Merit vs. Socioeconomic

"Please sah, can I have some more?"

Am I proposing that those with lower income get the almost automatic admissions that minorities have gotten in the past?

No.

I still believe that there those will lower income show merit, drive, and an overall want to be educated and improve their stations in life. They should get concessions in the way that, maybe they only took 3 AP classes in high school because their high school only offered four. They shouldn't be down-credited because their school has limited resources. If you look at one school and the student has taken a foreign language for 6 years and 10 AP classes, maybe engineering classes, maybe this maybe that...because their school is able to offer it to them. I know my high school (probably like most high schools) sends out a school report which evaluates the school, with statistics like average grade, maybe number of AP classes offered (I never actually read it) etc. I think it would be affective the admissions board looked closely at things like that.

I know I girl who was able to go to African for a few months and help people there. I'm sure that looked amazing on her resume, but not all of our parents can afford to fly us around to 3rd world countries like financed superheros. (She went to a private high school, graduated early, and went to MIT).

My friend at UNL had a roommate who has very low income and was paying for college herself. But she didn't seem to have a real drive to be in the university, as much as she had a drive for her boyfriend, whom she transfered to that school for. She would sleep through her morning classes, sometimes past 11 o'clock, and then would not be seen again until like 1:00am when her boyfriend dropped her off (if at all) so who knows if she went to those classes. During the first month of school she was in a panic about affording college, even found a job, but then once she found out that the financial aid office would let her pay whenever she could before the end of the semester. She quit her job and didn't find a new one. It's now the end of the semester and she has $4,000 left to pay and loan brochures are stacked on her desk.

I would not go far enough to say that she doesn't deserve to be here, that she is unworthy of an education. There many people who come to college and drop-out for not doing the work, whether their low income, or minority students, or regular Joes. What I want to say is that if a college is going to pay for you to come to their school, like a business, they will want someone who is reliable, dedicated, and will use the the money they give them to the fullest.

At the sad risk of sounding egotistical: compare this person's situation to mine. I pay for college myself, and my parents couldn't help if they wanted to. I got straight A's my first year, and am doing well this year. I found a work study job on campus early during the summer to start working in fall, and have already gotten a raise (meager) for working hard. I'm also taking 18 credit hours so that I can graduate on time with a major and two minors. I'm also probably going to have to take summer classes (how am I going to pay for them, who knows!?) and am applying for the McNair Program.

I want to be here. As mega-dorky as it sounds, I love learning. I usually find at least something in a class interesting, or at least the passion of my professors. And if I enjoy the subject matter to, I am in awe that I'm lucky enough to be there.

In my introduction, I said that I dreamed, when I was little, of going to Harvard. Not to because of the prestige of the school, but as a symbol of my hope-knowing, dream, fantasy, destiny that I would be able to rise out of my situation and still be able to live the American Dream.

1. Merit & Talent
2. Socioeconomics

Not

Merit & Talent OR Socioeconomics