So I'm helping a kid I know with some college applications and I have some thoughts. My friend has a GPA of over 4.0 and a star in track and cross-country. She grew up Black in a white rural town in CA--oh and she's homeless. She's living with a friend's family.
So I convince her to apply to some top colleges and offer to help her jump thru all the dumb financial and non-financial hoops. It occurs to me, after 10 or so applications in, that if you wanted to design a system to keep out poor kids, this one is probably your best bet
We've already paid over $1000 (even with fee waivers). I have no idea how she was ever going to pay that money or who in her life was going to help her with the 100s of essays we've written!
And the essay questions!!!! Columbia asks "what exhibits, lectures, theatre productions and concerts have you liked best in the last year?" I'm tempted to write "Carmen at the Metropolitan Opera--psych--my town doesn't even have a movie theatre!
I ask her what kids do for entertainment and she says: "um.... drugs." Another school asks her what her favorite periodicals, newspapers, websites are. She doesn't have access to a computer except when she does homework on a school computer. She doesn't get the New Yorker
These are minor annoying questions. The major one is "tell us what you're most excited about coming to Stanford, etc." She's a first gen college student. She has no idea what Stanford is like. She has never traveled outside her town.
It just seems like anyone who can answer these questions has got to be coached. I am trying to help, but I don't even know. I literally only applied to one college because my friend helped me with the application. I barely know what Stanford is like,
but I really hope my friend gets in and I really would love to go back in time and help my 18 year old self fill out these applications and do SAT prep, etc. We have to have a better system.
