I'm from a family in the bottom income bracket, and I went to Stanford.<p>It's as alien and daunting as the article makes it sound. I would never have thought to apply if it weren't for a suggestion from my aunt who married rich. My high school guidance counselor was completely unhelpful, and she actively discouraged all of my peers who I wanted to apply with me (because "Stanford wants 1s and 2s," not people ranked 5th or 8th in the class). When I got in, I had to ask a relative to pay the $300 placeholder fee. My mother cried because she didn't believe that I could get full financial aid.<p>It was easy to spot the two other low-income students in my 100-person freshman dorm. We didn't know how to talk or study or dress or think the way our peers did. It took me years to learn.<p>My sister was in the same position, but didn't have the blind ambition to ignore our hometown horror stories ("he was top of his class, but he went off to some fancy college and ended up flunking out..."). I convinced her to apply to several very prestigious schools. She was accepted, but went with a more modest, local one instead. She spent her freshman year interpreting every setback as a sign that she had overreached by going to a four-year university at all. It turned out fine, but she switched her plans from medical school to nursing by graduation.<p>It's hard to communicate to people who grew up with even modest privilege how much all of this matters. My worlds before and after Stanford feel entirely separate. The Internet helped, but I was like an archaeologist combing through relics of a long-dead culture. What counts as an Ivy? How did these schools have so many AP classes? Why did all of these people have SAT tutors -- weren't tutors for people who were behind?<p>Information matters. Culture matters. I was lucky, but a few well-placed text messages could absolutely replicate that luck. Even to just say, "We noticed you're a good student. You could go here. You could afford it. This is doable." Hearing that from any authority at all would be huge. Because when you're low-income or first-generation, everyone and everything in your life is constantly telling you the opposite.
Going to an Ivy League school does not help the student earn more money compared to going to a non-Ivy, except for students from certain disadvantaged backgrounds.<p>"students, who were accepted into elite schools, but went to less selective institutions, earned salaries just as high as Ivy League grads."<p><a href="http://www.usnews.com/education/blogs/the-college-solution/2011/03/01/the-ivy-league-earnings-myth" rel="nofollow">http://www.usnews.com/education/blogs/the-college-solution/2...</a>
It's always interesting watching discussions of class come up on HN. As someone who comes from a working class background/family, it astounds me how often people will respond with the idea that the tech industry/any kind of(generally college) education is some kind of meritocracy, or that the solution is to simply 'work harder'. Those are certainly nice sentiments, but far from reality(See, the Myth of Meritocracy[0]), and I'm overjoyed to see that others in this thread are providing other narratives and social situations.<p>[0]: <a href="http://www.ncsociology.org/sociationtoday/v21/merit.htm" rel="nofollow">http://www.ncsociology.org/sociationtoday/v21/merit.htm</a>
On one hand, I hear breathless reassurances from people like Frank Bruni (also at the Times) that "school doesn't matter" and "college is what you make it". At the same time, we get articles like these.<p>Now, as someone pursuing CS at a second or maybe even third tier institution - which is it?
I realise in a sense this is not a particularly nice thought, but:<p>> <i>Colleges and universities need to join forces to encourage poor, high-achieving students to attend top-flight schools and nudge accepted students to enroll. Doing the right thing for students has never been so cheap.</i><p>Do they?<p>Competition is so high, however cheap it is, I can't see any upside <i>for the university</i> other than image. And that image is unlikely to do anything for their 'traditional' full-fee-paying applicant base.
For most people, going to elite schools is a waste of money. For example, a high achieving student from a lower middle class family who goes to Harvard still pays the equivalent of full tuition and fees at an average state school, while they can often get a full ride at a state school.<p>Obviously there are a lot of ways an elite education can help you, but most people don't want to be a lawyer or go into business.
What makes a top-ranked institution better than a "second-tier" school? The kind of applicant who would do well in the former will certainly do well in the latter.
My girlfriend worked in college access with low-income students last year and used the same service used in the referenced UVA study [1] to advise and connect with students. SignalVine seems to have a big head start in this space, although both deployments I know about were in the Boston area - maybe there are other regional competitors (I wasn't able to find any through Googling, though).<p>Naiively, the application looks to me like just a nice web frontend with auth and scheduling features, with an SMS provider for a backend (Twilio or similar). Seems like some enterprising hacker could break into this space with a cheaper product - SignalVine is pricey, especially for small nonprofits on tight budgets.<p>[1]: <a href="https://www.signalvine.com/" rel="nofollow">https://www.signalvine.com/</a>