<p>I am more of a skeptic. I do not wholly believe that there is a Chinese wall between FA office and admission office. All else being equal, they would like to admit students who could well afford 4 years of tuition rather than someone who is on the borderline or couldn’t afford it and not eligible for FA. Reasons - 1) there is a higher probability of a student dropping out if couldn’t afford tuition, 2) family with higher income/asset would potentially donate more. So, if I am not getting anything from a school, why should I show all of my cards.</p>
<p>D1 received full ride to a school based on merit, without us having to fill out anything.</p>
<p>Of course, this varies from school to school.</p>
<p>In most of the California State University campuses, admissions are done by GPA and test score formula, intended major, and state and local residency. There is no place where financial aid considerations can come into play at the admissions office.</p>
<p>*Quote:
Originally Posted by oldfort
I do not wholly believe that there is a Chinese wall between FA office and admission office.
*</p>
<p>I think it’s a different kind of swiss cheese wall. </p>
<p>The admissions office may not see the FA apps, but they can often tell by the app/essays/zip code/high school/ECs who has money and who doesn’t.</p>
<p>To answer the O’Ps question: filing a FAFSA does not equal applying for financial aid. </p>
<p>I agree that college admissions can make pretty good guesses about a student’s financial situation, just based on the student’s neighborhood, school and the parents’ occupations.</p>
<p>Erin’s Dad has it backwards, as the vast majority of colleges do not have need-blind admissions. The handful that are truly need-blind will only offer need-based aid, while many others will offer both need-based and merit aid. In some situations, I would agree with the OP that obvious ability to pay full freight might help with respect to getting in, but filing the FASFA will only underscore that. The form is much simpler these days, so I would go ahead and file it.</p>
<p>gratefuldad, the vast majority of colleges are in fact need-blind for admissions. Public universities and colleges are, I’m sure all for-profit schools are. The vast majority of colleges do not guarantee to meet need, which means it’s easy for them to be need-blind for admissions.</p>
<p>Our kids were full pay in private colleges. We also decided not to fill out FAFSA, why disclose when you don’t have to ? Anyways, our kids weren’t interested any merit based schools because they were not their target schools. Our opinion is having money provides more options.</p>
<p>It’s going to pay off in two cases
1° out of state public universities
2° LACs ranked 45-75 where you would get merit based on stats only
(once your child has found a few that they like, check with each to see whether they require FAFSA if you’re not applying for aid)</p>
<p>As for the poster who complains they pay too much because they earn a lot, I’m reminded of that quote (not sure who said it): I had a period in my life when I didn’t pay any federal taxes, and a period in my life when I paid A LOT in taxes. I liked the second one much more. (yeah, I’m a poor quoter, and you should hear me tell jokes. )
I also had a friend who said “Sure, they say we’re rich, but really, once we’ve taken care of the horses, paid the maid and the butler, plus the garderner for the grounds, seriously we don’t have that much money left.”
Bottom line: if being rich is so hard, give it away and become middle class.
This is not meant for OP, only for the person who thought being in the top 2% earners in the US was so hard.</p>
I know this is true at some colleges. Does anyone know why? It doesn’t make any sense to me that ‘merit aid’ should require a FAFSA to be filled out since true merit isn’t dependent on the financial resources of the family. Regardless of how it makes no sense, some colleges want it in order to be considered.</p>
<p>As far as getting an extra admissions boost by NOT filling it out - in the OP’s case it’s comparing someone not filling it out, a presumed full pay capable, against the same person filling it out, where the college can see you have a very large income and savings and therefore likely won’t have an issue paying. Either way they know you’re in a good position to full pay - if that’s what they’re secretly looking for. I’m not sure filling out the FAFSA or not would make any difference in the admissions in the OP’s case (but I’m not a college admissions person - just looking at it logically - which I’ve already proven up doesn’t always apply when they ask for a FAFSA for merit aid).</p>
<p>I’m with those who say don’t fill out the FAFSA if you’re highly unlikely to benefit from it. No one knows how this info is being secured at the colleges and there have been a number of cases where they’ve been hacked and who knows what they actually do with the data?</p>
<p>We filled out the FAFSA for both kids even though we would not receive any need based aid. Some of the schools required it for merit awards. Not sure why, but filling out the FAFSA wasn’t a big deal to us. Both kids attend / attended out of state privates.</p>
<p>We are full pay too, but this struck me as a little odd. My kids both are full pay, but they didn’t want us to pay full sticker price so applying to schools that gave merit aid was important. Money doesn’t grow on trees, I think it’s important for kids to understand that.</p>
<p>GladGradDad, I can’t speak for “all colleges” or even “most colleges,” but I know that at “some colleges” financial need is a consideration even in the distribution of merit aid. I suspect their thinking is that if they can meet need with money designated for merit awards, that leaves more need-based money to distribute to students with need. If you pore over the common data sets of some of these colleges and universities, you can see that students with need are far more likely to receive merit aid than students without. And this is just anecdotal, but I hear enough talk and read enough stories on CC to suggest that just a smidgen of need (i.e., EFC just a few thousand below cost of attendance) can get you a lot of merit aid that you might not get with a higher EFC.</p>
<p>We had told them to go to their dream school, money was not a factor, for us anyways. My kids know money doesn’t grow on trees, but we were willing to pay for education.BTW, my H is driving an 18 year old car, his choice.</p>
<p>If a college does not guarantee to meet need, it is free to consider ability to pay when considering whether to admit a student. Thus, such colleges are not need-blind as to admissions. Only a handful of the top universities and LAC’s are truly need-blind. And let’s not even talk about for-profit schools.</p>
<p>True. Also true: if a college DOES guarantee to meet need, it is free to consider ability to pay when considering whether to admit a student. </p>
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<p>No. Consider, for instance, the University of California. The admissions folks do not care one bit about if you can pay–you can see that clearly in all of the out of state folks they admit, who then come here on CC and ask how they are supposed to come up with the $50k+ a year for UCLA. </p>
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<p>Only a handful of top universities and LACs have both need-blind admissions AND guarantee to meet need. There are a few schools that guarantee to meet need and have need-aware admissions. Most schools do not guarantee to meet need–and most (if not all) of these schools do not factor need-based aid into their admissions decisions. </p>
<p>A school’s admissions policies (need-blind or need-aware) and a school’s financial aid policies (guaranteed to meet need versus no guarantee) are two separate things.</p>
<p>Rhumbob, did you fill complete the CSS Profile as well?</p>
<p>I believe we did. Just when they originally applied. My D’s school had us fill out the FAFSA for all 4 years. My S is a sophomore now and we just filled out everything up front. They have not asked for subsequent FAFSA forms.</p>
<p>We were in a similar situation as the OP. I assumed we would not qualify for any financial aid due to income and a 529 plan we had in place. The FA office of the college she accepted encouraged that we complete a FAFSA anyway. They said if we did, my D would receive an annual “award” that would be deducted from the tuition. We filled one out each year and it ended up we needed to get an un-subsidized Stafford loan since the tuition increased beyond the value of the 529.</p>
<p>I am still not sure why she received an award for filling out a FAFSA that showed she was not qualified for any FA.</p>
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