from my personal experience (an outsider trying to apply), the admission process was by itself intimidating enough to keep me from even applying. let me explain.
thanks to purchasing power parity and exchange ratio gap, i was already from a broke family that would meet the cutoff for most universities a decade ago. however, the act of paying hundreds of dollars for application fees was enough to not make it like you lose nothing by trying. to put things to perspective, a few hundred dollars, which could cover a handful of applications, were equivalent to the take-home salary for a month during that time.
maybe i was unaware of some concessions or perhaps there has been improvements on this front, but i wonder if some applications might still be this hard pressed despite these initiatives.
thanks to purchasing power parity and exchange ratio gap, i was already from a broke family that would meet the cutoff for most universities a decade ago. however, the act of paying hundreds of dollars for application fees was enough to not make it like you lose nothing by trying. to put things to perspective, a few hundred dollars, which could cover a handful of applications, were equivalent to the take-home salary for a month during that time.
maybe i was unaware of some concessions or perhaps there has been improvements on this front, but i wonder if some applications might still be this hard pressed despite these initiatives.