Comment by Crake | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Crake | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

Without getting into a huge argument with an internet stranger as to the exact extent of my stupidity and/or intelligence, it'd probably be wise to note that nearly 2/3 of high school seniors are going to college now. Someone who is in the top 1-5% of high school seniors really shouldn't have the difficulties I did. I'm not trying to brag, I'm just trying to say that my stats were decent and I wasn't a slacker.

It was really baffling to me that colleges preferred to take people who got 2s and 3s on their AP tests to someone who scored 5s, so long as they had parents who would fork over thousands of dollars. At a poorly funded rural high school where most people were members of FFA, outscoring my classmates wasn't hard, and there weren't many collegebound to begin with, outside of the people with welloff families. It was frustrating to see them get to go instead of me because I didn't have tens of thousands of dollars for the tuition bill. (I mean, a lot of them were in the low to mid twenties on their ACT scores...)

It was really baffling to me that colleges preferred to take people who got 2s and 3s on their AP tests to someone who scored 5s, so long as they had parents who would fork over thousands of dollars.

In the US, higher education, like most everything else, is a business. That's not cynical, that's a fact. With the exception of a small handful of wealthy schools, most universities are looking out for their bottom line. Don't let the glossy brochures and cozy advertising copy confuse you. And you might as well get used to it, because the country is moving further in that direction.

On a more positive note, try to google: scholarships for gay kids

It returns a lot of promising hits.

Good luck.

There aren't really many opportunities for glbt scholarships. I appreciate the thought, but it's not like trying to google it has never crossed my mind.

I'm curious about this. In several states - I thought all states - a sufficiently high ACT score will get you either a free ride, or a half-cost ride to any public university. Mid-20s is enough to get half. Is that not the case in your state?

Absolutely not. I was well into the 30s on mine, and the financial aid office still told me to fuck off. I suspect it varies a lot from state to state, hence a lot of people's condescending attitude and disbelief.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com