Post <blockquote><blockquote><blockquote>OP in his SOP: “growing up wealthy with a father that is a professor substantially lessened my opportunities and chances to perform well academically, especially relative to lower income students, immigrants and minorities”. Should work like a cinch getting into Berkeley</blockquote> That's literally why my parents justify being awful/stingy as possible towards me -- "low income student succeed so you should be able to succeed in a similar environment." I'm not kidding when I say they make sure I live like a low income student-- may sound insensitive but anytime they read a case of a "low income student from abusive household succeeds," they try their best to basically emulate that household it seems (or at least use that as a justification for being awful). Unfortunately most student jobs at my school are reserved for those kids (work-study), so I can't even find work to pay off some things like books and phone bills while I'm at school. I understand these kids need money the most, but this puts people like me in a crappy situation where they have no solutions. Never had a birthday party or a Christmas gift growing up, albeit it's def. a first world problem. Parents made me walk long distances to catch a bus at 4 to 5 am to catch a hour and a half long bus (albeit there are kids worse off than me and I should be "thankful," there are definitely kids that have had better lives growing up and my parents could have definitely contributed to making my life marginally better, so I could focus on studies ever since I as young). I used to stay at school until after it closed (like 6 pm) so I could avoid home as much as possible and study in peace. Didn't help that I couldn't even get a flip phone or a functioning computer before college. While it may seem first world to some, you also have to understand where I am coming from as well. I went to a predominantly high income high school (everyone had macs, everyone had a car, iphone, etc.... other than me) so I was constantly at a disadvantage financially due to my parents choice (i.e. I had to run a R script for homework... and I didn't have a computer I could use to do it... the computer I borrowed from school would constantly crash and eventually a teacher had to bail me out after school). Heck, even in college-- most kids are high income and come from well off, friendly households. Of course, they might have issues with their parents and such, and of course there are also low income students at my school, but I've never heard of anyone going through "financial and mental hardship" enforced by parents to this degree. At least the low income kids got to stay on campus away from the s**tshow and get subsidized macs, etc.... </blockquote> As someone who was actually low income and inner city, this is exactly what privilege is: coming from wealth and comfort, and thinking that the difficulties that you went to even come close to the domestic violence, poverty, hunger and desperation that many people go to. OP I sincerely hope that you write this stuff in your SOP so that I may never cross paths with you. You are an insensitive, arrogant and delusional pr.i.ck.</blockquote>

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