
Text Your Way to College - tokenadult
http://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/06/opinion/sunday/text-your-way-to-college.html
======
blooooo
I'm from a family in the bottom income bracket, and I went to Stanford.

It's as alien and daunting as the article makes it sound. I would never have
thought to apply if it weren't for a suggestion from my aunt who married rich.
My high school guidance counselor was completely unhelpful, and she actively
discouraged all of my peers who I wanted to apply with me (because "Stanford
wants 1s and 2s," not people ranked 5th or 8th in the class). When I got in, I
had to ask a relative to pay the $300 placeholder fee. My mother cried because
she didn't believe that I could get full financial aid.

It was easy to spot the two other low-income students in my 100-person
freshman dorm. We didn't know how to talk or study or dress or think the way
our peers did. It took me years to learn.

My sister was in the same position, but didn't have the blind ambition to
ignore our hometown horror stories ("he was top of his class, but he went off
to some fancy college and ended up flunking out..."). I convinced her to apply
to several very prestigious schools. She was accepted, but went with a more
modest, local one instead. She spent her freshman year interpreting every
setback as a sign that she had overreached by going to a four-year university
at all. It turned out fine, but she switched her plans from medical school to
nursing by graduation.

It's hard to communicate to people who grew up with even modest privilege how
much all of this matters. My worlds before and after Stanford feel entirely
separate. The Internet helped, but I was like an archaeologist combing through
relics of a long-dead culture. What counts as an Ivy? How did these schools
have so many AP classes? Why did all of these people have SAT tutors --
weren't tutors for people who were behind?

Information matters. Culture matters. I was lucky, but a few well-placed text
messages could absolutely replicate that luck. Even to just say, "We noticed
you're a good student. You could go here. You could afford it. This is
doable." Hearing that from any authority at all would be huge. Because when
you're low-income or first-generation, everyone and everything in your life is
constantly telling you the opposite.

~~~
danielford
> We didn't know how to talk or study or dress or think the way our peers did.
> It took me years to learn.

Please tell me everything about this. I teach at a community college and my
students come from the middle class, the working class, and the place I can't
see.

~~~
bpchaps
Not OP, but I'm not sure I follow your question. Are you asking to learn
context about problems outside of your own class?

I was raised in a lower/middle/working class area and went to its local
community college and could probably comment. Much of what OP described
matches very closely to my own experiences.

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hrehhf
Going to an Ivy League school does not help the student earn more money
compared to going to a non-Ivy, except for students from certain disadvantaged
backgrounds.

"students, who were accepted into elite schools, but went to less selective
institutions, earned salaries just as high as Ivy League grads."

[http://www.usnews.com/education/blogs/the-college-
solution/2...](http://www.usnews.com/education/blogs/the-college-
solution/2011/03/01/the-ivy-league-earnings-myth)

~~~
HarryHirsch
There's also the argument that especially as a physician you have the
obligation to your patients to do the best job you can. It's true for any
profession but for physicians it's hard to see why anyone would object the
reasoning. The difference between a top-25 school and anything else is like
day and night, the students, the faculty, the equipment, the exposure to
current research, and it's still true even though it may not be reflected in
compensation.

~~~
dikdik
I'm not too sure about that. I spent several years working closely with a
massive group of physicians (40+ in the same specialty), where I routinely had
to check medical reports before they went to clients.

While all very bright people, many of the physicians that attended middle-of-
the-road medical schools and even one that went to a Caribbean medical school
were much better than the couple Harvard trained docs we had.

------
echo419
It's always interesting watching discussions of class come up on HN. As
someone who comes from a working class background/family, it astounds me how
often people will respond with the idea that the tech industry/any kind
of(generally college) education is some kind of meritocracy, or that the
solution is to simply 'work harder'. Those are certainly nice sentiments, but
far from reality(See, the Myth of Meritocracy[0]), and I'm overjoyed to see
that others in this thread are providing other narratives and social
situations.

[0]:
[http://www.ncsociology.org/sociationtoday/v21/merit.htm](http://www.ncsociology.org/sociationtoday/v21/merit.htm)

~~~
microcolonel
Don't know what you're talking about. Most of my colleagues got into the
industry by going to open/free events and using materials which can be found
freely on the internet.

I came from a lower middle class family with a host of awful circumstances I
won't go into. I learned most of what I needed to get a job through reading
Wikipedia. A friend of mine and I did odd jobs for neighbourhood companies
(and got screwed a lot) until he landed an entry level position at a web shop.
A year later he was working at a different company and had them bring me in
for an interview.

The prerequisite for getting into my industry, at least until some asshole
decides to regulate it, is any home computer manufactured in the last decade
(you can get a core 2 duo machine, a monitor, and a keyboard for about 20
bucks today), and a desire to work.

Today I can easily demand a six-figure salary and I've only been working full
time for about two and a half years. Many people who are not as good as I am
can get less after more working years. That is at least somewhat meritocratic.

------
akhilcacharya
On one hand, I hear breathless reassurances from people like Frank Bruni (also
at the Times) that "school doesn't matter" and "college is what you make it".
At the same time, we get articles like these.

Now, as someone pursuing CS at a second or maybe even third tier institution -
which is it?

~~~
ronnier
I don't really think it matters. I grew up in government housing as a child,
lived in a very violent city all the way through high school, in an area
ranked the least educated in the US. I just worked hard, made the right
choices, didn't do anything too stupid (or didn't get caught ;-)), and kept at
it, studied, building skills. Got an undergraduate and graduate degree from UT
Dallas. Started at Amazon shortly after, went from a junior dev to a senior
dev in 3 years. Nobody ever cared which school I went to. Mostly I feel like I
got lucky, but hard work, ritual, and repetition matter more than which
particular school ones goes to, I think.

~~~
da02
during those 3 years, did you continue learning mostly at work? Or outside?
(ie programming languages, systems design, etc.)? Or was it basically "I never
brought work to home."?

~~~
ronnier
I mostly stayed focused on work... that's why I stopped working on
[http://ihackernews.com](http://ihackernews.com) and other side projects.

I worked probably 60 to 80 hours a week -- because I wanted to, not because I
was forced. Managers actually asked me to work less.

I learned at lot at Amazon (across retail and AWS) so I didn't feel the need
to keep up the level of studying I did prior to working at Amazon. Reading
code reviews and watching email lists is a great way to learn and Amazon has
really good internal emailing lists.

------
OJFord
I realise in a sense this is not a particularly nice thought, but:

> _Colleges and universities need to join forces to encourage poor, high-
> achieving students to attend top-flight schools and nudge accepted students
> to enroll. Doing the right thing for students has never been so cheap._

Do they?

Competition is so high, however cheap it is, I can't see any upside _for the
university_ other than image. And that image is unlikely to do anything for
their 'traditional' full-fee-paying applicant base.

~~~
nether
A while back, the Economist said, "a dumb rich kid has a much better chance at
attending an elite school than a brilliant poor kid." If a university is to
maintain the goal of admitting smart students, then this would be a step
toward that.

~~~
stale2002
Sure, but that costs money. The goal of a university is to pay the bills.

I am sure that any university would be willing to accept that brilliant poor
kid, as long as someone was paying that 50k a year tuition price tag.

~~~
snowwrestler
Saying that the goal of a university is to pay the bills is saying nothing;
everyone needs to pay the bills. That's not a goal, it's a means.

Bridging the gap between brilliant students and expensive education is why
colleges and universities have endowments, and high sticker prices in the
first place. The richest students overpay so the university can bring in smart
students who aren't rich.

------
IslaDeEncanta
For most people, going to elite schools is a waste of money. For example, a
high achieving student from a lower middle class family who goes to Harvard
still pays the equivalent of full tuition and fees at an average state school,
while they can often get a full ride at a state school.

Obviously there are a lot of ways an elite education can help you, but most
people don't want to be a lawyer or go into business.

~~~
niftich
It's implied in the article that the opposite is true.

Certain elite schools cover tuition, room and board, and occasionally supplies
for low-income students through merit-based scholarships [1] even for out-of-
state students, while many state schools can only afford to grant fewer full-
rides, and usually only covering the in-state price -- with out-of-state being
significantly more expensive.

This doesn't mean that low-income students at elite schools still won't
struggle with expenses [2] or fitting in [3]. But anecdotally, when I was a
top-performing high school graduate from a well-ranked high school in the
mid-2000s, this information was even harder to find, so I, and many of my
peers opted for state schools instead, some with scholarships.

But much of this information asymmetry still exists today. This is what this
effort is trying to rectify.

[1] [https://www.collegeraptor.com/blog/affordable-
colleges/these...](https://www.collegeraptor.com/blog/affordable-
colleges/these-10-expensive-colleges-have-free-tuition-or-full-ride-
scholarships-for-middle-class-families/) [2]
[https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/for-the-
poor-...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/for-the-poor-in-the-
ivy-league-a-full-ride-isnt-always-what-they-
imagined/2016/05/16/5f89972a-114d-11e6-81b4-581a5c4c42df_story.html?utm_term=.e25b8ef9f6b2)
[3] [https://www.bostonglobe.com/magazine/2015/04/09/what-like-
po...](https://www.bostonglobe.com/magazine/2015/04/09/what-like-poor-ivy-
league-school/xPtql5uzDb6r9AUFER8R0O/story.html)

~~~
scott_s
You are not necessarily in disagreement with IslaDeEncanta, as they said
"lower middle class", not "low-income". What exactly constitutes "middle
class", and even "lower middle class" is not clear. But, I think, most would
agree "low income" means _not_ middle class, so you're probably talking about
different sets of people.

~~~
IslaDeEncanta
You're right. I wasn't really talking about people in poverty/near poverty.
They can benefit from the network involved with an Ivy more than just about
anyone, because they usually don't have a network at all.

~~~
nsxwolf
Everyone talks about the networking but this can't possibly be true for
everyone. What if you're just not good at networking? And do poor kids on
scholarships get accepted by their yacht-class peers?

------
applecore
What makes a top-ranked institution better than a "second-tier" school? The
kind of applicant who would do well in the former will certainly do well in
the latter.

~~~
extra88
The top-ranked institutions and "second-tier" schools charge about the same
tuition but often have more generous financial aid so it can be cheaper to
attend. Even if the sticker price would be the same for you, value of your
degree is partially based on the reputation of the school so the top-ranked
institution's degree is worth more.

------
bjacobel
My girlfriend worked in college access with low-income students last year and
used the same service used in the referenced UVA study [1] to advise and
connect with students. SignalVine seems to have a big head start in this
space, although both deployments I know about were in the Boston area - maybe
there are other regional competitors (I wasn't able to find any through
Googling, though).

Naiively, the application looks to me like just a nice web frontend with auth
and scheduling features, with an SMS provider for a backend (Twilio or
similar). Seems like some enterprising hacker could break into this space with
a cheaper product - SignalVine is pricey, especially for small nonprofits on
tight budgets.

[1]: [https://www.signalvine.com/](https://www.signalvine.com/)

------
shmerl
Higher education should be free altogether.

