The understanding with most art is that it takes several rounds of critique for a piece to even be complete, much less for an artist to reach their overall potential. And it's considered an honor to receive criticism from someone whose work you admire.
Similarly, self-management is completely necessary if you're completing something long-term, like a novel. Scrappiness, too -- it's very often the case that you have to skip around the gatekeepers to reach an audience for the first time.
I'd also add that there's a certain strange cognitive advantage. A lot of art is built on taking concepts from one situation and applying them somewhere foreign -- translating the feeling of loss into a series of musical notes, or applying the principles of the punk rock movement to dance.
I know it sounds like bullshit to a lot of hackers. But that trick, of abstracting away the details of problems so that their solutions can be used in isomorphic situations, is very handy in computer science.
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.
Your comment is spot on and resonates profoundly with me. I'm also from a family in the bottom income bracket - my family were migrant farm laborers ever since we emigrated to the US when I was two. My outlook for college was dim and I didn't know anyone that had gone past a year or two at a local community college, certainly not in my family. It didn't help that I was raised in a tiny farming town of ~1500 people, devoid of many educational resources, with a similar background.
I also applied to and had interest from an elite school in the east coast but faced the financial burden (fees, traveling to a major city for face-to-face interview, etc) and lack of mentorship/guidance in HS to successfully pursue it. I was very fortunate however to earn a full ride scholarship to any in-state public university through a new program that was targeting students like myself, otherwise the financial aspect alone would have made it impossible. Not to mention the obstacles "navigating college" that you articulated so well.
I eventually earned my BFA and feel pretty fortunate to be in the position that I'm currently in. In the last few months, I reached out to the foundation that provided my scholarship and have started volunteering my time and story with students facing similar situations. I had always been very hesitant because I felt that there wasn't much I could offer, but the more I talk with students I'm reminded of what it was like when I was in their situation - just looking for someone that could provide a little bit of guidance and/or clarity.
I had a similar experience from a working class, 2nd income quartile household, with little contact with big cities or big universities.
SAT prep? Tutors? Private school? Scoring well on AP tests? These are unknown.
But as you say what matters most is information and role models. Many people from outside the upper middle class didn't know about other opportunities. And when they did know, they didn't even think about the opportunities because they didn't know anyone like themselves doing those things.
I was lucky to have parents that prioritized education, and a middle school teacher who took an interest in me and got me applying to some summer programs where I met kids who modeled a bunch of different possible paths.
It's important to make kids aware of opportunities. Then it's important to make sure they have role models and encouragement.
Your story really resonated with me. I think one of the biggest issue education / society has not adequately addressed is, even with a curious mind, as a teenager, you don't get too many chances to learn what is out there and what is possible. You have to know it exists to start looking. Unless you grew up in a certain household (generally higher income, educated) / environment / peer group that exposed you.
For example, I started coding in my early teens but I never really knew all the career paths it opened up until my twenties. My parents never showed me. My school never showed me. I ended up studying something unrelated in university.
I think it would be a huge boon to our collective future if schools focused more on showing students all the possibilities out there and supporting them to explore it, so they can discover their passions earlier and better maximize their potentials.
From 'shadow an employee' programs, counselling assistance, co-ed programs to extracurricular programs. Instead of letting them decide their future career paths (at least postsecondary choices) based on the limited subjects and materials they're learning in classrooms and what their parents and peers showed them (and did not show them) is possible.
>>We didn't know how to talk or study or dress or think the way our peers did
I know exactly what you mean. Whenever I wanted to try something new, like apply to an internship, my brain tried really hard to convince me not to do it because I would get rejected. My subconscious tried really hard into making me a complete looser. To this day I sometimes have to tell it to shut up.
I come from the bottom of the bottom. I felt intimidated by everybody, especially those people that belonged to a higher income family. The good upbringing was noticeable.
I also come from a family in the low-income bracket. Despite being a top student in HS I had never heard of AP courses, SAT and I didn't know what the Ivies were outside of 'Harvard'. Unlike you I was not as fortunate, despite being gifted.
I ended up going to an 'ok' state school then couldn't attend graduate studies (despite being accepted to a top program) because I had to get an industry job to support my family. I saved up money, quit my job and now talking with a top 10 program about applying to their program. My story is still untold but I am optimistic about the future.
> 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.
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.
Question for HN: (sorry to piggy back off of this comment)
I've also gone down a similar path to what OP described and I feel like I really want to help those growing up in similar environments (e.g. 1st generation college students, poor family, lack of guidance growing up, etc) but I'm not sure where to start.
I live in the Seattle area and I've heard about TEALS as an initiative to mentor high school level students and prepare them for computer science in college, but I'm not sure if this would be the best place to focus my efforts (main concern being whether I'll just be mentoring kids at the more well off high schools vs the schools that really need it).
There are programs like Big Brothers / Big Sisters. I've heard good things about this type of mentoring and you could make a difference for someone from a younger age probably.
Just wanted to say that I really appreciated this story. I was lower middle income but being from a war refugee family, public school was where we went to, and then to state college. I loved it but had no idea what private school life was like. Now I work at Stanford, and am constantly impressed by the high-achieving students.
I have to disagree. I feel very strongly that SAT tutors and training systems completely undermine the value of the test. The test is supposed to find students with a comprehensive knowledge and problem solving base, but instead, through the corruption of expensive tutors and programs is largely a test of how much money and time was spent preparing. Wealth buys you a higher score, and that is shameful considering how heavily that score is utilized in selection.
I'm really missing the point you are trying to make. People prepare for the SAT to get a better grade and you think it is unfair. WTF? Actually, I do get it I just think it is insane that you think it is a reasonable point, as if it were a moral imperative.
What I do not get is why you think this way. People are simply trying to improve their chances by studying and trying to get a better SAT. It baffles me that you think this is somehow corrupt.
Your point seems to be that poor people cannot prepare for the SAT because they do not have the resources. I agree, but I think you should instead focus on fixing poverty. How? I have no idea.
You cannot stop people from studying or preparing themselves to have an advantage over everybody else, that is just crazy thinking.
"Preserving the existing class structure" is not a design goal of the SAT, so to the extent that it does so, that is a problem. A test that didn't have this property would be a better test.
However, I don't think all is lost. Most of the wealthy's advantage is the fact that they actually practice taking the test. It's not clear why poor people don't avail themselves of this perfectly attainable advantage (frankly, how can they consider a few hours of their time more valuable than the many tens of thousands of dollars of scholarships on offer?), but they don't seem to do it. To fix this, let's get more poor kids to take the practice tests. I'm doing that in a very small way. When asked for advice, I tell poor kids and family members to practice, practice, practice. I tell rich kids there's nothing they can do...
I agree with you. Poor people not studying for the test is a problem with culture. It is the crappy culture they have learnt from their parents that is keeping them down. The parents don't know any better or don't care and henceforth they never push their kids to prepare for those test.
Oh yeah, I had a conversation with a less-wealthy parent on this topic within the last couple of months. I got the impression she was searching for some sort of secret or hack. I told her that the student should take a couple of practice tests and grade them herself so as to understand what happened. She didn't believe that would do any good, even though she sought my advice specifically because I got 35/36 on ACT several decades ago.
The exceptions are students who are black, Latino, low-income, or first-generation college attendees. I understand that these populations are a minority in the Ivy League, but they easily combine to be a majority of the country.
So we could more accurately say that Ivies help students earn higher salaries, except for students from certain privileged backgrounds.
Minor tangent: how strongly does the minority component factor into this, versus the low-income and first-generation components? In other words, does this still apply to high-income, second-generation black and Latino college attendees?
There is definitely quite a bit of overlap as minorities are more likely to be low-income, first-generation college students. When taking that into account it's not clear that those groups form a majority of the population.
The understanding with most art is that it takes several rounds of critique for a piece to even be complete, much less for an artist to reach their overall potential. And it's considered an honor to receive criticism from someone whose work you admire.
Similarly, self-management is completely necessary if you're completing something long-term, like a novel. Scrappiness, too -- it's very often the case that you have to skip around the gatekeepers to reach an audience for the first time.
I'd also add that there's a certain strange cognitive advantage. A lot of art is built on taking concepts from one situation and applying them somewhere foreign -- translating the feeling of loss into a series of musical notes, or applying the principles of the punk rock movement to dance.
I know it sounds like bullshit to a lot of hackers. But that trick, of abstracting away the details of problems so that their solutions can be used in isomorphic situations, is very handy in computer science.