Education in Spite of Family Fortune
If you want to go to one of the best schools, it helps to be wealthy. A recent study by analysts at Harvard found that kids from the top 1% of families were 43% more likely to get into college than kids from the middle class.
People from the top 0.1% were more than twice as likely to get in, even though rich kids will still live better than most people even if they never get a job or go to college. The experts looked at Stanford, MIT, Duke, the University of Chicago, and the eight Ivy League universities. The Ivy League universities are eight private research universities in the Northeastern United States.
The study found attending one of the elite institutions has long-lasting effects: increasing students’ chances of reaching the top 1% of income by 60%, almost doubling the likelihood of attending an elite graduate school, and tripling their chances of getting employed at a prestigious firm. The study defined the top 1% as having an income over USD 611,000.
All-inclusive Package
Elite universities have long been stocked with children of the rich. The age-old anxiety about getting into an elite school started prepping kids before they even entered it. To take a kid to Harvard or Yale can cost up to USD 750,000. For example, at New York-based firm IvyWise, bespoke programs to guide students and anxious parents through the application process start at USD 28,000.
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Most of the time, the company starts working with kids in the 9th grade, matching them with counselors who have worked in college admissions before. Many of these counselors have worked at prestigious schools like Stanford, MIT, Princeton, and Yale. They also help kids as young as kindergarten age.
At Atomic Mind company, also based in New York, some students take up to seven hours of tutoring a day to strengthen their academic profile. Counselors help students write speeches for student government races and craft proposals to create new clubs.
While ultra-wealthy families that can make a sizable donation still have an advantage in the admissions game, Leelila Strogov, CEO and founder of the consultant company, said the odds are stacked against “regular rich” applicants who must distinguish themselves from high-achieving peers.
What are the best Colleges?
There is a stark difference in admissions gradients by parental income between selective public and private institutions. Highly selective private colleges may have the capacity to change the composition of their student bodies by changing their admissions practices. “Thus they emulate those used by highly selective public colleges,” the study by a group of economists at Harvard stated.
According to the 2023 World University Rankings, the University of Oxford tops the ranking for the seventh consecutive year. Harvard University remains in second place, but the University of Cambridge jumped from joint fifth last year to third. The highest entry is Italy´s Humanitas University, ranked in the 201-250 bracket.
The US is the most represented country overall, with 177 institutions, and also the most represented in the top 200 (58). Mainland China now has the fourth-highest number of institutions in the top 200 (10) having overtaken Australia, which has dropped to fifth, joint with the Netherlands. Five countries entered the ranking for the first time, all of them in Africa: Zambia, Namibia, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, and Mauritius.
