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

Prep School Admissions
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<p>Thanks for that information, @stargirl3. Just wanted to double check that that had been covered.</p>

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<p>Just to bump up the second part of my post
 was that a typo, or are the poor people at Andover really in the lower middle class?</p>

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<p>If they can’t buy the “yes” pile, then they have to reject some people that they have said “yes” to. So what’s the point of saying “yes” to people that they can’t admit anyway. So basically you are saying Andover is NOT need-blind. The more you guys try to talk your way out of it, the more it is looking like a Ponzi scheme. In this scheme, innocent applicants are taken for a ride to make Andover look more selective. What if all the applicants from the last 8 years as a class-action sue Andover and ask for a return of the application fee? When the records are open in courts, it looks impossible for them to be need-blind with their budget numbers. Any lawyer’s on here with opinions? The semantics Andover-defenders are using are starting to look like the famous phrase "It depends on what the definition of “is” is. Remember that one?</p>

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<p>@graeba What @pdl100 was saying is that some schools will admit students without aid. So yes, in that case they’re need-blind, but it doesn’t necessarily mean someone will be able to attend.</p>

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<p>I really dont have any issue with the contingent willing to give Andover a pass on this issue. But what I find frustrating is:

  • Not a SINGLE hard fact / figure has been brought by this group to defend A’s position
  • All comments are qualitative. And the comments that, say, describe A’s FA process are really NO DIFFERENT than the process used by other schools
  • These qualitative comments are then backed by vague credentials, credentials that posters refuse to elaborate on, relegating those comments completely meaningless
  • And then the killer
 The suggestion that hard facts and figures published by the school itself shouldnt be used in this discussion!</p>
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<p>The mental masturbation that goes on in this thred is exhausting. There are very few people enjoying it.</p>

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<p>^^Never understood comments like the above. No one is forcing anyone to read this thread. And it is easy enough to avoid.</p>

<p>Regardless of what you or I want, this thread will come to a natural close on its own.</p>

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<p>Jersey–did you read the links I posted the last time you asked for evidence? You keep saying that no one has offered any evidence, without acknowledging the specific comments from an admissions officer that I did offer that counter the “the FA budgets are the same, so Andover must not really be need blind” argument. </p>

<p>And a correction to another piece of misinformation being tossed around here by people who aren’t reading the evidence posted through links (creds to stargirl for that link): Andover meets full need as well as being need blind. Exeter also meets full need, as do SPS, Groton, SAS, and others.</p>

<p>Parents and students who need financial aid should look at the following:
what percentage of students are on FA
whether the school meets full need
whether the FA offered is grant based</p>

<p>Those criteria are far more meaningful than whether a school is or isn’t need blind. </p>

<p>And @stargirl: yes, you’re misreading that. Notice the comma between low- and middle-. They’re saying that they offer FA to all three groups. The hyphen is a link to the work income, not to middle. It’s confusing but (in this English teacher’s view) grammatically correct. </p>

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<p>One thing to add to @classicalmama’s list is the average grant. If 75% are on aid but the average grant is $500, it doesn’t mean much. </p>

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<p>Good point stargirl. The average grant–if a school meets full need–is an indication of what income level most of the scholarship money is aimed toward. If the average grant meets 50 percent need, I’d assume they’re aiming mostly toward higher income parents with a few development cases (athletes, ABC kids) in the mix. For his well-being, I wanted my kid going to a school with reasonable socio-economic diversity, so we looked at schools where the average grant was 80 percent of costs or higher, and at least 1/3 of the students were receiving FA (and, in retrospect, the 45-50 percent range is better, just harder to find.)</p>

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<p>In my experience, people submit posts on CC to gore an ox or to defend an institution. I wrote with the latter purpose in mind because the financial aid office at Andover has earned my trust through its unstinting generosity and unwavering honesty in all of its dealings with me. </p>

<p>So, yes, I unabashedly take Andover at its word when it says that it’s a need-blind institution that meets 100 percent of the demonstrated financial need of poor, middle class, and upper middle class families alike. Call me crazy, but I also trust President Obama when he says he was born in America.</p>

<p>The issue here is fairness. As no one outside the Andover financial aid office has access to all the data, shouldn’t people presume Andover innocent unless they can prove Andover guilty? Does anyone really believe that it’s proper to conflate conjecture with clear and convincing proof? </p>

<p>The real scandal here is not Andover’s need-blind admission practices. It’s the fact that all prep schools with large endowments don’t adopt need blind admission policies. So long as wealth, rather than merit, influences admission decisions, no elite prep school can truly claim to be a meritocratic institution. </p>

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<p>I’ve said this before, but I’ll repeat myself. I think Andover is just as need-blind as a school can be. I don’t think they’re lying or purposefully deceiving anyone. However, I think it’s impossible to admit a student regardless of whether or not they can pay because if the AOs can tell from the app that someone is poor, it might be a plus. If they can’t tell, it’s not.</p>

<p>Amherst College calls itself need-blind. Watch this video and pay attention at 1:47.<br>
<a href=“College Admissions: Inside the Decision Room - YouTube”>College Admissions: Inside the Decision Room - YouTube;

<p>This video makes me want to write my essays about how I’m poor and can never have friends over. I thought I was showing them a mature side when I chose to write about what I have, not what I lack.</p>

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<p>^^Agreed. But to defend my child’s school, SeargentFriday; Exeter–as I’ve argued ad nauseum above–is as need-blind as Andover when it comes to FA students. Jersey’s confusion comes from the “when” in my statement.</p>

<p>I’m not sure that the schools would call themselves meritocratic in any case. Committed to building a diverse class of students who will learn from one another’s life experiences and reflect well on the school in their futures, yes. Meritocratic? Not so much. And what a can of worms a strictly meritocratic admissions process would open
</p>

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<p>@classicalmama‌ - the only links I see were the ones about E. I must be missing something.</p>

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<p>@Jersey386. Right. But by explaining why Exeter is need-blind–to a point–and then is not (by accepting more, lower ranked, FP students), the AO gives an honest and clear explanation of how the FA budgets could be the same at A and E, with A accurately claiming that it is completely need blind and E not making that claim. </p>

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<p>@classicalmama - I understand your point now, but it’s still “qualitative” and only points to a more blurred bounday between the Admissions and FA office at A. It’s “just” an organizational difference that A seems to be parlaying into a fundamental difference in “philosophy”. Plus, I am highly skeptical A’s Admissions office hits the $5.5M target on the first try without any iterations with the FA office. I believe this last point is where you and I can agree to disagree.</p>

<p>What I was hoping for was hard evidence (ie #'s) along the lines and rigor of the three pieces of hard data puttting A’s claim into serious question. Namely:

  • FA vs FP %age staying constant year to year (just like the other schools)
  • FA’s budget staying constant year to year (just like the other schools)
  • A’s rise in applications, while E is seeing a decline over the same period (largely attributed to their message)</p>

<p>Frankly, on the last point, since only data from 2008 & 2014 was shown I was suspicious it was cherry-picked (apologies in advance to Sharing) to make a point. But I couldn’t find the #'s for the other years either and only stumbled upon E’s 2008 number.</p>

<p>@SergeantFriday‌ - Again, hats off to your trusting soul to folks that are nice to you. But let me remind you of “words” from those, like President Obama, put into a positions requiring significantly more trust than A’s administration:

  • “I did not have sexual relations with that woman.”
  • “there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction”</p>
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<p>@Jersey386 You might find the info. in this document interesting. If we’re looking at a purely meritocratic process, then I agree that budgets should change over time. If schools are following a students “from every quarter” policy for admissions–which Andover and Exeter are–I guess I can see how the budgets would be fairly predictable (thought note that the percent of students on aid has increased each year since the “need blind” initiative was put into place). I can see how Andover could end up with 47% of the class receiving FA even though 55% of the students filling out preliminary apps planned to apply for it. Those numbers really aren’t that far off when you consider the international students, legacies, and day students applying, many of whom will likely be in the “did not apply for fa” category, but are also part of the school’s mission to create a diverse class. </p>

<p><a href=“http://www.wittkieffer.com/file/9491%20Phillips%20Academy%20Andover%20Dean%20of%20Admission_spec.pdf”>http://www.wittkieffer.com/file/9491%20Phillips%20Academy%20Andover%20Dean%20of%20Admission_spec.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>^^ With all due respect, I am not sure what your point is with the above post.</p>

<p>ALL the top schools have a “students from every quarter” policy. What is it about Andover’s that allows them to call theirs need blind, when no one else does?</p>

<p>And please DON’T TELL, but SHOW your point with data. For example, figures that support need-blind colleges like H,Y or P have consistent FA budgets and/or % of kids on FA, would powerfully support A’s need-blind claim. Much moreso than a 24 page document.</p>

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<p>@Jersey386 Again, did you look at the data in the link I attached? My conclusions were drawn from the very good data in the appendices of that report. Not sure what else you want me to do to prove my point. In fact, Andover’s budget DID increase; the percentage on FA DID increase. I’ll offer one more piece of evidence: see p. 3 from the Andover 2010-2011 profile and then the 2012-2013 profile for evidence that their budget does not stay the same from year to year.</p>

<p><a href=“https://www.andover.edu/Academics/CollegeCounseling/Documents/PhillipsAcademySchoolProfile2010-2011.pdf”>https://www.andover.edu/Academics/CollegeCounseling/Documents/PhillipsAcademySchoolProfile2010-2011.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p><a href=“http://www.andover.edu/Academics/CollegeCounseling/Documents/PA_School_Profile2012-2013.pdf”>http://www.andover.edu/Academics/CollegeCounseling/Documents/PA_School_Profile2012-2013.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>I sometimes feel like it’s important to continue these kinds of conversations for the sake of lurkers who are being presented with misinformation about a school. It’s simply not right, in my view, to attack without evidence and then demand that other people prove you’re wrong. But now it’s probably time to put this one to sleep. </p>

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<p>Quick question: why would legacies and day students be more likely to be in the “did not apply for fa” category? </p>