<p>the CSS Profile let's all the colleges see who else you are sending it to! so if you send it to 6 schools they will all know where else you are applying... this doesn't seem fair, but the college board is not really interested in what's fair.</p>
<p>one question... if you send the CSS Profile to 2 of your 6 now, then 2 more in december and the last 2 in january, then only the january schools will see all 6, right? the december schools will only see 4 colleges listed... etc...</p>
<p>is this assumtion correct? does anyone know?</p>
<p>i know that it costs an extra $5 every time you split up your request, and this is a total "game", but maybe it's worth it if you don't want college A to know that you are applying to its rival college B...</p>
<p>WOW! That's a very good point... Good job fairburn...</p>
<p>that's correct... only the january schools will see all 6, because that's the only thing that makes sense. in december, they wouldn't know what you are applying to in january.</p>
<p>I don't like this, but I have to believe that colleges (especially top tier) understand that students normally apply to 5 or 6 schools. And Colleges must know that students will often apply to competing colleges seeing that they probably are very similar (For example - MIT and Cal Tech)</p>
<p>It doesn't matter if schools know where else you are applying. Why would they care that much. Its not like they expect you to apply to have no backup school (unless you ED).</p>
<p>i believe that some colleges use it to see where else you are applying... schools like harvard/princeton/yale who are in the strongest competitive position probably don't care at all... or at least not much... in fact, i know that princeton doesn't even use the CSS profile (i'm not sure about harvard and yale)... but there are rivals like penn and columbia... i think a school like penn loses students to columbia in that NYC is more of an attraction than philly... but more than the ivies, i think that it is the next tier down who are fighting tooth and nail to get the best students and often lose out schools that have bigger (more prestigious) names. any college that is trying to climb the rankings like Wash U. or some of the liberal arts colleges ranked in the 20's, 30's and 40's who desperately want to climb are the ones who care about where else students are applying... and if they really didn't use that info, then why is the college board providing it to them??? the college board wants to curry favor with colleges and universities... students are powerless. they have to play the game in the way that is prescribed. only the collleges and universities have the power to change things... so, not to be redundant, but if the colleges didn't want that info, then the college board would have no other reason to provide it to them! think about it... the game is slanted in favor of the colleges not the students.</p>
<p>I don't think adcoms at the "need blind" schools have access to your CSS Profile.....
As for the other schools I dont think they benefit too much by knowing where else you are applying....</p>
<p>even "need blind" schools might be curious... most of these schools are trying to only accept students who they feel will actually come if accepted. for example, it may be hard to get into harvard if you are princeton legacy... you may not want to believe this, but these schools do look at stuff like that! they are taking into consideration all sorts of things that you may not like.</p>
<p>It maybe hard to go Harvard if ur a princeton legacy .. cuz ur parents info is on the Common App right in front of the adcoms....
What they don't have access to is the CSS Profile ... thats the whole concept of need-blind... Adcoms don't see ur financial documents.... At least they are not allowed to ... ;)</p>
<p>no, but they could just get the info on where you are applying if that is what they want... that wouldn't violate the "need-blind" policy... and i'm really saying that it's the other colleges, not so much the "need blind" schools which tend to be the richest and most competitive...</p>
<p>First of all, it is the FAFSA where one can see all of the schools that you are applying to and even then, you can list one school send, do a correction and lest another school a few days later if you are really paranoid about other financial aid offices seeing your informtion.</p>
<p>at need blind schools like the ives, financial aid and admissions are 2 separate entities at some schools they are on separate floors at other schools they are in separate buildings but they do not share office space.</p>
<p>actually, FAFSA only lists 6 schools at a time, and you can wipe them out before sending them to other schools, so you are correct sybbie... you can even do it one at a time as you suggest. that is not possible with the CSS Profile. it contains up to 20 names of colleges to which you apply and you cannot ever wipe out the name of a college that has already received it... again, i agree that this is not as much an issue with "need blind" schools which are few in number... it is more an issue with the schools trying to climb the rankings list...</p>
<p>if this is your biggest worry, list the schools alphabetically. </p>
<p>I can only talk about my D's experience applying to 7 css profile school all were need blind a couple were direct competitiors . listed 6 schools on the fafsa, made the correction and listed the 7th school. we listed everything alphabetically and it had no bearing on where she was accepted (currently attending an ivy).</p>
<p>If you are a u.s. citizen or permanent resident (for international students very few schools are need blind so your ability to pay is a factor), even at need aware or need senistive schools, the "need" only becomes a factor if you are at the bottom of the admit pool and the school has run short of funds and you will lose out to a similiarly qualified canidate who "needs less" funding.</p>
<p>
[quote]
i know that princeton doesn't even use the CSS profile
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</p>
<p>Princeton does not require that you use the CSS profile but will accept it if you chose to use it (with the exception of ED).</p>
<p>When you log in to the Princeton Financial Aid Application (PFAA), you will be offered the opportunity to use data you submitted on the College Scholarship Service PROFILE form (if you filed one) as part of your Princeton application. Although we do not require the PROFILE, you may find it convenient to include Princeton on the list of recipients if you are completing a PROFILE for another college. In this case, we will accept your data and incorporate it in the appropriate sections of the Princeton application. Note: The PROFILE option is not available to Early Decision applicants since the CSS data cannot be processed in time for Princeton’s November 1 application deadline.</p>
<p>Harvard, Yale and the rest of the gang require the profile</p>
<p>you can believe that colleges don't use that info provided to them in the CSS Profile. i don't. if they don't use it, then why is it there? at need blind ivies maybe it isn't used (i doubt that), but there are a lot of colleges slightly lower on the rankings list who care deeply where else their applicants are applying. for example, if a liberal arts college ranked in the 20's or 30's see that a highly qualified student is also applying to amherst and williams and a couple other top 10 liberal arts colleges, then they are less likely to admit that student out of fear that the student won't come. it's one way to improve their yield and move up in the rankings over time... bottomline: if the info is being sent to the colleges, then you can be pretty sure that it is being used. sorry to be so stubborn.</p>
<p>
[quote]
if a liberal arts college ranked in the 20's or 30's see that a highly qualified student is also applying to amherst and williams and a couple other top 10 liberal arts colleges, then they are less likely to admit that student out of fear that the student won't come.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I can only talk to the experience as it played out in my house and the scenario you presented was not our experience. </p>
<p>If the schools see everything, then they saw that my D applied she had a range of schools, from Dartmouth to amherst & williams (all 3 schools know that they have an overlap in the application pool. In fact Richard Nesbitt the dean of admissions and FA at williams wrote about it and stated that some students turn down Williams for HYP, but when it comes to williams v. amherst or dartmouth there is a 50/50 split) to Tufts (which if your theory holds true, she should have been rejected die to tufts syndrome) to some of the LACs that are ranked in the top 20/30. </p>
<p>In our house it made no difference as she got accepted to all of them (if anything, it may have helped because her schools did have overlapping applicant pools)</p>
<p>well, my personal experience suggests otherwise. i firmly believe that some colleges use the CSS Profile information to exclude students who they believe will not come to them. my S was turned down at a couple "rankings conscious" schools while being admitted to more prestigious ones with lower acceptance rates.</p>
<p>I dont think adcom looks at the CSS profile, colleges usually have an office of financial aid. but some colleges they do it together. good point.</p>
<p>Fairburn, it is certainly possible that schools use the Profile infor to see where else kids apply. I don't believe it is anything to get worked up about for the sheer reason that so many kids do apply for finanicial aid , and so many kids are applying to so many colleges these days. It is a rare app indeed where a highly qualified kid is not applying to HPY along with WashU and Northwestern. Looking at our school stats (our school keeps track of all of the schools students apply to and the results), it does not appear to be an issue at all. The kids I know who applied and got into the top schools also tended to get accepted to their less selective schools at a rate far higher than those who did not apply to schools with higher selectivity. The kids accepted last year to Yale and Harvard were accepted to every single school on their list and, yes, they applied for financial aid. Yes, occaisionally there is a middlebury nay, with a Williams aye, but the numbers just do not support this type of collusion, in my opinion. It is a true shock when someone is accepted to a much more selective school than a number of schools that are less selective. It does happen now days when kids do not pay due respect to less selective schools, but those who do, get in, even if there isn't much chance that the kid is going to Muhlenberg with those HPY stats and list of much more selective schools. When you look at the sheer volume of applications, it is difficult enough in close cases to make the decisions on the merits alone, without bringing in "what ifs" such as" is he too good for our school with the choices he'll probably have from the other schools where he is applying>" If the student indicates that there is interest in the school, he will get in. It just doesn't happen enough the other way to worry too much about the FAFSA data.</p>
<p>Now I am not saying that an individual adcom may not make the decision on a borderline case using the info. The adcoms are human, and if you happen to get one with a mindset that is unfavorable to you in many different areas, you are just out of luck. There are some who are homophobes, dislike jocks, want to limit the Asians, like runners, have a weak spot of animal lovers, you name it. You get someone who cannot act in integrity, than you can be out of luck in a border line case. But most systems of admissions decisions involve two adcoms, and presuming an applicant is not going to come to the school because he is good enough to get into a better school where he is applying is not a valid reason for rejection. Too many of the schools best students come from that pool of kids who are not accepted to their first choice schools. Schools like Tufts, Carnegie Mellon, Cornell have loads of kids who would have fit well in HPY. I know a number of kids at Dickinson who were turned down by Tufts, Wesleyan, Swarthmore, and they were wooed and wanted by Dickinson with some generous package. And those kids were all strong candidates for the trio of colleges mentioned. No, I am not saying it does not happen in singular occaisions, but it is not a factor to worry about anymore than worrying than you get an adcom reviewing your student's file with a thing about something else about your student.</p>