To be admitted for a PhD at Harvard, one would likely need to have excelled in an equivalent undergraduate university such as Stanford, MIT, Princeton, Yale, and so on. To be admitted to those universities as an undergraduate one needs to have attended an elite secondary school like Phillips Academy or an elite STEM focused HS. For one to be admitted to Phillips Academy, one needs to be born in an educated upper middle to middle class family. If you were born to uneducated parents, lower middle class or poor in a rural area your chances of going to Phillips Academy, elite undergraduate school and then onward to Harvard is basically 0.
Does Harvard and those schools not care about poor people?
Basically no one from a poor family in Selma in Dallas County in Alabama with a median household income of $22,414 goes to Harvard. The highschool this kid from Selma goes to never sent a kid to Harvard and Harvard doesn't even know of any high schools in Dallas County. Kid from Selma probably doesn't even know what Phillips Academy is. They are basically rejected from Harvard by birth, doesn't even matter if they have a high IQ.
"In total, one out of every 20 Harvard freshmen attended one of the seven high schools most represented in the class of 2017—Boston Latin, Phillips Academy in Andover, Stuyvesant High School, Noble and Greenough School, Phillips Exeter Academy, Trinity School in New York City, and Lexington High School."
Poor parents don't send their kids to those schools.
Zachary Taylor
"Poor" in Harvard standards means your parents make like $40k-$60k
Below that you aren't even on the radar.
Christopher Stewart
Goes back to the poor kid whose mommy and daddy combined make $22,000/yr and attend a crap high school. Kid was rejected from Harvard at birth, doesn't even matter if the kid has a 130+ IQ. There is too much of an offset to overcome that.
Nathaniel Anderson
>live in 1st world country (France) >have preparatory classes >very cheap to enter >start almost from scratch so you don't need to come from the best high schools >200% meritocratic >sadistic syllabus: basically like having 2 majors and 2 minors at the same time >selective competitive exams: you get the school you deserve, period >zero debt, elite education Feels good to have an academic system made for the 97.725+th percentiles.
Adrian Adams
From an American, I am extremely jealous.
John Long
Harvard isn't omnipotent. If smart people fall through the cracks that's just part of the game. The only way that would hurt Harvard is if those people that slipped through the cracks happened to discover something great or become big names in industry, because then Harvard loses an endowment opportunity or reputation boost. But there are plenty of other schools that also look for ability.
Josiah Morris
I would like to see a histogram of all NSF funds recipients in the field of physics holding academic professorships at USA universities binned according to the name of the institution in which they earned their PhDs.
William Scott
I saw something similar:
IIRC it showed academic mobility, i,e, it showed where the professor got a PhD and then what school they went on to teach at.
It ended up being like 20 schools that dominated the academic field. There was little upward mobility (i.e. receiving a PhD from lesser school and teaching at an elite school). It was mostly academic in-breeding / lateral cross breeding rather
Dominic Flores
>I would like to see a histogram of all NSF funds recipients in the field of physics holding academic professorships at USA universities
It is not true that PhDs at Harvard all come from Harvard, Princeton, MIT, etc.
Nathaniel Murphy
Stuyvesant is a public school nigga. Why are you surprised that kids attending a magnet program get into Harvard?
Justin Moore
In other words, OP overstated the situation massively. You don't "need" to have attended one of these schools, but it probably helps.
Joshua Edwards
my friend from staten island told me stuyvesant is mostly asian children from immigrant families :/
Ayden Price
It's not Harvard, but I got into a top 10 PhD program from a state school ranked well below 100. And I transferred to that state school, from a community college well below that. And I got into that community college from a noname, rural, high school. Dream big user, it can happen.
Aaron Garcia
nice user. how did you go from the state school to a top 10? congrats!
Logan Johnson
I came from a low income, broken household in an American rust belt town. My first and closest friend growing up and I were both of well above average intelligence and we both tested into a 'gifted' program by scoring higher than two standard deviations on the Stanford-Binet scale when we were in elementary. His dad was an engineer and eventually became a lawyer, mom stayed at home. This afforded him the opportunity to go to private schools, participate in extracurriculars and build a network. He moved away and is now at Yale Med and I'm sure he's conquering the damn world. My mom was a social worker for the state, got raped by the recession, and my dad was a drunk who couldn't hold a job. I grew up bitter and angry, I stopped caring about grades or my future in high school and sold drugs and focused on chasing social status instead. When you're poor, your time horizon shrinks to zero. I definitely have recovered, am now an engineer with a ladder up in the automotive industry. My experience has taught me that most poor people are poor because they are dumb or lazy, and those who are poor by circumstance can almost always climb out of poverty if they have the tenacity to do so. Rich people are usually rich because their parents were rich, no surprises there.
Justin Edwards
You're speaking out of your ass. People from third world countries get into harvard PhDs if they are dedicated
Nathaniel Ward
I went to phd at northwestern. md/phd candidates were usually from sate schools where it's easy to get a high gpa (like ohio state, kansas state)
if you know you want to go into academia its best to go to a normie tier undergrad and do research on the side
Isaiah Ramirez
>that's not true because i know 2 people :)
you're retarded.
Mason Lopez
Low income white students are fucked and never get in. Other races do.
Nathan Barnes
the amount of poverty in whites is also disproportionately smaller than other races.
Parker Williams
And trump still win
Lucas Gonzalez
I mean, I'm going to Penn for undergrad and I'm lower middle class. Went to public school. Magnet schools exist guys.
Owen Ortiz
magnet schools tend to be feeders into top unis and populated by upper middle class to upper class kids.
Anthony Moore
>Penn
Penn doesn't count.
Cooper Nguyen
Nah. That's not true. Magnet schools are public. And mine in particular has over 70 percent classified as economically disadvantaged. It's just smart kids from the city.
Noah Jenkins
Graduated from an intercity highschool with a ranking of 1/10 ranking on great schools. I come from an incredibly poor family, I actually sent some of the money I got to pay for books and food back to my family because they needed it. Got a full scholarship. I am a heterosexual white male, who is not an athlete btw. I just worked hard, took AP's, did really well on all my tests and got good grades, pretty much just fucking worked hard in school. And yes, being poor actually helped getting in, those of you with a brain already know why
Owen White
For PhD its pretty easy, you can find a work/internshop in a top lab for a year (even if your undegrad was shit) as a research tech, get a strong letter or two from PIs and thats usually is enough to get to top 5 PhDs.
Nolan Long
orphans and extremely poor graduates are always prefered by CEOs because they know that these guys will work like horses 24/7 and not say a thing
they need to prove themselves constantly that they are not worthless etc etc
there was even a study on this kind of thing
Jordan Bailey
FUCK YOU LEXINGTON HIGH SCHOOL
Robert Diaz
Are you from Maryland?
Xavier Bell
You don't count.
Daniel Allen
>Does Harvard and those schools not care about poor people? does anyone care about poor people ? this is capitalism baby shit money or off yourself
Colton Stewart
new jersey
Andrew Martinez
Thank god. For a second I thought you were some miserable faggot that I knew. Glad to see you doing well in your studies.
Kevin Hughes
I went to a high school with plenty of poor people and my friend got in to MIT (not poor though) so it is possible. Also, you dont need to go to those top schools to get into them for PhD anyways. Trust me when I say my university is pretty shit in my field (EE), but recently graduated students (past 4ish years) have gotten into MIT, Stanford, UIUC, UMich, Purdue, (all top 10 for EE) and many more top 20, 30 etc. Just put in hard work at your current high school, undergrad uni, or wherever you are, and you can get where you want to go.
Elijah Rogers
>elite education >(France) Pick one
Isaiah Long
Harvard not only accepts low income students, they give them full grants to attend. All you need to do is have the entrance grades, and apply. Problem is most people never apply, assuming they can never get into Harvard or can't afford it. So they go to a state school and get ripped the fuck off with student loan debt.
They aren't at all biased, people themselves are biased thinking they can't get in so don't try. Harvard makes money from patents on research, paid for with public money, in the billions per year so as a result grant away most tuition unless your parents are scrooge rich.
Joshua Moore
It's not Harvard's fault that poor people are usually dumber. A top university should get only the best. If the best are usually not poor, so be it. Excellence trumps all. Please don't follow Brazil's example. Today a brazilian public university approved quotas for transgendered people in graduate school. Our research is shit, so now we have to accept more dumb people beucase of their skin color or sexual orientation. The West is falling apart. I want to know how many quotas exist for dumb poor people in top Chinese colleges.
Brayden Reyes
This is what some dont understand for top unis: most scholardships are need based and not merit based. If you and your parents are poor the unis will probably dish out plenty of money. My cousin is at MIT for some engineering and she got some good ass aid as her parents have a lowish income and couldnt possibly afford to help her much financially.
Also good job user. I hate seeing people make excuses for shit and not just work hard for their goals
Caleb Taylor
The exception does not make the rule.
Tyler Perry
It is the rule. All top schools have need based scholarship. you have no idea what you are talking about. poor people dont get in because they are usually dumb, NOT because they cant afford to go
Jason Smith
It's the rule. They accept regardless of income, mostly on academic merit.
It just so happens that capable parents are often wealthier, and they raise more capable children.
Ethan Lewis
Harvard only cares about which top students are most likely to make them the most money in patented research, they could give a fuck where you are from if your highschool grades are near perfect you're in.
Any highschool student that spends one extra hour per day learning on their own from academic texts in Grade 11 and 12 is going to be years ahead of any typical student, have a near perfect GPA and easily get into Ivy League on a full scholarship.
Jose Ross
Black people get into Harvard for no reason other than that they are black. Affirmative Action and diversity quotas are very much a thing.
Jeremiah Scott
...Why would you go to an expensive university if you don't have money? You can either be self taught if you're that poor or go to community college and get good marks that allows you to get a scholarship to transfer to university.
So much information hasn't been this available for free before this era we live in. Anyone says otherwise really has no excuse.
Luis Adams
?
Its not about "smart people falling through the cracks" its the deliberate discrimination against whites at all levels
Adam Kelly
No shit they kinda have to. Academia doesn't really pay well itself these days so it's not like the high-end academies can lift all the poor out of poverty. It is extremely difficult for a poor person to afford doing years of undergrad AND grad school with no reliable funding that can change at the whims of politics.
Jason Gomez
Everything is biased against the poor.
Poor means cheap, shoddy education which means basically be rich or kill yourself.
Geographical location can be a big thing too (I am from upper-middle class and was educated in a shitty town filled to the brim with dirty retards and this held me back greatly, because my parents are stupid christcucks who believe equality is a thing and that socializing is important, so my spending time with niggers and arabs would be a great asset to me, as opposed to study useful stuff like maths in a quality environment)
This is all contrived by kikes pushing their agenda. God, I hate kikes so much, I hope a fourth Reich comes up and they burn in hell as it should be.
Andrew Myers
UK system is great. Oxbridge don't give a shit about extracurriculars only rich people can afford, all that matters is your academic prowess.
That's why despite being poor AF I study a STEM subject at Cambridge.
It's still harder to get in than if you grew up rich because you have a worse education growing up, but it's a hell of a lot better than the US system.
P.S. I'm black and Cambridge doesn't have AA so cry more racist brainlets
Christopher Powell
>me nigger me big boy iq me no dum dum
haahhaahahah
Levi Nguyen
Heres the reason, whether you like it or not OP
1: IQ is genetic 2: IQ is the number one predictor of success in life 3: Therefore poor students come from poor parents who are poor because of a low IQ
Sorry, but there are more rich students at good schools simply because they are smarter.
Blake Foster
>france >elite education
Christopher Howard
>tfw fell for the privilege meme and didn't apply to any top unis despite getting A*A*A*A* at A level and being by far the best person academically at school
Has anyone else done similar?
Josiah Baker
t. brainlet
Sebastian Adams
Academia is extemely biased in many regards.
t. PhD in applied math with a lot of experience in publishing
P.S.: I'd tell you, young people, more, but I don't want to ruin your expectations and demotivate you
Chase Foster
you could actually get cucked out of cambridge solely due to going to the wrong school when they were still using ums a few years ago.
>submit very good coursework >classmates submit shit coursework >teacher at school overmarks coursework >classmates coursework gets called for moderation >everyones coursework gets marked down
This happened to me and I didn't apply in the end because of it. I got 100 percent in my science exams but my coursework got massively moderated down to low C's which completely ruined my chances. Submitted the exact same work next year with different teachers who marked it more accurately and got over 90 in it.
I'm not sure how common this is or if they're aware of it and compensate but it seemed like complete and utter bullshit at the time.
Gabriel Reyes
No? Why not?
Kayden Jenkins
the city magnet schools are the only things their parents can afford to send their kids to most upper middle class long island schools are equally as competitive but there are just more underachievers in those
Robert Kelly
Gucco gang gucci gang gucci gang gucci gang Gucci gang gucci ganv
Josiah Rodriguez
jesus christ, what a fucking shit teacher
Charles Morales
Chinese literally kill themselves to get into the uni. Joao come to Argieland, if you're in STEM or medicine, you'll have a place between us.
Ayden King
>I'd tell you but I won't ;)
Have you considered suicide yet?
Cooper Powell
wow it took you this long to figure. honestly, this should be common sense to anyone who has a hint of sanity
Jeremiah Scott
t. Americucks that go to state schools where they unironically teach remedial math and precalculus Also, in debt.
Liam Perez
>Oxbridge don't give a shit about extracurriculars only rich people can afford, all that matters is your academic prowess. I see someone hasn't noticed all the postgrad rowers at Hughes studing shit like Land Economy
Landon Edwards
>1st world country (France)
Jacob Taylor
Most large institutions place universities in a tier system. If you didn't go to Stanford or MIT it's fine, as long as you went to a "tier one" school. For almost every organization, tier one schools encompasses at least the top 50-100 schools in the country. If you didn't go to Yale that's fine, as long as you still went to a school like Purdue or UC Davis or Florida.
t. someone who's done recruiting for government positions in science.
I did my undergrad at NU and I saw the same thing with pretty much all of my TAs across the board.
Adam Turner
Say it with me. >IVY LEAGUE
Hudson Fisher
No it happens that you can get a 4.0 and have taken all the AP courses at your poor high school and still not get in, because the kids from better high schools already have 30 plus credit hours in college cojrses, stellar EC and recommendation letters from high school teshfers with PhD in addition to research edperience. Don't pretend like poor high schools have the same oppertunities. The 4.0 GPA poor kid that just took AP calculus because that's all their school offered gets rejected by Harvard
Ryan Taylor
>I want to know how many quotas exist for dumb poor people in top Chinese colleges.
Not sure about top colleges but China definitely has quotas for non-han ethnic Chinese minorities. This is on top of the fact some of them depending on the province do not have to pay taxes.
William Miller
...
Jeremiah Allen
and some data from Harvard
Dylan Wilson
Combine with this data to see that whites are smarter than asians at Harvard. That is with way more athletes being white. "But! But! Muh Liberal Narative!"
Joseph James
I'm poor, from the middle of no where, and go to Harvard. They gave me money to go there. 10/10 school, have fun talking trash from your community college internet connection
Robert Diaz
Your school had AP courses? Mine didn't have any (very rural).
Isaiah Parker
>whuh awe statwistics
Jayden Reed
Oh no, life is unfair.
Poor people have a harder time going there. Sure. But it can be done by hard work and determination. Saving every dime one earns, excell in school and so on.
Noah Baker
Wealthy families can give their kids more opportunities though. Also unless you can throw together a sob story, a school like Harvard isn’t going to give a shit that you worked full time all summer when Applicant B spent their time working with disabled kids. Lower middle class people really get fucked over by the current process.
Henry Sanders
Congrats dude, I hope to go oxbridge for postgrad to do Zoology with a first from birmingham.
What do you think my chances are?
Parker Smith
>Lexington High School Must be pretty hard to get into that public school.
Evan Martinez
lol
David Young
I-I didn't even know that was possible in the US. D-Did it at least have IB courses? I'm so sorry user.
Levi Ortiz
Not him but that's why "the if you're smart doesn't matter you're poor you can go to Harvard with a 4.0 anyway" is false.
Kid from my HS scored a perfect score on the SAT and was rejected from harvard. My HS is a basic 4H club, rural redneck school.
Zachary Edwards
>tfw third worlder >tfw "white" >tfw middle-class I have no chance of getting into a good first world school, do I?