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

Prep School Admissions
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<p>I just explained why Andover maintains its consistent percentages each year. When you look at colleges, you’ll see the same with top schools. They give a certain amount of preference and give to groups of students who are truly economically challenged. That is like the balancing factor. I’ve seen it done, and I know because I 've dealt with private school admissions for 30 years now. There are very few need blind schools. Most schools are upfront about not being need blind for all students and maintain a financial aid waitlist for those who would have been accepted except for the money running out. Those in the top boarding schools, private school world pretty much know that Andover is need blind. They have been able to operate that way for years. Different people have gone in and out of their admissions and fin aid offices, and the word is that they are need blind EXCEPT for the fact that they give preference to certain severely economically challenged groups. They give such kids extra consideration because of that need. </p>

<p>There is also a preference conferred to legacy and development that makes it not strictly need blind in that those categories are heavily skewed to more well to do. Therefore the balance the school makes for those in need. But that is still within the widely used definition of “need blind” for educational institutions. </p>

<p>Unless your child falls into those special categories which by definition have wealth or lack of it involved, the applications are reviewed for admissions without need taken into account. That is the case with most of those schools. The difference is that Andover has been able to meet this category of students without resorting to a financial aid waitlist whereas the other schools have not. There is no reason to lie about these things and a huge risk for fall out when word gets out that this is not true.</p>

<p>Faculty and staff children and “others” with connections are big category in these admissions and when it comes to staff, the financial aid comes right off the top which is a big hit to the budgets of these schools. At one school, I know, the hit was particularly hard as they gave big preference to employee kids and free tuiton was an employee perk so nearly all of them attended.</p>

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<p>Andover is a great school. Let’s not discriminate against it, please.</p>

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<p>Things like this happen at every high school. No one is saying Andover is a utopian, perfect place, but it is definitely a great school, and no one should dispute that. </p>

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<p>I doubt that many here are trying to dispute that Andover is a great school. If you are applying I would wish you all the luck. @cptofthehouse you seem to be splitting semantic hairs. The issue for others is whether this balancing act disqualifies Andover of being truly need blind i.e Andover can’t ignore the big donor’s kid etc. There is ample evidence that this happens in admissions even at the most select colleges. I guess it becomes a matter of opinion if this would disqualify a BS/College from adopting the “need blind” moniker. I think it is commendable to provide necessary FA to all accepted applicants. It is much more preferable than providing an acceptance but being placed on a FA wait list. Accepting the truth in Andover’s “need blind” claim depends on whether you are a purist who believes that accepting even one subpar student whose family provided a sizable donation is grounds for disqualification.</p>

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<p>@cptofthehouse‌ - I just don’t see the difference in Andover’s FA policies vs other schools. Here is data from <a href=“http://www.boardingschoolreview.com:”>www.boardingschoolreview.com:</a></p>

<p>School | % Students on FA | Avg FA Grant
Andover | 47% | $38,055
Exeter | 45% | $38,430
SAS | 46% | $38,000</p>

<p>What is it about Andover that gives them the right to tout they are the “only boarding school who is need-blind”? What’s different in what they do versus Exeter and SAS?</p>

<p>Your explanation(s) basically amount to “I am in the know, you are not. So just trust me”. If that’s the approach you are taking then you need to better describe the capacity in which you have “dealt with BS admissions for 30 years” to be credible.</p>

<p>But if you really are an insider, then it would be most effective for you to reveal the “qualifiers” around Andover’s definition of need-blind. Because it’s not unqualified need-blind like they want everyone to believe.</p>

<p>And you haven’t addressed how Andover can consistently (and suspiciously) maintain the total FA $’s at ~$5.5M per year. The consistent %age and FA $’s can only occur with careful management of FA funds.</p>

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<p>I do give a lot of credit to the people at PA writing the admissions narrative. They’re either counting on people applying not to know better or people who do not to care. Win-Win- for them. </p>

<p>Please Note: Andover is a wonderful school. No one here is questioning their stature or generosity. </p>

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<p>@jersey386 the “boarding school review” data you report above sounds like it was from a few years ago, the data I reported from Exeter is from 2013 and the class just admitted. It also appears that including faculty and staff children under “financial aid” may differ between schools. Exeter does not include them. </p>

<p>However, A, E and SAS are all known as being the most generous financial aid schools around, and they should all be appreciated for their efforts.</p>

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<p>I recently went to a college open house for high school juniors. There was a session for students on application tips, and this school was telling the crowd that they are need-blind. I raised my hand and asked what that means, and they told me that financial aid decisions are made separately and they will not look at an applicant’s ability to pay. When I asked about the “opportunity gap” between students from different incomes, I was told that they look at your high school and what you write about. For example, if you come from a large public high school in a poor city and write your essays about how you work 20 hours a week to keep your family afloat, they’ll know that you couldn’t afford many luxuries. My guess is that Andover works the same way. </p>

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<p>Ok@stargirl3 you were in disguise and spying on the college AO’s. Good for you and way to keep them honest!</p>

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<p>“A, E and SAS are all known as being the most generous financial aid schools around”</p>

<p>Agree with the above. But generosity is not what is at issue here.</p>

<p>It is that A is presenting themselves as something they are not.</p>

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<p>Andover is not the only high school that is need blind. See Roxbury Latin’s need blind admissions policy:</p>

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<p><a href=“http://www.roxburylatin.org/admission/need-blind-enrollment-policy/index.aspx”>http://www.roxburylatin.org/admission/need-blind-enrollment-policy/index.aspx&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>Roxbury Latin is a private day school. </p>

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<p>Indeed, how can a school be blind to need when they ask you if you have need up front?</p>

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<p>Exeter freely admits that it is somewhat easier to get in as a full pay student. So consider this possibility: both schools rank their prospective admits. All the A1 admits get in. Then the A2 admits. At this point, the school’s FA budget has reached its limit for the year. Andover stops the admit process. Exeter jumps back into the pool and admits a few more B1 candidates, knowing that their yield will be lower with full-pay students. So that’s why Exeter is not need blind and Andover is. </p>

<p>I can’t figure out how it all works out in the end, but the admissions people obviously know what they are doing.</p>

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<p>@classicalmama‌ - And based on the consistent amounts of FA $s that A has awarded to incoming students… </p>

<p>2014: $5,685,000
2013: $5,515,330
2012: $5,478,680</p>

<p>… it appears that A has the identical process to E.</p>

<p>So then how is A ‘need-blind’?</p>

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<p>If there is a budget, that implies that not everyone in the YES pile will be admitted if the cumulative need of that particular YES pile exceeds the budget. And therein lies the heart of the problem as shown in Jersey’s data. Andover does, indeed, appear to have a very defined budget. So, Andover may be need-blind on the admissions side, but not on the FA side. I think that is what is causing some of this heartburn.</p>

<p>In a truly need-blind world, you should be able to imagine a YES pile where the amount of FA needed is significantly more or significantly less than $5.5M in any given year, but this number doesn’t budge much and implies that Andover does indeed have an FA budget and will not buy a class outright regardless of cost.</p>

<p>I guess I’m asking if the definition of need-blind means absolutely no consideration of need on the admissions end and then buying the entire YES pile regardless of cost? If that is what is meant by need-blind, then the stability of Andover’s annual FA awards around $5.5M says they are not being truthful.</p>

<p>If need-blind simply means blind on the admissions end, but budgeted on the FA end, then I believe MANY more schools can call themselves need-blind.</p>

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<p>I used to think this, but I don’t–exactly–anymore. That is, I think that when a school is being super-selective with admissions, they are probably looking at certain criteria in their (to use my terms) A1 and A2 candidates that are simply more likely to be found in full-pay candidates. Also it’s possible that legacy kids get a boost in admission that puts them in the A1/A2 category–as do, say QuestBridge students. So I think it’s entirely likely that at that crazy selective level of admission, things really do work out about 50-50. But that’s because they probably ARE factoring in the kinds of things generally more accessible to wealthier kids–rigorous private schools, expensive EC’s etc. More affluent kids live more enriched lives–and that is going to make them more likely to be A1 candidates. Does that mean that Andover isn’t really need blind? Sort of. But I guess I can see how they can call themselves need blind.</p>

<p>@Jersey: I pointed out in my previous post that their process was NOT identical…because there is a point at which Exeter will accept a FP kid and not an equally qualified FA kid. That’s the B1 kid–the full-pays get in; the FAs do not. Put another way, it appears that it’s equally difficult to get into Exeter and Andover as an FA student, but slightly easier to get into Exeter than Andover as an FP student. </p>

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<p>@classicalmama‌, @cptofthehouse‌ - So the difference in process comes down to the drawing of a different boundary between the FA Office and Admissions Office.  A’s Admissions Office is directed to be more “FA-aware” and doing FA filtering that their peer group schools do in the FA office.</p>

<p>Based on the above, don’t you have an issue with Andover touting themselves as the “only need-blind boarding school in the US”?</p>

<p>Because I most certainly have an issue with a school of Andover’s caliber passing off a mere difference in organization for something very noble.</p>

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<p>@Jersey386, I don’t believe Andover necessarily has a budget for FA. Off the top of my head, every year they have to find ~300 children with the following qualities:</p>

<p>*test scores (which correlate strongly with income: <a href=“SAT Scores and Family Income - The New York Times”>SAT Scores and Family Income - The New York Times)</p>

<p>*Distribution of talents: Artsy, Athletic, Academic. For academic, humanities and math types.</p>

<p>“From every quarter:” geographical distribution, and a diverse student body, which includes existing relationships with ABC, prep for prep, and *feeder schools.</p>

<p>*International students: This does seem to be capped, but the students are generally full-pay.</p>

<p>*specialized skills, athletic and musical.</p>

<p>(there are probably more.)</p>

<p>I’ve put an asterisk by qualities which skew the selection toward full-pay applicants. </p>

<p>Exeter is roughly the same size. They have similar endowments. They play each other in sports. They are rivals. They are very similar. They draw from the same pool of applicants. Under the circumstances, I would be surprised if Exeter and Andover were different in their FA totals.</p>

<p>As a sidenote, I don’t really care about Andover. I know others do. I think the most harmful thing Andover has ever done for its reputation is to have allowed its former Director of Admission to emphasize the whole “nice boys and girls” schtick. This gimmick of course flattered the accepted students, and their families. Who doesn’t want to think their children are nice? </p>

<p>Guess what? The parents of the rejected children think their kids are nice too. When you reject 87% of your applicants, you sow a lot of ill will. </p>

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<p>The budgets and strategies of the two schools are incredibly close, though I do think they must have an FA budget. The only difference that I can see is that Andover’s admit rate is slightly lower; Andover’s yield is slightly higher; and Exeter admits to slightly easier admit standards for FP students. All of that correlates to me and helps me understand why Andover can call itself need blind when Exeter doesn’t That said, the distinction for financial aid students is meaningless since they’re both accepting and awarding aid to essentially the same percentage of FA students. Ironically, the “need-blind” label probably matters more to full pay students.</p>

<p>I will say this–Exeter was need blind at one point and backed off because the number of FA students admitted significantly exceeded their FA budget. So Jersey, you could argue that that’s a sign that Andover isn’t truly need blind–but it’s also possible that Exeter–because of Harkness instruction–may be more interested in the kind of diversity that FA kids bring and that may be reflected in their admission standards. Of course, I have no way of knowing that. </p>

<p>And like Periwinkle, I have no reason to defend Andover. My kid didn’t even apply there. And I agree that I was far more put off by the kindness campaign–and the fedex packages to the admitted students–than the need blind label. If I had to choose, I’d say I appreciate Exeter’s more forthright approach to admissions, but you know, they are private schools ,and the bottom line is my kid was incredibly lucky to receive an enormous gift from one of them. To crib Jane Kenyon, it could so easily have been otherwise.</p>