Colleges and admissions officers walk a thin line with wealth. On the one hand, the ultra wealthy enjoy a considerable boost to the admissions chances; on the other hand, admissions officers often dislike this fact. This causes certain applications to be regarded with additional scrutiny.
In this article we’ll examine how this perception of wealth plays out in admissions decisions, what admissions officers view harshly, and how you can make sure to avoid these issues in your own applications. Let’s get started!
How do Admissions Officers Judge Wealth?
Admissions officers, especially at top universities, rarely know the exact wealth of students who apply. This is because most of these schools practice need blind admissions (for domestic students), meaning admissions officers have no official way of knowing your family’s net worth. That said, they often get context clues from your application.
- Admissions officers review specific regions, and are probably well familiar with your specific high school, and the kinds of students who attend it.
- Certain extracurriculars and essay topics correlate strongly with income; sailing as a hobby or polo as a sport are easy examples of this.
- Where you live is also taken as an indicator, as much as where you go to school. Certain Zip Codes are much wealthier than others.
Thus while admissions officers may not officially know your net worth, they will have a pretty good idea, and almost nothing you do can change that. This is not good or bad on its own, but does mean that applications will always be viewable through this lens.
How Wealth Impacts Application Reading
So admissions officers know (or at least have a good sense) how well off you are; how then does that affect how they judge your application?
All applications are judged by the totality of their context; this is the entire purpose of holistic admissions, practiced by most top universities. Thus you are not judged for the presence of wealth, but its presence does cause certain expectations to arise for your application.
These are the expectations placed on you if you are perceived as very well off:
- You received a top education from a well resourced school, and had every possible academic and opportunity.
- You had support both academically and for your extracurriculars outside the classroom; resources never prevented you from pursuing your interests.
- You had access to experiences and opportunities that most students did not, due to your resources.
This context increases their expectations for you academically and in your extracurriculars. While you are not directly compared to your fellow classmates, you are judged by your school. If it had advanced courses in difficult subjects, you are expected to have availed yourself of them.
The same holds true of extracurriculars. You are expected to have pursued your interests deeply, and at a high level, making use of your resources wisely. Their expectations here are far higher than of your less resourced peers.
What this means is that you are expected to have very impressive accomplishments, even by the already high standards of college admissions. Your money gives you opportunities, and you are expected to have taken advantage of them.
Personal Influences
If students give the wrong impression of their wealth, that can also impact their admissions chances. Colleges are admitting people, not just students, and they want these to be the kind of people who will integrate smoothly into their community.
If you seem spoiled, elitist, out of touch, or otherwise like your wealth has negatively impacted your view of people, your application will be read more harshly. If you appear naive to the opportunities provided by your status, you may be seen as less mature.
How to Portray Wealth in Your Application
You may discuss your wealth directly, obliquely, or not at all, but you should do so as a choice. You should be able to understand how wealth may have impacted your experiences or view of the world, and impart that in your essay. This should be earnest and insightful if mentioned directly.
Acknowledging the boons you were given allows you to address the concern, and move on. You know the opportunities you were given were unique, but that made you all the more determined to make the best of them. This robs the perception of wealth of much of its power. You address the elephant in the corner, which seems to make it more reasonable. This can also make you look more mature, and as if you have a deeper understanding of the world.
When talking about community or volunteering, you can discuss philanthropy, but it is good to do so that illustrates grit, and does more than just sign checks. A former Ivy Scholars student had a business flipping houses with his brothers. The big difference? They did the work of renovating the houses themselves.
This was a lot of effort, but does a lot to endear the student to you. He has resources, sure, but he’s willing to do the work. He’s willing, literally and figuratively, to get his hands dirty.
This is not the only correct approach of course, but demonstrating that you’re willing to go above and beyond, and showing how you have made the best possible use of the resources you were given will do a lot for your application. We recommend taking any chance you have to show how you got personally involved, and gained hands-on experience.
Discussing Challenges
Just because you are rich doesn’t mean you don’t face challenges, though they often take different forms. This is a fine line to walk in college applications as well; you want to give admissions officers all of the context they need to fully evaluate your application, but you don’t want to come across as out of touch.
The first, and most important thing, is to not invent challenges just to write the personal statement. The narrative structure of overcoming some obstacle is a popular one, but is hardly mandatory. Only write an essay if you have actual challenges you overcame, and if overcoming them led you to some kind of personal growth or self discovery. Otherwise, the essay comes across as forced and stilted, making mountains out of molehills.
If you have faced serious challenges, then we suggest putting them in the additional information section. This is the advice we give all our students, and it’s explicitly what this section is for; to detail any circumstances outside the norm which impacted your education or extracurricular participation.
Note that this is not another essay, and should not be written like one. This is a factual account of what challenges you faced, and what steps you had to take because of them. Unlike an essay, you don’t have to demonstrate personal growth or talk about what you learned. You do have to discuss how exactly these challenges impacted your academic success or extracurricular participation. For more on how to fill this section out, see our article on the additional information section.
Final Thoughts
Colleges are often seen as bastions of wealth and privilege, but they do not want to be. They want to believe the stories of meritocracy, and that there are no easy doors for the wealthy and connected. This means that if you do have the resources of wealth available to you, your application will be read with that lens, and judged accordingly. This is not to say that your application will be discarded out of hand, but they are looking for signs that you will not fit with their ideals.
College applications are always challenging; this is merely another twist to trip up the unwary. If you want help composing essays that show off your grit, or have other questions about the specifics of applying to colleges, schedule a free consultation today. We’ve helped hundreds of students get into top colleges, and are always happy to hear from you.
