<p>Or does it just go to the financial aid office for the sole purpose of calculating aid?</p>
<p>It depends on if the school has need blind or need aware admissions.</p>
<p>Ahhh so is that what “need-blind” means? Never thought of it that way.</p>
<p>Yes, this is an admissions policy. If a school is need blind, then needing FA is not a factor in admissions. If a school is need aware, then FA may be used as a factor in admission decisions.</p>
<p>This is not to be confused with a college providing ‘100% of need’, this is a FA policy and goes into play once a student has been accepted.</p>
<p>I don’t think anyone but the admissions officers at each school you ask can answer that. At some schools, admissions and financial aid are one office. For those schools that are need aware in admissions that leads one to believe that they are looking at the financial info as they do have to manage their enrollment and their financial aid funds. However, a lot of schools that do this are truly need blind in admissions. They are large schools and they don’t have time to fool around with need and non need and they don’t meet full need most of the time anyways, so they process the admissions and just cherry pick those who they want the most and give them the best packages so they are more likely to come. Also pick some that have low need and meet 100% or close to so that the stats look better. But the nature of many of those schools and the fact that many of them are not at all selective in admissions leads me to believe they don’t care what your need is when they accept you. It comes down to whether or not they will meet it. They accept nearly everyone including many, many high need students.</p>
<p>Where the real concern comes is with those schools that are highly selective, highly desired, the ones with the lustre who claim they are need blind in admissions. A lot of people get very nervous about every aspect of admissions at these schools because it is so danged difficult to get admissions. They worry that the admissions officers can see where else they are applying. They worry that their need will keep them out. They worry about what order they put down the schools on the FAFSA and PROFILE lists. Are these concerns valid at all?</p>
<p>Well, it’s possible. Maybe. I truly don’t think so. Most of such schools don’t have fin aid and admissions in the same office and the adcoms could not care less about need when they are going through the applications Those schools where merit aid is given, usually get it from admissions and then the file goes to fin aid. Given who I’ve seen get large merit awards, I really doubt that admissions is trying to do anything than its job. To put together the best possible class for the school. They then let the bean counters do the job. </p>
<p>Part of why negotiating on awards and appealing to the sympathies of the university officials when you can’t afford a school, is so difficult and unsuccessful, is that these entreaties go to financial aid, not to admissions. Admissions admits your kid without a thought as to how you are going to pay for the school. Most Admissions folks hate being constrained by cost when they have to be (in need aware schools) and truly are proud of being need blind, as most colleges are. THey are the ones who have looked at your child’s file and know how wonderful your child is and that the school wants him. Financial aid has to figure out how little money they can give him to stretch out what they have as much as possible. Other than maybe a rating scale from admissions for preferential packaging, they are not so invested in your kid. THey just put together the financial aid package. </p>
<p>So to answer your question, most of the time admissions will not see your kids FAFSA/PROFILE and it’s only at very few schools and occasions that they do take it into consideration. They have enough to deal with looking at the admissions end of things. But if they reallllllly wanted to get a look, they might be able to do so. But look at all of the applications they have to process in a given amount of time and you can see rationally that they don’t need an extra factor to consider.</p>