<p>Andover has announced that they are going need blind. It is a little unclear whether "starting September 2008" means "for those students starting in Sept '08", or "for those students applying in the fall of '08".</p>
<p>They have also replaced all financial aid loans with grants. </p>
<p>I believe Exeter did these things a year or two ago, and that St Paul's has been admitting need blind for the last few years.</p>
<p>what does need blind mean?</p>
<p>From the Andover website, "Andover will be able to admit the most qualified students regardless of their families’ ability to pay the cost of an Andover education and will meet 100 percent of all families’ demonstrated need."</p>
<p>Need blind means that admissions does not know if you are a financial aid candidate when considering you for admission.<br>
St Paul's has (and I imagine Exeter too based on thier new initiative) a policy that they guarantee to meet 100% of demonstrated need without loans. That is HUGE for families. I would expect to see the other "elites" make similar announcements soon - especially those with the largest endowments.</p>
<p>omg.....why couldn't this happen while i was actually in high school</p>
<p>jkjkjkjkjkjkjk</p>
<p>For what it's worth, Deerfield has been need-blind for years. Why doesn't the % of students receiving FA change radically from year to year. And why has DA's % of students receiving FA been right in line with the other elites that have not been need blind? (30 to 40%)</p>
<p>So, how is this orchestrated? It cannot be that it's simply left to chance.</p>
<p>Interestingly, Deerfield will admit but then not offer financial aid (not FA wait list, just no FA). We know someone who was accepted and not given any aid, yet received a generous package at another school.</p>
<p>So, need-blind admissions does not necessarily mean that the school will meet your financial aid need. It only means that need is not considered when determining admissions.</p>
<p>Thanks, Linda, for the "Aha" moment. Now, the mystery of the FA numbers makes sense. It may have been too simple for me to see it. Admissions decisions independent of FA needs. </p>
<p>I should have put this on its own thread, but I see you've started one up. :)</p>
<p>FA is a tricky matter. My sister got admmited to bothe Middlesex and Concord Academy without and FA. Knowing our situation, my parents won't be able to afford 40K a year to send my sister to their schools, yet they accepted her, not knowing she'll not even deem to go to their school.St pauls and philips rejected her. However, St. Marks accepted her and gave her a liberal amount of Fa, much more than we needed. What I felt was that St. mark's had nearly 10 people call her every couple of weeks or so enticing her to go to their school. Obviously, i felt that the school wanted her to attend st marks because of the lavish FA and all the phone calls. Do you think that schools would give people extra FA just to entice them to go to their school?</p>
<p>Some places might use this "merit aid" to attract some students. In general, places that are need blind do not do this, because they have to make their aid budgets cover their commitments to all admitted students.</p>
<p>It is true that some colleges are need blind for admission, but do not promise full aid for those they admit. It is a shame that the prep schools are doing this too. The admissions offer is not useful to someone who cannot afford to go.</p>
<p>To be a little more technical about exactly what need blind means: the school offers admission to students without taking into account their financial need. Contrast this with what had been Andover's practice to date. They would create a list of students they wanted to admit without taking into account ability to pay. Then they would review the amount of financial aid these students would require and compare that figure to their aid budget. If the needed aid was greater than the budget, they would have to drop some applicants from the list and replace them with full pay students. </p>
<p>Thus, the last few slots in each admissions year will filled by the best full pay students who had just missed out to some needy students in the initial round. Under need blind they never have to get to this final round.</p>
<p>The admissions committee does not ignore socioeconomic status in considering applicants. At many colleges, and at these prep schools, they give preference to lower income students and those whose parents have limited education. Need blind means that they do not have to reserve a specific number of slots for full pay students.</p>
<p>Old thread is old, but does Andover require that you pay back the FA you receive, like a loan? Or is it a scholarship that doesn’t need to be repaid?</p>
<p>Also, what other schools are need-blind besides Andover and Deerfield?</p>
<p>It’s a need-based scholarship. It does not have to be repaid. Of course, if your career leaves you well off financially it would be nice to donate to the scholarship fund to enable others to have the same opportunity.</p>
<p>When all the need-based schools give FA, does that need to be repaid?</p>
<p>No, its not like college, these are grants not loans.</p>
<p>If you receive a loan, you’ll have to pay it back (part of my package was a loan), but otherwise, you won’t.</p>
<p>While this is very cynical of me to announce to those who have hopes of attending Andover that need FA…Andover may not announce everything to you…I attended Summer Session 2009 @ Andover and met several students who go there for normal session…They informed me that they took away the FA of several of their friends (who had recieved it their following years) this year, leaving them to pay the full way, using the the economy and family income as an excuse.</p>
<p>So how would you like it if you were going to a prep school, like Andover, on FA, and it all of a sudden was just taken away. You may not be able to attend the next year…just know that things like this can happen. </p>
<p>However, they also did mention that the people who lost FA were those who didn’t necessarily need it (i.e. athletes/special people they wanted to bring in)</p>
<p>@andoverwarrior6</p>
<p>Were these people promised their aid for all 4 years? I never was, but my brother explicitly was told his aid would be for all 4 years.</p>
<p>Uroogla, </p>
<p>When year(s) you receive your loan(s)? Was it detailed on your aid award letter or did your family take it out above and beyond the school’s determination of your ability to pay (i.e. was there a disconnect between their determination of need and your family’s perception/requirements)? As far as I know Andover no longer puts loans into FA packages. Ours did not include one and the FA website states, “Andover awards financial aid scholarship grants. No student loans are administered.”</p>
<p>I’m not familiar with Andover granting aid to “special students” that don’t actually need it, but their financial aid policy does state that aid is “renewed annually provided there is continued demonstrated financial need.” That is their public commitment to FA applicants.</p>
<p>Uroogla, I’m assuming your brother’s aid is still contingent on your family’s financial circumstances. Were you told otherwise? If not, was it due to athletics, merit or other special circumstances?</p>
<p>Andover explicitly gave me a token loan each of my four years (2004-2008), although the policy when I applied may have been different than it is now. My aid letter was somewhat complicated - some of the money was in the name of a local family, given by the trustees for meeting certain qualifications (I was a day student, and my understanding is that a few wealthy local families like to see students from their town attend Andover; the amount was very little, however). My family decided that saving for college was more important than spending for high school, so I initially said I would not attend. However, Andover came back with more money, some of it as a loan, enabling me to attend. As we found out over the phone, not through a letter, I’m not quite sure what it means. It was not entirely financial, but it was caused by the difference between FAFSA and what my parents thought they could pay.</p>
<p>My brother is receiving aid because Andover takes into account college tuition payments in their formula, and I’m in college receiving no aid. As I mentioned, mine was not entirely financial, but probably not quite merit, either. Andover does say they grant no merit aid, although this is not exactly true. The first grant I received was, and people have mentioned that they’re willing to bid against other schools, particularly Exeter, if they want you enough.</p>