Maybe it's more like a sweepstakes than a strategy game, though. Let's bear in mind that there are a LOT of Stanford-capable students out west, and there are a very, very limited number of openings for them. This past year, Stanford's rejection rate was an eye-watering 95%. Now, sure, some of those applicants probably had NO shot of getting into Stanford or anywhere like it, but I'm certainly thinking that the majority of them thought that they had a reasonable shot at it.
The other really awesome thing is that all of the stuff that you have to DO to get into the non-throw-away pile of applicants also costs a pretty penny for most families. So the lower-income kids aren't even REMOTELY competitive with higher SES applicants who have a busload of extracurriculars, community service hours spread over the globe, music lessons, etc. etc. etc.
Seriously, then?
My guess is that this probably only matters to about 20% of entering Stanford students (at most) to begin with, because MANY of their successful applicants are at incomes well over this to start with. 120K isn't that high if you live in many urban areas, or anywhere on the western coast.
They could afford to make it just plain FREE, free-- for everyone. So could the other top-10 endowment institutions.
Last edited by HowlerKarma; 04/02/15 06:12 PM.
