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her parents reasoned, when a well-regarded public university was offering Stacey a full scholarship? The Marshalls were “happy” with Stacey’s decision to attend University of Maryland; its academic program was strong and the women’s basketball team had a solid reputation. As Ms. Marshall said, “It is a challenging school; she is being challenged.” She also confided that she was very worried when Stacey received two C’s in biology during her freshman year (“I feel that she has a tough road ahead of her”). This concern indicates that she knew that such grades could impede Stacey’s acceptance to medical school. Hence, in guiding her daughter’s educational career, Ms. Marshall drew on extensive informal information about the financial aid systems at the undergraduate and graduate level, academic challenges at different kinds of colleges, colleges’ national rankings, and admissions criteria for medical school.39 Public high schools provide only part of this information to parents and students. The middle-class parents were able to supplement the school-supplied information with their own experience, the knowledge of people in their social network, and knowledge they acquired by aggressively collecting it through interactions with educators.40

Like their parents, the middle-class youth had very detailed information about higher education institutions. For example, Garrett knew that despite his high GPA, he would not get into Stanford without being recruited by the basketball team; Alexander understood the intricacies of the early-decision application process; and Stacey knew what expenses her financial aid package covered and what amount remained that her parents would need to pay. By contrast, although Wendy aspired to attend college, she seemed to have trouble keeping the names of various colleges straight; she also did not know the name of her learning disability. (She said, “It is L.D. [for] learning disability.”) Nor could the working-class and poor youth rattle off their SAT scores (if they had ever taken them) and GPAs with the speed and ease of the middle-class youth.

Informal Knowledge: Working-Class and Poor Families

Parents in working-class and poor families saw themselves as having an active role in their children’s school careers. In addition, the mothers of young people in the study who dropped out of high school were deeply upset and agitated by their children’s actions. Thus, there was a superficial similarity across families in the parents’ concern about school and “involvement” in schooling. But the follow-up study also revealed that the working-class and middle-class parents appeared to have different visions of what it means to be “informed” and “helpful.” For many working-class and poor youth, including Billy, Katie, Harold, and others, going to college was never a serious consideration. Their focus was on graduating from high school (or earning a GED). Among those who did pursue higher education, informal knowledge about schooling options was limited. Working-class parents and youth, for example, used the term “college” to include both proprietary vocational training programs and research universities. Unlike middle-class parents and kids, these families had a vague understanding of the complexities of higher-education systems. Among educators, a GED is widely seen as inferior to a high school diploma, particularly in a competitive labor market; some consider it more of a certificate than a diploma. Similarly, a bachelor’s degree is accorded much higher status than a high school degree. The working-class and poor families did not have this kind of hierarchical notion of the value of a diploma. For them, all diplomas were equal. Mr. Yanelli had been disappointed when his son dropped out of high school, but the arrival of Billy’s GED was met with tears of joy. Ms. Yanelli recalled:

The day that diploma came in the mail he was [at the beach]. I called his cell phone like five times. I was like, “Please call me. You got your diploma. We’re so proud.” Oh my God, we were so proud. Big Billy, tears came out