<p>^ That’s actually $5550 now that Pell has increased.</p>
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<p>Hmmm. this thread makes me wonder the implications if rich parents fill out the FAFSA only for merit consideration, which shows that the EFC is way, way over the COA, if that info might help in getting their kid admitted for future endowment enrichment possibilities from the grateful parents?</p>
<p>^ That seems plausible, since colleges admit the students they want the most, for all kinds of reasons.</p>
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This doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me. If your income is low enough that you are remotely eligible for these grants, you would be applying for FA anyway. It’s not like you have no idea whether you need FA or not.</p>
<p>I agree that it would be a rare person who wouldn’t realize that their income is low enough to be Pell eligible that they would be applying for FA anyway. </p>
<p>There may be the rare case of divorced parents where the child would qualify for Pell because she lives with the low income mom even if she has a very affluent dad. So, in that case, the student may not know to apply for aid.</p>
<p>(However, I don’t think such a kid should qualify for Pell, but that’s another issue.)</p>
<p>I still think schools that ask for FAFSA for scholarship consideration do want to make sure that they aren’t awarding merit to a kid with a super wealthy family and overlooking the student whose family income is just upper-middle class. When scholarships are limited in number, schools want to get the best incoming class. The super rich kid is going to go regardless of scholarship; the upper-middle class kid with the same high stats might not.</p>
<p>I’m not saying that a rich kid would never get the scholarship, but if there’s only 10 to give and you have 25 kids with super high stats and 20 of them have super high incomes, then the 5 with much lower incomes might have the edge in scholarship awards.</p>
<p>To vossron - what I was saying was that I don’t believe that colleges are need blind when it comes to acceptances. I was not talking at all about meeting full need. That is a separate issue and many schools don’t claim that. I am also not talking about merit aid, just finacial aid. As far as the strategy of using ED as a way to signal to a university that your child doesn’t need much aid, that was something I also read in the NY Times and the author of the article seemed to have researched that point, if I recall. If that sounds cynical to you, hey so what. My experience as a parent (and at one time as a student at many institutions) leads me to that conclusion. My own experience with financial aid offices has been frustating because the formula or method of determining aid is whatever they say it is and can change year to year and case by case.</p>
<p>Reed article: <a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/10/business/economy/10reed.html[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/10/business/economy/10reed.html</a></p>
<p>“I don’t believe that colleges are need blind when it comes to acceptances.”</p>
<p>So you believe that colleges that say they are need blind are lying? I admit that I find this cynical! :)</p>
<p>The article you linked doesn’t mention Early Decision; did you link the right one?</p>
<p>Yes, I believe that they are lying when they say that. Sorry. I am searching for the early decision article. The one I linked to is about Reed having to consider need when considering acceptances.</p>
<p>And to clarify, it is your direct experience with colleges that say they are need blind that makes you believe they are lying? Let’s assume that you don’t have direct experience with every one of them, but with a sufficient representative sample.</p>
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<p>Rich people didn’t get rich by spending unwisely. For example, given a choice between a $50,000/yr. college and a $30,000/yr. college (such as Virginia Tech or James Madison, OOS), I think a lot of rich parents will steer their kid to the cheaper one.</p>
<p>Different people also seem to have different definitions of who falls into the category “super rich”.</p>