<p>MIT's estimated expenses, including tuition and books and living, go to around 50,000. My EFC is 1865.
MIT claims to be need blind. How is this? Is there some outside organization that makes certain this is so? Since the admission process is a "black hole", can they possibly cheat or somehow rank applicants in the order of their financial need?
In this economic situation, I don't think any school would refuse to admit they wouldn't mind applicants who can pay more of their tuition...
Any thoughts?
My main concern is Carnegie Mellon, however...</p>
<p>And I don't seem to get this tag thing right, maybe this is a bug in this website</p>
<p>A few schools have endowments large enough to support need-blind admissions. The FAFSA is checked against IRS filings to try to catch cheating applicants, but schools have no reason to cheat, and they can't afford to lie. Need-aware schools can rank applicants according to need, but need-blind schools don't need to. Need-aware schools openly say that they sometimes favor those who can pay full list price.</p>
<p>There are those who question how truly need blind any school is. It seems that the need blind schools come up with a very similar percent on aid year over year.</p>
<p>That said, the top colleges are seeking more representation of low income kids. With the large endowment colleges, your EFC will most probably work in your favor.</p>
<p>What does a school gain by saying they are need blind if they are not? Other than a little PR, which the better schools, like MIT, could care less about.</p>
<p>That said, I would guess the school would keep open a few spots for borderline kids that can pay their own way.</p>
<p>Also there is a difference between "need blind", and meeting Financial Assistance need of every student (as calculated by the FAFSA or their own internal calculations - not what someone claims is their "need"). They can admit you, but not have any money to give you aid. Harvard will be in a big bind if 100% of their class came from families that make less than $60,000/yr (Harvard virtually guarantees a free ride for those families).</p>
<p>I don't think today's economic condition would make any difference (in their policy, though it would impact results). They admit the normal way. Offer whatever FA they can. The economic condition (and cut back in financial aid) will make more needy people decline. Eventually, to fill up the class, they get to kids that can pay their own way.</p>
<p>Even need-blind schools will still admit those they want the most; having sufficient endowment gives them the freedom to ignore ability to pay. But they may well have an "economic diversity" factor which serves to make the percentage similar from year to year. I can see how such schools are not "truly need blind" if they include an economic diversity component.</p>
<p>That said, I would guess the school would keep open a few spots for borderline kids that can pay their own way.</p>
<p>This describes need-aware schools, but I think it works the other way; these schools start with need-blind admissions, but when the aid budget is depleted (whether or not they practice gapping), they fill the final (few?) spots with full payers.</p>
<p>Some schools are need-blind for admissions, but do not promise to meet full need for every student. My undergraduate college used to be completely need-blind for admission for domestic students. Then the financial aid office handed out the money until it was all gone. Students who did not receive aid for their freshman year were permanently out of the financial aid pool. Every single year some students who qualified for, but were not awarded aid, scraped together the money and enrolled. It made for a really hard four years for them and their families. International student admission was need-aware: if the college couldn't meet their need they weren't admitted.</p>
<p>I don't know what that college's current policy is. I suspect that it hasn't changed.</p>
<p>I believe 80% (or more) of the schools that say they are need-blind are not being truthful. They have also come up with a systematic way to make sure they are never called on it too. It’s called “holistic admissions”.</p>
<p>Interesting that this was revived 3 years later considering I was just talking to a friend about this yesterday.</p>
<p>I told my friend, “I wonder why self-proclaimed need-blind schools still require you to file Fianancial Aid forms with them as you submit your application (like EA/D applicants) or after you submit your application but still before they release their decision?”</p>
<p>Well, it’s because they aren’t really need-blind, of course. My friend then went on to explain to me that her Mother, who works in the FA dept of a local well known LAC (who say they’re need-blind), has been telling her for a while that this particular school is in some financial woes (which her Mom describes as a “being cheap and mismanaging funds issue”) and she knows for a fact that they have turned applicants away (at least this year and last year, so 2011 and 2012 Fall applicants) based soley on the fact that they would need to provide the applicant with considerable aid, or at least more compared to others, if they chose to attend there.</p>
<p>We both agreed that a true holistic approach/need blind school would let the applicant know they have accepted them or not before asking for any financial information. Holistic is a croc.</p>
<p>turtlerock, I bumped it out of frustration.</p>
<p>I stumbled upon this website **************, they have some great information on financial aid. One of the schools that claims to be need blind is only giving actual school money to 24% of it’s students.</p>
<p>So one of two things that is happening. Either that school is not as need blind as they claim, or they just have an enormous percentage of rich kids who fit their “holistic” needs.</p>
<p>I have no idea why VADad pulled this up 3 years later but I definitely disagree. The vast majority of the schools that are need blind are public Us which don’t care if you can afford the school or not. They will just gap the student. If you are talking about schools that claim to be need blind and meet full need that drops the universe from >3000 to ~50.<br>
[Need-blind</a> admission - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Need-blind_admission]Need-blind”>Need-blind admission - Wikipedia)</p>
<p>Which school(s) specifically, VADAD? Those that are need-blind and meet full need are very wealthy and very selective.</p>
<p>And remember, the vast majority of THOSE schools use PROFILE or their own forms which don’t spit out an EFC. Your “need” and what they determine your need to be might be radically different.</p>
<p>Haha, ohhhh, silly me. I thought you were talking about those schools in which don’t meet full need, but nontheless claim they are need blind. I think it’s ovbiously an acceptable truth that the former mentioned group picks and chooses when it would like to use the “holistic” approach for financial purposes, but it’s also better when people can admit it.</p>
<p>Of course, no one should be looking for handouts. Just some honesty.</p>
<p>turtle, I’m confused by what you’re saying. A school that claims to be need blind DOES NOT necessarily mean that it meets full need. A need blind school can accept plenty of students with large need and give them virtually nothing.</p>
<p>My understanding is that VADAD1 is upset because his daughter applied to Smith College, not knowing that the school is not 100 percent need blind in admissions, and was waitlisted. In fairness to Smith, however, they are on record as not being 100 percent need blind, and it’s also not clear that Smith’s decision to waitlist VADAD1’s daughter was based on her financial need.</p>
<p>Most schools cannot afford to be both need blind and meet 100% of need - even by their institutional calculation. I haven’t looked, but I would be surprised if the vast majority of schools don’t fall into one of 2 categories:</p>
<p>1) need blind but DOES NOT guarantee to meet 100% of every student’s demonstrated need
2) need aware but guarantee to meet 100% of every student’s need as they define it using their institutional formula.</p>
<p>The list of schools that both are need blind AND guarantee to meet 100% of need (calculated their way) is a pretty short list.</p>
<p>Yeah I wasn’t ripping on Smith, not at all. They don’t claim to be need blind. I’m not ripping on any particular school at all. I just wanted to clear up that it definitely wasn’t directed at Smith, because they tell you right on their Financial Aid front page that need is part of the decision making process.</p>
<p>What you stated is exactly what I mean. I know a school that claims to be need blind does not necessarily mean that it will also meet full need. The problem isn’t that the school won’t meet full need. It can’t be expected for EVERY school to meet EVERY students financial burden. The problem is claiming to be need blind, when in fact they do have that outlet to use the applicants financial situation against them.</p>
<p>Again, a true NEED BLIND (not FULL NEED) school would ask for FA info AFTER they have given you their admissions decision. If, after the fact they determine they cannot close you need gap enough for your to attend, then so be it, it is at that point unaffordable, but at least you know they WOULD HAVE taken you otherwise. The school asking for the FA info before their decision leaves opportunity and incentive for them to count that into the admissions process EVEN THOUGH they claim to be need blind.</p>
<p>Again, it’s all about honesty.
Is that clear enough?</p>
<p>Logistically, that wouldn’t work. Can you imagine the headache that would cause for the FA office? If a place releases their decisions in spring, can you imagine how impossible it would be to package thousands of students perhaps in a matter of weeks? Not to mention verification and such.</p>
<p>VA- This
</p>
<p>Seems like a pretty specific school. Would you care to share?</p>