<p>I'm worried because I may apply to a lot of schools and I've heard that they can see what other schools you apply to through the Common App or maybe FAFSA or College Board or something else. Is this true?
Also, some schools ask me where else I'm applying. Obviously, I don't want to list out all the other schools because there are a lot, but I don't want to get caught not giving them the whole truth, even though it is an optional (and rude!) question. </p>
<p>They will see the schools you list on your FAFSA, and the order in which you list them is significant (unless it’s purely alphabetical.) Students tend to list schools in the order they prefer them (top choice first, 2nd best favorite second on the list, etc.) This can affect admission decisions.</p>
<p>On FAFSA yes, but you can sort them alphabetically (or numerically, they all have school codes) so it’s clear you are not ranking them.</p>
<p>if I put in like say A, B, C schools first and don’t add the other until later, can that prevent A, B, C schools from seeing the other ones since they’ve already looked at my list on FAFSA?
And so when they ask me on common app where I’m applying should I be honest in case they check the FAFSA list?</p>
<p>Someone once posted the perfect answer to the “Which other schools?” question, but the answer escapes me at the moment. (“I haven’t decided, but you’re at the top of my list right now”, is a nice generic one.) However, if you feel compelled to provide an answer, and you shouldn’t, always know your schools biggest rivals so they don’t think you’re using them as a backup. When interviewing at Tufts, for instance, never name Ivies, tell them Wesleyan or Williams or Bowdoin. At Lehigh, it’s Bucknell or Lafayette, not Penn. Always go sideways, not up.</p>
<p>The schools you don’t add to your initial FAFSA list, but only to a revised list, may deduce that they are less important to you, and this may affect their decision. </p>
<p>My daughter was waitlisted by my alma mater, despite her high grades/ great test scores/ the legacy situation, and despite the school’s being an easy commute from our house-- and I think it was because that school was not on her first FAFSA list (which was alphabetical), only on her revised FAFSA (which was also alphabetical.) I think they concluded that they were low on her priority list-- and in fact, that was true. She really didn’t want to commute. </p>
<p>So think hard about the ones you want to include on your first FAFSA list. If a school is important to you, don’t save it for your revised list, alphabetical or not.</p>
<p>Of course, whether this matters depends on whether the school considers “level of applicant’s interest”. If you have some schools that do and others that do not, you can rank the ones that do higher on the FAFSA list.</p>
<p>First, colleges would not know which other schools you are applying or have applied unless your tell them.
Second, FAFSA submission is often too late to affect the admission decision even if the adcom would have access to it. For need blind schools, they would not even look at the FAFSA data for admission decision.
Third, the order of schools on FAFSA means little. The in state public is often listed on top as it is required for state fund in many states. The adcom would not have time to speculate your school preference from a likely random order list.</p>
<p>billcscho makes good points, but this article from Inside Higher Ed is worth reading as there is more to the story:</p>
<p><a href=“https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/10/28/colleges-use-fafsa-information-reject-students-and-potentially-lower-financial-aid”>https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/10/28/colleges-use-fafsa-information-reject-students-and-potentially-lower-financial-aid</a></p>
<p>sorry, misspelled billcsho!</p>
<p>^ I have read that article too. Considering the timing of FAFSA submission, the effect (if any) would be limited to some of RD applicants that have submitted FAFSA rather early. There isn’t much time even for the FA office just to go through the data for potentially admitted students around that time. It would be hard for the adcom to use that limited, unreliable, and incomplete data for making admission decision. The FA office, however, may use that info from admitted students to prioritize the financial aid offers though.
Unless the FAFSA explicitly instructs students to put the schools in certain order, I don’t see how one would make any useful guess from it.</p>
<p>Yes, I think you are correct that more financial aid decisions would be affected than admission decisions. But that is significant, too, and can make all the difference in which schools the student can afford to attend.</p>
<p>Hopefully in the future the government will stop giving this information to colleges, or will give it in alphabetical order. In the meantime, I think it’s probably best for students to list their schools alphabetically on the FAFSA, apart from those in-state schools that must be listed first in certain states for financial aid to be considered.</p>
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<p>Bingo.</p>
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<p>I can’t imagine why they get it in the first place. Why can’t the SAR be sent to each college without the list of other schools? Seems like a very simple fix.</p>