<p>Per the attachment from the PA student newspaper, the Phillipian:</p>
<p>*13% (402) of applicants (3,029) were admitted
*38 states and 33 countries were represented by admitted students
*Last year, 84% of admitted students matriculated
*$5.5mm of FA was offered to 148 students
*47% of the student body is projected to be on FA</p>
<p>Good luck to all!</p>
<p>You forgot to mention they received 77 fewer applications this year and admitted 402 students instead of 444 students last year to make the admit rate look good. But anyway who cares about the admit stats. They don’t mean anything for admission as the admission process is holistic and unpredictable unless you are a bush.</p>
<p>Capital B makes a difference here. 
</p>
<p>Only 38% offered aid? Gosh, I’d love to know what the admit rate was for FA applicants, probably single digits. I guess the affluent are just “nicer.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>neato, I think there might be some truth in your statement. Andover says it’s need-blind, but I’ve had a hard time reconciling that statement with the FA rate of 38%, or even 47%. One would logically assume that its need-blind policy is widely known, thus attracting a lot of FA applicants. Definitely more than 50% of all applicants. Perhaps 60 or 70%… who knows? Does this mean that FA students are in general less qualified (except money) than FP students, in academic accomplishments, sports, EC, etc? I would admit socio-economic advantages that well-to-do kids have throughout their lifetime and education, but going from 60-70% to 38%?</p>
<p>Do you have any basis for your statement? I’m just wondering if you know something that I didn’t know.</p>
<p>I needed 50+ percent of financial aid, and got waitlisted…? 
One of my more affluent classmates got into the school, though. Congrats to all who did!</p>
<p>@SharingGift, I have no insider knowledge at all. But like you, I assume that over half of applicants apply for aid. If we knew what the actual number was, it would be simple math to figure out just what the admit rate was. That said, one cannot assume (at a school that proclaims itself need blind) that the lower admit rate for FA applicants is due simply to the need for aid. Indeed, one must assume that the less affluent kids are not as desirable for some other reason. Naturally, kids with wealthy parents are far more likely to have had private middle school educations and enrichment opportunities unavailable to those who cannot afford the full freight. But even so, Andover et al, purports to look at applicants holistically. That is, they say that they do not hold limited opportunities against students from less privileged backgrounds. So the question is, what is it that makes the more affluent students so much more desirable at a school that does not take financial need into consideration and that takes a “holistic” approach to admissions? It is a sincere question, my rather tongue in cheek comment about “nice kids” notwithstanding.</p>
<p>Why would you assume that over half of the applicants are asking for financial aid? Maybe that’s true, but not necessarily what I would have guessed. People applying for boarding schools is a self-selecting group and a group that I would think would tend to skew fairly heavily to the affluent. I would think that families of more limited means would tend to be less aware of boarding schools as an option and less likely to think of applying even if they do know about them (just assuming they couldn’t afford it). My kids currently attend a private day school and I have found that many people just assume there’s no way they could afford a school like that, without actually inquiring about aid.</p>
<p>Whats all the fuss about, Andover is a need blind school, doesn’t mean they offer financial aid to everyone who needs it.</p>
<p>Soxmom, several years ago, when my son applied, I had to call the FA office with a question. When I had them on the phone, I asked how many. The responded was around 2000.</p>
<p>HelloGuy, it means that they make admissions decisions regardless of ability to pay AND that they will meet need. The way it was explained to me by the FA office at the time was that admissions decided who they wanted and then the FA office ran the numbers and determined the award. Now, it may very well be that since checking the box for aid has no bearing on the decision, Andover gets more than their fair share of people who apply for FA on the off chance that the school will find a need that isn’t really there. That could inflate the number of FA apps, but it is purely conjecture on my part.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Fascinating. Also deceptive. If one tells an applicant not to continue an application based on evidence in hand, that application should be counted in the overall statistics of completed applications, as it was different in essence from a candidate who loses interest in applying. A student who receives a speedy rejection should be counted as an applicant.</p>
<p>It might be different at Andover, but I was told at SPS last year that the ratio is generally 2/3 FA applicants to 1/3 Full Pay applicants.</p>
<p>Neatoburrito, it’s expensive to develop skills in athletics and music. At our local public school, parents sign their kids up for travel leagues and summer sports camps, with the goal of enabling their children to play on the public high school teams. I imagine boarding schools also want trained players for their teams. That would correlate with full-pay families, but on the basis of specialized skills built up over years.</p>
<p>I won’t speculate, guess, or suppose. I’ll just state the following facts and personal experiences:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>“In 2012-2013, 47% of the student body [at Andover] receives financial aid; 13% receive full scholarship. The average grant for boarding students is $34,600 and the average grant for day students is $23,100.” [Phillips</a> Academy -](<a href=“http://www.andover.edu/Admission/TuitionAndFinancialAid/Pages/default.aspx]Phillips”>http://www.andover.edu/Admission/TuitionAndFinancialAid/Pages/default.aspx) </p></li>
<li><p>“Andover meets 100% of a family’s demonstrated need” and “admits students without regard to a family’s ability to pay tuition.” [Phillips</a> Academy -](<a href=“http://www.andover.edu/Admission/TuitionAndFinancialAid/Pages/default.aspx]Phillips”>http://www.andover.edu/Admission/TuitionAndFinancialAid/Pages/default.aspx)</p></li>
<li><p>“Next year, 47 percent of the student body is projected to be on scholarship, with 13 percent on full scholarship …” [236th</a> Admitted Class Represents Lowest Andover Admit Rate | The Phillipian Online](<a href=“http://www.phillipian.net/articles/2013/04/04/236th-admitted-class-represents-lowest-andover-admit-rate]236th”>236th Admitted Class Represents Lowest Andover Admit Rate – The Phillipian) </p></li>
<li><p>The “decrease in admits [this year] will prevent [a] housing shortage, a problem Andover faced last year with an unprecedented 84 percent yield rate.” [236th</a> Admitted Class Represents Lowest Andover Admit Rate | The Phillipian Online](<a href=“http://www.phillipian.net/articles/2013/04/04/236th-admitted-class-represents-lowest-andover-admit-rate]236th”>236th Admitted Class Represents Lowest Andover Admit Rate – The Phillipian)</p></li>
<li><p>It is not uncommon for financial aid awards from Andover to exceed financial aid awards from elite universities. </p></li>
<li><p>The Financial Aid office at Andover helps in every aspect of boarding school life. Inter alia, it purchases books, provides a computer, pays for college applications, funds AP tests, and even provides a stipend, ground transfers, and a plane ticket for FA students to visit their top-choice colleges. Its support for me has been nothing less than outstanding.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>You could try to work out the data for CC applicants if you want an idea of things like %fa applicants. It won’t be particularly accurate but it might give you some idea instead of just speculation. I did something similar on TSR (a kinda UK version of CC) on a big Westminster School applicants thread there. I didn’t include FA because it isn’t as common here and is quite private, as most of us have now met in person.
This is just part of the total list for this year :)</p>
<p>Applicants for 2013 entry:
ABC<em>12- maths, physics, chem, biology- Interview, no place
Alix23- boarding, history, maths, biology, chemistry- Accepted!
Boo</em>Bear- Boarding-Waitlist
Caetius
Chandelier- Boarding, history, maths, chemistry, biology
Cleothen
CookedFlower
Dabe
danish786- chem, bio, drama, art history
dmp1188
Flame of the West- boarding, Maths, Chemistry, Biology, Physics
HiImSharon
ibbi1824- economics, maths, German, history- Interview, no place
lcdrz - Boarding, English, Economics, French, History
izabeleba- Boarding, maths, further maths, French, physics- Accepted!</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>This year I heard a similar line of story from the other Phillips school. If we can assume two thirds of all applicants applying for FA and run a simple math, you’d get starkly different admission rates between FP and FA: 25% (254/1000) and 7% (148/2000), respectively.</p>
<p>This sounds daunting. I’m glad I didn’t know this beforehand!</p>
<p>Aw, I should’ve applied to Andover. Groton’s acceptance rate was 12%. </p>
<p>:D just kidding (But yes, their acceptance rate was 12%.)</p>
<p>Two points:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Andover did the right thing by excluding the incomplete applications post 11 discusses. Andover could have engineered a lower admit rate by including these applications in its total application count. It honorably chose instead not to game the admission process.</p></li>
<li><p>Absent hard evidence, how can we draw any conclusions about the admit rates for FA and FP students at PEA and PA?</p></li>
</ol>
<p>@stargirl3: Hahaha, Choate’s acceptance rate was 20%. You should have applied there, too! :)</p>