don’t seem to be in as much trouble as grant aid, should be that much less painful. On the other hand, having a masters in hand makes you ineligible for a lot of aid. It’s probably better that way, but still hurts if it affects you.March 31, 2009 at 12:04 am
Sifu Tweety
Conversely, this is the worst year ever to be applying to grad school if you are not exceptionally wealthy.
I certainly hope it’s worse than next year.
How does being exceptionally wealthy help one get into grad school?
March 31, 2009 at 12:29 am
dave
Being exceptionally wealthy helps one get in everywhere…
March 31, 2009 at 3:20 am
kid bitzer
of course we have need-blind admisssions policies, and we adhere to them rigorously.
our policies are blind to your needs.
surely you didn’t think we meant blind to our *trustees’* needs?
March 31, 2009 at 4:42 am
Blume
I said “grad school,” not “peonage,” ari.
Ha. Haha!
March 31, 2009 at 6:34 am
dana
No loans for PhDs!
March 31, 2009 at 6:36 am
politicalfootball
Phew. What with all of the disturbance in the markets, I was concerned that there was no safety net for the truly wealthy.
March 31, 2009 at 6:37 am
LizardBreath
I’m really kind of horrified by the “‘We’re only human,’ said Steven Syverson, the dean of admissions and financial aid at Lawrence University in Wisconsin. ‘They shine a little brighter.’” language about richer students. If the college is going to claim to be ‘need-blind’ at all, shouldn’t the evaluation of specific students be done by people who aren’t the same ones worrying about the budget? It wouldn’t be hard to protect the admissions decisions from budgetary concerns if that was what the school genuinely intended to do.
March 31, 2009 at 6:41 am
dana
I’d assumed it never had been truly need-blind. Or at least, once you figure out that the wait-list isn’t need-blind, and international students pay full fare, and that scholarships can be merit or need-based… well, someone has to be looking at the numbers.
March 31, 2009 at 6:48 am
dana
Oh, and early decision. Early decision kids = rich kids who don’t have to wait on aid letters before committing to a school. Need-blind admissions still grope around in the dark, so to speak.
I feel bad for the high school kids. I remember my dad tearing up on the way home from visiting the university because we had to wait on the financial aid letter to know whether I could go, and that was agonizing.
March 31, 2009 at 7:54 am
PorJ
I dunno about being rich helping you get admitted to grad school, but once you are there, it makes all the difference in the world. A Dean wrote something in the Chronicle – I have to run to class, no time to link- saying something like: only the independently wealthy should be looking at PhD in the humanities right now because there are no jobs – and he ignited a storm of protest (although one of BitchPhD’s co-bloggers did a good response to it). But think back to your time in grad school – the people who succeeded (and I’m not really defining success here – maybe just finished doctorate) all had serious help of the financial variety – a spouse, an inheritance, etc. Money=Time, and Time=success in completing degree. I don’t think we should restrict grad schools to the wealthiest (or undergrad) and I think things like the Cooke Foundation scholarships (something like $35,000 for minorities to go for PhD in humanities) are part of the solution. But at least we’re talking about it, which, ideally, will create pressure on schools to work out better solutions.
March 31, 2009 at 9:15 am
ben
Conversely, this is the worst year ever to be applying to grad school if you are not exceptionally wealthy.
You mean “inversely”, I think.
March 31, 2009 at 9:17 am
ben
That article is outrageous, incidentally.
March 31, 2009 at 9:27 am
JPool
Of flesh and blood admissions officers are made.
My memories of undergrad applications lo these many years ago were that while a couple schools talked about a need blind admissions process, most were cagier and talked about “meeting the full demonstrated need” of those they admitted. Whatever the language, the award results varied incredibly, from the nice offer I eventually went with to “Surely you can take out massive loans and your divorced parents can contribute 20% of their salaries” to “Tell you what, you pay for the first year out of pocket and we’ll see what we can do from there.”
March 31, 2009 at 9:32 am
Michael Elliott
The article in the Times didn’t come as a surprise to me at all. I once heard someone in admissions here talking about the challenge of attracting students here. Look, he said: Only X number of high school seniors score over Y on their SAT. Of those, only Z percent have parents who make more than whatever, $200 or $250k per year. That leaves a very small pool of people to find the group that needs to be about 1/2 to 2/3 of our entering class: full-paying, highly qualified students.
I’m getting all the numbers wrong (I wish I had been taking notes), but the point was that this was an open secret. Even elite colleges who can afford very generous financial packages (and ours has created a new, more generous system recently), have to target high performing students who can pay. That’s going to be more true than ever now.
What I am more curious to see is whether this is the moment that private colleges finally decide that they are going to permanently lower the expenses of higher education. Because if they do, that is going to change to nature of faculty work in significant ways — maybe not all bad, but significant.
March 31, 2009 at 12:18 pm
Not Prince Hamlet
It’s always already a good time to be rich.
March 31, 2009 at 12:38 pm
Bitchphd
Re. PorJ’s comment, independently rich or supported by a spouse who earns a decent income. Most of the women in my program who published, finished, and got jobs were married to working non-academic partners.
March 31, 2009 at 3:01 pm
Blume
How does being exceptionally wealthy help one get into grad school?
I’m assuming teo meant that the financial packages* offered by the schools are less generous this year, or that there are fewer of them to go around.
*Not based on need, in most cases. The money they guarantee you in teaching and/or stipends.
April 1, 2009 at 10:10 am
teofilo
That is indeed what I meant. Thanks, Blume.
April 1, 2009 at 10:16 am
ben
So what are you going to study, teo? Something practical, I hope.
April 1, 2009 at 11:30 am
JPool
My institution only gave my department two lines (as opposed to the normal 10-14) for this next fall. Partly, this is because they accepted more folks than usual last fall and, the DGS assures us, the administration wants to make sure that there’s enough funding for those already in the program. Partly, I suspect, it stems from long-standing finance issues within the University in which the college has to compensate for certain other money bleeders combined with the currently trendy “Hide all the money!” freakout. As far as I know, my department is still sticking to its rule about not admitting students without a four-year funding offer, but other places may well adopt the “You can come if you want to” line.