One of the most disturbing trends in the United States in recent decades is the lack of socioeconomic mobility. A core aspect of the American dream is a merit-based society where hard work will lead to greater economic prosperity. Yet even though Americans believe in this ideal – a 2013 Brookings Institute survey found that a higher rate of Americans agreed with the statement “people are rewarded for intelligence and skill” than any of the 27 countries surveyed – this ideal hasn’t matched the reality in recent decades. That same survey also found that income inequality was increasing and becoming permanent, sharply reducing social mobility.
America’s universities – including Emory – play a crucial role in reversing this trend. Access to a highly-ranked college dramatically increases one’s potential earnings and increases the likelihood of moving up the social latter. Yet my experience prior, during and in the two years since graduating from Emory, makes me doubt that the school is fulfilling its duty and mission to provide access to the country’s youth struggling to get out of the lower class.
My graduating class of 64 students at a high school in Seattle – about as far away from Atlanta as possible in the continental United States – sent three students to Emory. I know dozens of these wealthy, private high schools regularly send several students a year to Emory and other highly-ranked universities.
For the past two years, I’ve taught at Jonesboro High School about 20 miles south of Emory’s campus. Ninety-one percent of students are minorities, and more than 75 percent of students qualify for free or reduced lunch. Out of the 300-person graduating class last year, none will attend Emory – the best university in the high school’s own backyard.
It’s certainly true that a significant percentage of students at Jonesboro do not have the credentials to thrive at Emory, while this may not be true at the high school I attended and other similar prep-schools across the county. However, the top echelon of students at Jonesboro High – and other low-income high schools – could thrive at Emory. These students may not have as high SAT and ACT scores due to the lack of access to expensive test-prep programs that their peers in wealthier circles have. However, they would contribute a great deal to the diversity and richness of the community in a way that students from more privileged backgrounds cannot.
From anecdotal experience, I don’t believe Emory admits the student population that would provide the best, most enriching college experience. While Emory students are extremely accomplished in many academic and non-academic fields, a significant portion of students don’t offer as much as a more economically and racially diverse students would offer. These students wouldn’t arrive on campus principally concerned with which Greek organization to join and the social scene at Maggie’s, like is the case among a segment of Emory’s population.
High-achieving students in Atlanta area high schools should see admission to Emory – the top school in the metro area – as a realistic goal. In order for this to happen, Emory’s admissions department needs to spend more time actively recruiting in Metropolitan Atlanta schools and less time focusing on elite, wealthy schools in other regions of the county.
Those schools have great guidance counselors and students who will hear about Emory. Recruitment and information about Emory is needed at places like Jonesboro High where “counselors” have too many duties unrelated to college advising to provide adequate services to our top students.
I know Emory prides itself on recruiting students from every part of the country and the globe. However, it seems the majority of students are from schools in the nation’s highest-income neighborhoods, and most international students from the same types of English-speaking schools where admission to an American college is the goal. While this might look diverse on paper, the reality didn’t always feel that way during my time at Emory.
Recruiting at low-income Atlanta area schools might not seem like the most logical approach for Emory’s admissions department. These students would require significant financial aid and don’t help the school boast its national and international appeal. In a lot of ways, recruiting students from abroad who can afford to pay full-freight might seem like a better approach.
But this approach is contributing to both the lack of social mobility in the country as a whole and the lack of real diversity at Emory that affects students’ college experience.
Alex Dawson is an alumnus of Emory University from Seattle, Wash.
The Emory Wheel was founded in 1919 and is currently the only independent, student-run newspaper of Emory University. The Wheel publishes weekly on Wednesdays during the academic year, except during University holidays and scheduled publication intermissions.
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This argument about wealthy people doing better on the SAT because of test prep programs is largely non-sense. First of all, there are many books that can help students prepare for the SAT. Reading a book is probably a better way to prepare than taking a class, because you’re likely to zone out part of the time in a SAT class that comes on top of all your other school classes. Also, affirmative action means that minorities don’t even have to do that well on standardized tests to get admitted to top universities.
The answer should not be lowering the standards for admission in order to admit more minority and disadvantaged applicants. Practices like affirmative action sadly serve to diminish the accomplishments of such students in the eyes of their peers, often unjustly. If Emory really wants to add diversity, it ought to offer more competitive scholarships for minority and disadvantaged applicants. This way the school can maintain its high standards while still competing for the best and brightest students who can also add diversity to the Emory community. We need policies that facilitate the entrance of diverse students to a level playing field rather than a manipulation of the game itself.
I think that cartoon stereotypes Jewish students. Look at the curly hair and he’s holding money. Who drew that?
I am hoping this is intended to be tongue in cheek.
Antisemitism is a very real problem and issue, So, please!, let’s not see it where it isn’t. The fact that the cartoon character has “curly’ hair and is holding money hardly makes him/it Jewish or a statement about Jewish students. In fact, the assumption that is a statement about Jews is more insulting than the cartoon.
What about his muscles? Does that mean his a stereotype of Jews on athletic scholarships?
Emory doesn’t have athletic scholarships. He’s a Long Island meat head Jew I guess.
I don’t think it’s meant to be curly hair. I’m pretty sure he’s wearing a shower cap.
The editor-in-chief of the Wheel drew it. You’d think she’d have more important things to do than draw cartoons….
At least she’s hot
Emory goggles!
Somebody has to pay. If everyone admitted needed financial aid the house of cards collapses. I am sure full paying students are not being told that some of their tuition dollars are going to someone else’s aid offer…..These rich private school kids, as well as the rich international (Chinese) students are paying the freight.
Well said.
Imagine the difference that Emory University could have on the Atlanta community if it shifted its priorities to lifting up the local community. Emory could be a pillar to the people that live here. And I don’t just mean the rich people that live here. I mean all of the people that live here.
Beyond admitting more local low-income students… Emory could do a big service to the Atlanta community by paying its low wage service workers more. Bus drivers, food service workers, parking security folks etc… Many of whom are from Atlanta and are black. Treating these employees better (wages, benefits, working conditions), would be a great service to the city in which Emory thrives.
Newsflash! We don’t have the money. Why do you think there is this uproar about cutting funding for certain programs?
Emory already takes in plenty of lower-income kids not just from Atlanta, but from small towns all over Georgia. The whole point of reaching out to places like Seattle is because Emory takes in TOO MANY kids from Georgia specifically, and the southeast in general.
Our problem is literally the opposite of what you’re describing.
My father, Charles Watson, was Director of Admissions for decades (’60s to ’80s). He felt quite strongly that Emory’s lack of economic diversity was a shortcoming that would not serve the school well in the long run.
I am an alumni that benefited greatly from the Emory Advantage program at Emory, and as someone from a low-income family, I received more funding to go to Emory than any other university, including some that are nowhere near where Emory is academically. I am so thankful for the opportunity that I had to attend Emory, but I also realize that I was not ready to go to Emory when I got there. I was the first student to go to a top 20 school from my high school. I did not even know how to write a thesis statement when I got to Emory. I had to push myself harder than most students to be on the same level as everyone else. Not everyone from a low-income family or a low-standards high school is prepared to push his or herself to the limit for a degree from Emory.
What I have discovered is that Emory does a poor job of being realistic with the students they admit. If we are going to let in students like myself (which I believe we should), we also need to let them know how difficult it will be to keep up until they make up for the gap in previous education. At the same time, the amount of time I had to spend pushing myself helped me find myself and become a leader on campus early on. Yet if I did not realize in my first semester that I had to be conscious of where I was versus where most other students were, I would not have survived. I watched too many friends give up and walk away from Emory that did not have an excellent high school or primary school education to think it’s as easy as letting in low-income students from low-standards schools.
I wholeheartedly agree, Emory needs more diversity. Where are the white males?
There is nothing to be proud of in taking students who can excel at other institutions and place them in a place where they will not and by these means diminishing their futures. To take a student who would excel in math for example at UGA and put them at Georgia Tech where they will not be able to compete and will most likely fail does no good for anyone except for the bureaucrats, race hustlers and liberal minded individuals that pay attention to some statistics and facets of knowledge and ignore others.
Please do not ever, EVER, post again in public. Your demonstration of the lack of sophisticated thinking and romantic appeal to absurdities diminishes the true value of an Emory degree that others have earned.