Can Andover be truly need-blind in admission even if it wanted to be?

Prep School Admissions
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<p>Let me first state that I believe Andover is a great school, doing an admirable job of trying to educate "youth from every quarter." My goal here is to use Andover, a need-blind school, as an example to illustrate what kind of admission chance you'd have as an applicant needing financial aid.</p>

<p>I said that facts were more stubborn and less pliable than words in another thread. So here are some of relevant admission stats for Andover from 2010 through 2014:</p>

<p>Academic year | Completed Applications | Total Admits | FA Admits | % FA Admits/Total Admits | % FA Enrollees/Total Enrolles
2010-11 | 2,844 | 405 | 161 | 40% | 45%
2011-12 | 3,103 | 446 | 169 | 38% | 46%
2012-13 | 3,130 | 442 | 155 | 35% | 46%
2013-14 | 3,029 | 402 | 148 | 37% | 47%
2014-15 | 3,049 | 427 | ??? | ??% | 47%*</p>

<p>Notes:
* Projected % for the 237th Class
1. These data were captured from "Fun Facts For the ###th Class" published each year after M10 at <a href="http://www.andover.edu"&gt;www.andover.edu&lt;/a>.
2. These figures can be slightly off from the final stats as the school usually revises these numbers after all dusts settle down. However, the differences have been rounding errors and did not affect the conclusion drawn here.</p>

<p>These data clearly show that 35~40% of all admits have received financial aid for the past several years, and they become 45~47% of all enrollees (after some of FP admits decided not to enroll). Typically, 60~70% of BS applicants also apply for financial aid. I would expect about the same for Andover or even higher since many FA applicants assume "need-blind" to mean fairer chances for them.</p>

<p>In short, 60~70% of Andover applicants end up representing only 35~40% of admitted students. How could this be possible for a need-blind school? How would this be different from Exeter, who doesn't have a need-blind policy and yet grant a similar percentage of enrolled students with financial aid? I think people at Andover have integrity and would not lie about their need-blind admission policy. I truly believe that when Andover AO's review applications, they do not separate FA from FP. They'd keep them all in a single pool. But the facts are stubborn: somehow FP applicants are in general considered more favorably than FA applicants. It could be EC, sports, zip code, as @greyeyedgoddess‌ succinctly pointed out in the other thread:</p>

<p>
[quote]
Sorry to chime awkwardly in here, but they still see what school you went to and where you're from. They know that a kid who goes to a great NYC private school (or, truthfully, any private school or a very good public school) will have more opportunities than someone who goes to public school in Mississippi.</p>

<p>And from that knowledge, they can to some extent figure out if you need FA, though of course they can't know for sure.

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<p>For BS admission, sports and EC are heavily considered. These activities cost money and desires parental involvement. Middle and upper class families can afford a few thousand dollars a year for their children to participate in travel soccer team and another few thousand dollars for private underwater tuba lessons. Heck, they'd do a lot more if they believe their children could edge out competition in Andover admission. I think, for Andover to be true to its need-blind policy, it needs to de-emphasize the role of EC and sports play in admission process, or at least focus more on those EC and sports that are more easily afforded by lower income families.</p>

1 Like
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<p>Missed an important message: Andover may be a need-blind school, but if you need financial aid, do not think your chance of admission is the same as FP applicants. Paradoxical, yet true. Facts are immutable. </p>

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<p>Except de-emphasizing EC’s would go against pretty much the entire grain of prep school admissions.</p>

<p>That’s probably weighted just as much as the grades. Really hard to accomplish.</p>

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<p>Well in response to your last paragraph @SharingGift‌ kids who apply for FA are usually from underrepresented areas (inner cities and low income places) which don’t have too high representation in andover’s class. Schools like to be able to fill their class with diverse students so in that sense it might help those applicants. </p>

<p>I do however agree with you in the fact that schools shouldn’t hold FA applicants to the same EC standard as FP applicants. Those with less opportunities won’t have the same privileges as some FA applicants. For example: SSAT prep, money for music lessons or sport lessons, academic tutors which boost grades in school. Under privileged kids wont have access to things like in the above list, which is why schools shouldn’t hold them to the same standards. </p>

<p>However, another thing to think about is the people that barely qualify for 0 FA. Those people are expected to pay full tuition but are held to the same standard as those who can afford anything to boost their chances that they need?</p>

<p>(nice emblem by the way).</p>

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<p>While schools shouldn’t hold FA applicants to the same standard as FP applicants, doesn’t making a school need-blind hurt the FA applicant in a way? @stargirl3‌ mentioned in the other thread how one might live in an area where people are generally wealthier or at least well of, the individual family might not be in the same financial situation. AOs, even if they don’t want to, would probably hold a kid from New England to a higher standard than a kid from the Midwest, despite that perhaps the kid from NE is struggling while the kid from the Midwest might be very well off.</p>

<p>I think that there are benefits to being need-blind, but being a need-blind school doesn’t necessarily mean that they are more “accepting” of FA applicants.</p>

<p>It’s also worth to consider how our country (and to an extent, our world) is still racist in many ways. Not to bring racial controversy to this discussion, but an AO might subconsciously assume that an African American or Hispanic kid needs FA while a white kid doesn’t.</p>

<p>I guess being a need-blind school eliminates judging an applicant based off financial situation, but opens up judgement on other fronts.</p>

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<p>It’s an intriguing process, really. I mean, it’s a very complicated process, and it clearly isn’t perfect, but is it really better to be “need-blind” when it actually is a different way of judging?</p>

<p>Unless we’re totally running off into a false assumption here.</p>

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<p>Aaargh!!! @Sharing & @squash. One of u needs to change your avatar graphic. </p>

<p>I concur that Andover’s admissions stats hint that it is fudging on being entirely need blind. Wasn’t GWU recently in the news about fudging on this very issue?</p>

<p>While I might be able to convince myself that the RELATIVE number of FA admits could be decreasing in the last few years as the number of fullpay applicants from China swells, it’s just not credible that the ABSOLUTE number of FA admits should also decreasing at the only school that touts itself as being needblind. Wouldn’t all the FA seekers be stampeding to Andover?</p>

<p>I also don’t think it’s likely that the quality of the FA pool is getting progressly lower as time passes, to account for the lower number of FA admits.</p>

<p>My cynicism tells me that Andover likes to maintain the fantasy that it’s entirely needblind to drive up the number of applicants, in order to decrease their admit rate and to promote its aura of selectivity. </p>

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<p>I’m starting to feel this way too… :expressionless: </p>

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<p>SharingGift: I was a bit doubtful about this whole process myself like you. After all, the Gateway application asks applicants to list their parents names, professions, job titles and place of work. Along with the mailing address and zip code, the Ad officers probably have a good idea of how wealthy your family is.</p>

<p>However after speaking to several of the Andover admissions officers myself, I’m convinced that they do not take ability to pay into consideration. The decision is largely done by consensus. Andover has a wonderful electronic system to share the e-files of each applicant. This ability to electronically share makes it easy for the Andover officers to ship portions of your application to faculty to review. Because of the high quality of the applicant pool, Andover has the ability to pick and choose the best of the best. There are so many people who review each applicant folder that I think it would be impossible for one person to give weighted preference to someone solely on the ability to pay.</p>

<p>While other schools may not be in the same category, I feel pretty strongly that Andover doesn’t place ability to pay (or even partially pay) in high regard at all. They focus more on picking the best applicants to fill the categories they need, and let the Financial Aid office figure out the rest later.</p>

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<p>But if that’s true, the poor kids are at a huge disadvantage because they don’t take into account their limited opportunities. It’s paradixical. </p>

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<p>I just found a customer for my first Brooklyn Bridge sale, woohoo.</p>

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<p>So, @SharingGift & @squashisawesome, are you going to do rock-paper-scissors or jello-wrestle over your avatar graphic?</p>

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<p>@stargirl3: I don’t believe that students who face economic adversity are disadvantaged in the Andover process at all. Andover has a fixed number of students it needs to fill for discrete categories (for example): XX athletes, XX musicians, XX actors, XX legacy, XX Math whizzes, XX writers. The categories themselves are in turn created based upon the strategic plan of the school itself.</p>

<p>The only difference between Andover and other schools is that they don’t have a category for full-pay students. All other schools do. So when Ad officers review applications for each bucket, they simply pick the best students. </p>

<p>As you point out, a high percentage of these categories will be filled with students who have parents with money. However Andover does make a point of attracting and recruiting students from disadvantaged backgrounds, despite not having stellar ECs. There were several Andover students who I met who were from inner city neighborhoods in the Bronx, south chicago, etc. </p>

<p>Almost all the other schools like to have full pay students, but I’m fairly convinced that if you are economically disadvantaged (but still have the grades and SSAT scores above the median range for Andover), you will be at an advantage in the admissions process. The problem is that it appears that Andover will not lessen its academic criteria for students coming from a disadvantaged background.</p>

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<p>Again, there’s a big difference between “economically disadvantaged” and full aid. Also, not all poor kids are from the inner city or rural areas. </p>

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<p>@squashisawesome said “Well in response to your last paragraph @SharingGift‌ kids who apply for FA are usually from underrepresented areas (inner cities and low income places) which don’t have too high representation in andover’s class. Schools like to be able to fill their class with diverse students so in that sense it might help those applicants.”</p>

<p>That is very interesting, if true. Where do you get this data?</p>

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<p>You seem to miss the point that other posters are trying to make. Non need-blind schools like Exeter also have the same percentage of kids on FA with the same amount of total financial aid dollars. So as GMT said it may have been a plot to attract more applicants to make them look good with a low admit rate. Seems to be working.</p>

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<p>One other fact to consider: not all full aid students are “poor” and many–or even most! (they don’t tell us) are middle class. There is a huge opportunity discrepancy between the poor and the middle class, and I don’t see this addressed anywhere in the admission process.</p>

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<p>@sgopal2, where did you get the information that “if you are economically disadvantaged (but still have the grades and SSAT scores above the median range for Andover), you will be at an advantage in the admissions process. The problem is that it appears that Andover will not lessen its academic criteria for students coming from a disadvantaged background.” Is there any data behind this, or is it an assumption? (Full disclosure: I can name one applicant from a disadvantaged background who was not offered admission despite stellar academics, recommendations and positive interviews.)</p>

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<p>I agree with @sgopal2‌. I got accepted to Andover but not Exeter nor Lawrenceville and I think it had to do a lot with my ability to pay</p>

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<p>You need to look at overall stats, not one person’s result. May be Exeter and Lawrenceville didn’t need a player in your sport. Overall stats show need-blind Andover and non-need-blind Exeter have the same financial aid stats.</p>