An analysis of U.S. college admission practices has found that Ivy-Plus schools are more than twice as likely to accept students from high-income families compared to those from low or middle income families.
The non-technical research summary found that students from all of those family income groups had comparable SAT and ACT scores when they applied.
The Harvard University-based Opportunity Insights examination released new "college-level statistics" looking at parental income levels for 139 public and private colleges in the United States.
Ivy-Plus universities include well known names like Princeton, Cornell, Harvard, Brown, Dartmouth, Yale, Columbia and the University of Pennsylvania.
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While the study found that SAT and ACT scores are highly predictive of success after college, the data showed that the factors related to the high-income selections were not associated with better post-college success.
The Opportunity Insights study found that students who attend an Ivy-Plus school over another public college have triple the chance of getting a job at a prestigious organization, and it increases the student's chances of making a salary in the top 1% "substantially."
Data also found that factors like extracurricular activities, the capacity for leadership and other personal traits came in as the next top factor that contributes to high-income families having their students admitted into Ivy-Plus institutions.
The research summary found that, "Even though they educate a small share of students overall and therefore cannot change rates of social mobility by themselves, Ivy-Plus colleges could meaningfully diversify the socioeconomic origins of society’s leaders by changing their admissions practices."
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