<p>My child's application was submitted recently and we just got an email that seems to be seeking to confirm that we're NOT applying for financial aid. Curious if anyone has had a similar experience or knows what that's about. Never saw anything like that with my older child's applications.</p>
<p>I assume the e-mail came from the Office of Financial Aid, but is this for an early decision application? If so, then they would want to be sure they give you a preliminary decision along with a possible admission offer – meaning very soon – and, if not, then they can turn to other applications with confidence that your application has not fallen by the wayside.</p>
<p>Oberlin is not need blind. Thus whether or not you are seeking financial aid changes your chances of admission. Unless money is absolutely not an issue for you, apply for financial aid. </p>
<p>Sounds like admissions is happy that they have a early decision full-pay kid. He will get in, though he likely will anyway even if you decide to apply for aid.</p>
<p>@philadelphia: That’s an awfully cynical view. Early decision full-pay applicants are by no means assured of admission–plenty of them get turned down. Oberlin is considerably more selective than you seem to think. To my mind, D’yer Maker’s explanation is a lot more likely than yours: the timeframe for early decision applicants is very tight, and the admissions office needs to be sure that applications are complete before decisions are made.</p>
<p>Sorry, I didn’t mean to imply he was in, or that if he does get in it is solely for not applying for aid. That said, Oberlin has an extremely high ED acceptance rate, at roughly 60%.</p>
<p>Hmmm . . . I see this more simply . . they want to know if you are also applying for financial aid or not . . . simple question </p>
<p>Most schools just assume that if you don;t apply for financial aid you don’t want it</p>
<p>if you do want financial aid, you need to apply for it . . . all gamesmanship talk aside.</p>
<p>How many college admissions officies in this country are need blind? A dozen? Out of 2400?</p>
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<p>I would agree with other posters not to read anything special into this. While we did not have quite the same experience you mention, in our case we were surprised when extra information was requested of our family from Oberlins financial aid office in a slightly different manner than the other colleges that D applied to (Oberlins peer colleges). I think they are just following their own unique standard procedures. Good luck to your child on his/her applications!</p>
<p>^
Same as Ms. Ladybug. They asked me for extra info too. Don’t know why they asked, they didn’t explain, but D did receive some grant+loan+work study in addition to John F. Oberlin Merit Scholarship. Kinda helps to have two kids in college at the same time. Cuts the EFC in half. Thank God. :)</p>
<p>^^^^^^^^</p>
<p>excellent family planning :-)</p>
<p>The financial aid office has found that a student’s statement that they are not applying for aid sometimes does not correspond to the parent’s perception of the situation. FinAid has decided that it’s easier to confirm with a parent that they are not applying for aid before an admissions decision is made, rather than dealing with irate parents whose children have received an acceptance letter with no financial aid information. That’s why alandevdad received that email asking them to confirm that they’re not applying for aid. Every time FinAid sends out those messages, they get responses from some parents who always intended to apply for aid and are very surprised to find out that their children said otherwise.</p>