<p>I have never trusted that schools that say they are need blind really are, but I am one who is usually skeptical of everything. 
With that said, I hope that wouldn’t stop someone from applying. </p>
<p>having worked at a top school in admissions, I can say that there are some truly need blind schools. Need blind does not necessarily mean that the adcom has no idea if a student is applying for financial aid. Of course they know if it is checked on the common app. However, at a true need blind school, the fact of whether or not a student is applying for aid, does not factor into the decision. And this was definitely the case at the school I worked at. </p>
<p>@cba Thanks for pointing out that people do know. Maybe at your school it was a clear case (maybe even an exception).</p>
<p>But something is amiss to some degree somewhere because what is interesting is that people accepting the complete need blind thing must have never run a business. Money is finite! Only a business soon to be bankrupt does not no which decisions require more outlay than others.</p>
<p>I repeat: “But, it is obvious they must look somehow, as each school, no matter how rich, has but so much free money to dole out. No responsible accountant of a school is going to let them just accept any class without the numbers being able to work. I will believe need blind when all students can attend on aid, without consequence to admin decisions. Until then, some monetary income (ability to pay) distinctions must be taken to remain solvent.”</p>
<p>I think this is what happens and has happened at most schools and no one really wants to fess up until caught. If they are running a business, which they are, it simply makes logical sense.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.gwhatchet.com/2013/10/21/gw-misrepresented-admissions-and-financial-aid-policy-for-years/”>http://www.gwhatchet.com/2013/10/21/gw-misrepresented-admissions-and-financial-aid-policy-for-years/</a></p>
<p>Relevant paragraphs from above article re GW:</p>
<p>"The University admitted publicly for the first time Friday that it puts hundreds of undergraduate applicants on its waitlist each year because they cannot pay GW’s tuition.</p>
<p>Administrators now say the admissions process has always factored in financial need. But that contradicts messaging from the admissions and financial aid offices that, as recently as Saturday, have regularly attested that the University remained need-blind.</p>
<p>Students who meet GW’s admissions standards, but are not among the top applicants, can shift from “admitted” to “waitlisted” if they need more financial support from GW. These decisions affect up to 10 percent of GW’s roughly 22,000 applicants each year, said Laurie Koehler, the newly hired associate provost for enrollment management."</p>
<p>While being need blind is an admission policy, meeting 100% demonstrated need is a financial aid policy. At least as far as the past decade GW has never stated that they meet 100% demonstrated need.
IN addition, it is not unusual for schools to be need aware when it comes to the wait list as most of the funding budget has already been exhausted.</p>
<p>The question on the CA simply states are you applying for financial aid. What need blind means is that your having a financial need for some students it could be a couple of G’s while for others it can be the full cost of attendance, for US citizens and permanent residents, it will not be a factor in admissions. When one is applying for financial aid they are simply checking the box, not necessarily stating how mush money they need. </p>
<p>Yes, there are things on the application that may tip a family’s SES status (although there can and are outliers in each category), parent’s education, jobs, zip codes, the school profile, ECs, sports (equestrians, ice skating gymnastics, lacrosse, and other sports where training can be costly), the big College board, NACAC fee waivers, Questbridge vs fee waivers given to students who apply on line/visit, are recruited or are marketed to for test scores, NMF, etc.</p>
<p>For the Ivies and other elite schools, the admission and financial aid departments operate as 2 separate function in 2 separate locations.</p>
<p>At schools that are need aware/need sensitive this usually does not kick in until close to the end of the admission cycle. When it comes down to similarly qualified candidates, the tip will go to the student(s) that require less of the school’s resources. This may mean that it could be more beneficial for a school to accept five students who only “need” 10k vs accepting one student who needs 50k.</p>
<p>@sybbie719 stated,“While being need blind is an admission policy, meeting 100% demonstrated need is a financial aid policy. At least as far as the past decade GW has never stated that they meet 100% demonstrated need.”</p>
<p>That is a neat nuance, but it shows disingenuousness on the part of the university. And thus explains the tone of the backtrack statements by GW in the article.</p>
<p>When any parent and student is applying for aid and they read “need-blind” and “may not meet 100% of demonstraed need,” they are thinking that APPLIES to them. I do not think anyone thinks any differently. This is why many are anxious for the FA packages to see what the ultimate situation is. (Anyone please correct me if I am wrong in this is how you read those statements, i.e., as applying to you). </p>
<p>So, the nuance you present is a sleight-of-hand, in that it switches the “may not meet 100% of demonstrated need” statement to a different standard which is, “If we think you cannot meet our school’s full need of what we want you to pay, then your decision can be changed.” That is completely different in that it changes the demonstrated need nexus to the school’s accounting books, and away from the check book of the student and parents.</p>
<p>Honesty would require this approach:</p>
<p>Admin makes its decision. Students needs aid. Financial aid office prepares a package that may not meet 100% need and sends it to the student, respecting the admin’s acceptance decision. The student then decides whether or not he can come up with the additional money - who knows, he may ask his grandparents and find he money in 30 seconds. And, the school has no idea if a family, as a whole, might take a bigger financial risk and do something to get the additional money. </p>
<p>Sleight-of-Hand approach:</p>
<p>The above example, however, is not what took place, per the article - the school decided, by changing the decision, not even to give the student a chance to try and meet the gap. But, I gather the student aid gap was never the issue. Remember, the applicant knew that there was a possibility that 100% demonstrated need might not be met. The issue was the school’s accounting book balance. Therefore, it is dishonest because the school never said that the demonstrated need thing applied to them, not the student and his family. </p>
<p>I would like to make clear that I am not disagreeing with that the schools did or do. Any smart business needs to keep its books in order. What I disagree with is being upfront about actually whose demonstrated need the school is talking about; it was their’s. That obviously was not clear, as the GW provost had to admit. </p>
<p>You’re really pushing your point, awc- and you really don’t know.</p>
<p>cba- but in many cases, today, they look at a download, not the copy of the full original CA. So the box about applying for aid can be deleted from the get-go. Same for fee waiver.</p>
<p>@lookingforward - I run a business, so I unequivocally state no way do they not know what their outlay is before finalizing decisions. That would be sheer stupidity.</p>
<p>The GW provost made their actions clear. They changed decisions based on what the school needed, without giving the kids a chance to make up the gap. No one need to go through the PR to publicly change a policy unless the initial policy was in error. </p>
<p>The colleges run their own formulas and projections, too. Many allocate a good chunk more than they expect to distribute in aid. You may be able to find this in their annual reports- I have seen these figures. We cannot necessarily extrapolate from GW. One of the more striking things I learned from my experiences with a U is that they are supported by a wealth of data and high level advice, when it comes to finances.</p>
<p>The vast majority of colleges are need blind to US citizens and permanent resident. The vast majority of colleges also do not meet 100% demonstrated need. Case in point; public universities as almost every single public university is need blind in the admissions process. However only 3; Michigan (for instate residents), UNC-CH and UVA state that they will meet 100% demonstrated need. </p>
<p>Out of the 4000 colleges and universities in the US there is really only a small number that do both. One of the challenges with CC is that most of the posters tend to gravitate toward less than ~ 5 % of the colleges in the US</p>
<p>Such is the reality of life. The ability to pay definitely helps boost an applicant’s chances.</p>
<p>@lookingforward - I did not say colleges do not run their own formulas. All I said is whatever formulas they run, the money in = money out line items must match for the business to actually be healthy. They can run all the formulas they want, but financial aid office cannot spend more FA money than allocated, so someone has to make decisions on who pays what and how much, regardless of whom the adcoms want.</p>
<p>@sybbje719 - I agree most colleges do not meet 100% demonstrated need. I am not even addressing that issue because they are free to do as much.</p>
<p>Awc, see if you can find some of the reports, starting with the Ivies. The push is to bring more SES diversity, which is based on generous aid policies. In late 2008/early 2009, many schools were willing to revisit existing FA packages, taking from the reserves (left from the original allocations) and making decisions how they might “up” the amount from endowments, as needed. Same for the next incoming class.</p>
<p>Obviously, schools know which areas of the country are generally the most needy and that the neurologist or CEO parents make more than those minimally employed. But it is too simple to say there is some financially driven push to accept more rich kids. There are so many factors that go into admit decisions. </p>
<p>This comes up a lot. Most schools are need blind. Admissions does not take the time to figure out who needs and who doesn’t. The bean counters at financial aid do that, and often that is also done by formula with some merit money for those with the highest stats that get their apps in before the money runs out. But them most schools are not all that difficult to gain admissions and they do not guarantee or meet full need most of the time, unless they tend to be state commuter schools where federal aid can cover most all of the COA. </p>
<p>When the question is pertaining the more selective schools, it 's a whole other stories. Though most of the schools that out and out say they are need blind in admissions are, one can’t always be 100% sure. Some schools, notably GW recently, have been caught lying. Also, there really isn’t a sure way to catch individual bias on the part of any given admissions person, especially the Director, if that person really had an agenda to make sure that the bias was on the side of accepting more kids who don’t need aid. Even without access to the FAFSA and fin aid documents, one can get a pretty good idea as to whether a student needs a lot of money or not. But if you look at the %s of kids that get fin aid at most schools, it’s pretty clear that just applying for fin aid, something indicated on the common app is not going to mean much, since needing $5-10K and needing the full amount are whole other stories. Most admissions offices are separate from fin aid, and the relationship between them can be not all that warm. So, a whole lot of info sharing is not likely to be happening. </p>
<p>Over all of the years that I’ve met those who worked in admissions at selective schools, I can tell you that a lot of them had a bias against the “silver spoon” kids. They loved being able to accept kids who had challenges and felt it a great privilege of their positions to be able to ignore need. They are proud of that. </p>
<p>Also at the highly selective school, the sad truth comes out that the most accomplished, first pick applicants tend to be those from the upper income families. It’s an constant in education that family economics and success in school are linked at every level. Not saying it’s a 100% link, but it is a very strong relationships. So strong, that the most selective schools do give some quarter to those who come from low income situations as a challenge overcome. So, it’s not quite true that the top schools are truly need blind in admissions as most all of them give some extra consideration to those students who show they are from depressed areas and low income. Some of this is given through designated programs such as Questbridge, sometimes from schools that stand out as being in low income areas, or from comments from the counselors, teachers and student themselves. That is a reason why the % of those who are high need are fairly constant from year to year. The schools do give consideration to a certain vague number of students. They draw the line so that it works out that way. </p>
<p>I am very familiar with the admissions of a few univesities that I can see from the data points that they truly are need blind in admissions. ANy cuts are made in that these schools do not tend to meet full need, and, yes, the merit awards do tend to go to the higher income kids, but they are stats driven that it’s clear that it’s the relationship between income and such markers that drives that situation.</p>
<p>Very few school are fully need blind, however. Many are not for international students, waitlisted students, transfers, and certain divisions of the schools may not be need blind thought the main arts and sciences part tend to be.</p>
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<p>While that may be the case for the highly selective schools that are the focus of many on these forums, remember that many moderately selective schools just admit by some formula of grades, rank, and/or test scores (perhaps setting different thresholds for residency, division, or major). Such admissions processes are obviously need-blind.</p>
<p>Of course, open admission community colleges’ admissions processes are trivially need-blind.</p>
<p>@lookingforward - I appreciate your input, but please do not state things that I am not saying. You state," But it is too simple to say there is some financially driven push to accept more rich kids." Where in the world did I ever say that? No where. I took no distinction on the SES of students. Without the empirical hard numbers, I could not make a judgement, which SES of students were being hurt. </p>
<p>In a nutshell, all I have been saying is the basic law of economics at work, which is, “…someone has to make decisions on who pays what and how much…” And if a school wants to increase this via its endowment, the law of economics is still at work. Why? Because they have the money; just have to switch columns on the spreadsheet. </p>
<p>Ivies are not the rule; they are the quintessential exception. 99+% of schools do not have the resources of the Ivies per student body capita. We know that because even GW could not come up with more; thus its policy, and they go caught lying about it. Well, if not lying, not being clear what their statements really meant when they knew people were misinterprepting. The misinterpretation was working in their favor in terms of increasing applicant number.</p>
<p>@cptofthehouse -Thanks for the synopsis and additional context.</p>
<p>^^I was also referring to the trend on this thread. Believe what you wish. I just see trends in CC thinking that don’t match my own experiences. “Not being clear” is a frequent complaint. Doesn’t mean skepticism is grounded. </p>
<p>My educated guess is that it’s the upper middle class families that are getting hurt by the process. I do think the top schools are need-blind – but in meeting their institutional priorities, finances become a factor.</p>
<p>I agree with lookingforward that the top schools want more economic diversity. Some of them are quite clear that they want more first-generation students (I know that’s a priority at Brown). In these cases, needing financial aid will not hurt your admission chances. </p>
<p>On the flip side, they also want to accept a percent of legacy and development students, and those tend to be (or are) higher income. </p>
<p>This is purely anecdotal – a friend of mine had a kid at a prep school, her kid received tuition assistance but the school had its share of uber wealthy kids. The prep school was of course quite proud of its success in getting its kids into top colleges. But my friend noticed that most of the kids getting acceptances into the Ivies came from these wealthy families (and we’re talking families linked to companies/products we’ve all heard of). She was pretty bitter about the situation, and I have no idea if this anecdote reflects an overall trend. But it wouldn’t surprise me one bit that when admissions officers have their conversation with the private school guidance counselor, the fact that kid A’s father owns a hugely successful hedge fund might come up. </p>
<p>@lookingforward - Thanks for the clarification. For me, the general trend of the thread is whether schools are need blind and how and that is all to which I am responding. </p>