Why Do Parents Status Affect Personal Success?

I would like to attribute getting into UCLA and maintaining a high GPA to my own hard work, as would most students. However, we often underestimate how much our parents’ status affects our own success. My father is an engineer and my mother is an attorney, so they are able to pay for my full tuition and housing. My grandfather never had this luxury and would have to take odd jobs to support him and his mother, according to my aunt, Christie Shary. Although parents’ income may seem unrelated to academic performance, this is not the case. Because I can go to school without worrying about funding my own tuition, I do not have to work. This allows me to spend more time studying, allowing me to perform better in school. But the benefits start even …show more content…
Many schools have adopted this policy to allow students who are underprivileged opportunities to escape from a cycle of being at a disadvantage. However, there are 8 states that no longer implement this policy in their public education system, California being one of them. In 2006, California decided to no longer consider an applicant’s race when deciding who would be accepted. The acceptance rate for black and Latino students immediately dropped. UCLA tried to fix this by taking a “holistic” approach to the application process in which factors such as whether or not parents went to college and where the students went to high school were considered. Affirmative action has been an extremely controversial policy, with many students arguing that it gives minorities and low-income students an easier path to college. However, looking at the benefits I have over underprivileged students, I do not agree with that notion. I get to live in an apartment close to school, I have a car to drive to any extracurricular activities I need to attend, and I don’t have to work. Looking at what my grandfather achieved while not being on equal footing with his peers leads me to wonder what he may have achieved had Iran had an affirmative action policy and he had been able to attend university. Sometimes, test scores and high school achievements are not a reliable indicator of an applicant’s ability to …show more content…
Getting into a good university gives you a huge leg up, but those born into a privileged home have a better chance at getting into a top university. Once enrolled in the university, the benefits seem to be amplified. I have experienced this in my own time at UCLA. The resources I have at my disposal go far beyond the education I receive in the classroom. These include a huge alumni network, college counsellors, and amazing research opportunities, just to name a few. Colleges continue to cater more and more to their students, as it becomes more important to keep them happy and enrolled so that the schools can continue to receive funding. In addition, colleges need to get their students into grad school so that they look more inviting to prospective students. This leads to a culture in which the student is the most valuable commodity, a stark contrast to the experience of those who do not get to attend a prestigious