I understand “preferential packaging” to mean offering grants or scholarships to students the school really wants beyond what need-based or merit formulas call for. Don’t all private colleges sweeten the pot for students they really want by doing this?
Yes. I believe they do. Top kids are in high demand to move the needle on ranking stats.
But we are talking about the top kids on a national scale. Not just a local scale.
No, I don’t think that all private colleges do this.
It certainly isn’t used by any of the Ivy Group universities or places like Chicago, Amherst, Pomona etc. The financial aid information doesn’t see academic information and there are no merit scholarships.
Many state that the financial aid offices and admissions offices are entirely separate, but it doesn’t always seem that way.
I wonder if it’s not necessarily intentional but happens regardless. For example, I’d think it’s relatively easy to quickly skim an application pool and find some no-brainer admits (the top tier test scores, grades, EC’s). Those apps can then be sent to the FA office for a package off the bat, while grant aid is still plentiful. As it gets to the end of the process and borderline apps are admitted, they are sent to FA last when most of the money is dried up. Maybe?
Some schools may choose to use their discretion to move the kid whose stats indicate a $20,000 merit award into the $25,000 category. But if $25,000 is the max they offer for merit, then they are not going to make an exception and up that to $30,000. Perhaps they could improve the need-based aid a bit; but if you’re talking about a full (or close to full) pay kid, then that’s not an option. I wouldn’t expect to be offered any more than what is “typically” offered to a student with similar stats.
This is a YMMV. Some colleges do while others purely provide FA based on FAFSA and CSS Profile.
“It certainly isn’t used by any of the Ivy Group universities or places like Chicago, Amherst, Pomona etc.”
This is just not correct. These schools may adjust financial aid for students they truly want. Less generous school (by default) may apply the formula of a more generous school to come up with the better aid.
Do all private colleges do preferential packaging?
NO NO NO they don’t. if a school is need blind for admissions, the financial aid office has NO information about your application…other than that you were accepted (or not). So the financial aid offices at need blind schools would have no idea what special qualities you might have.
At private schools that are need aware…and practice enrollment management…yes…it is very possible that your financial aid package will be differently packaged based on what is in your application.
Need blind admissions means that the admissions readers are not shown any financial aid information about the applicant. But that does not necessarily mean the other way around – the admissions office could forward an admitted applicant to the financial aid office with a note indicating that his/her aid should preferentially packaged.
This does not mean that any given school does this, but it can.
There seems to be a lot of varied experience or disagreement about this topic.
@LuckyCharms913 " I wouldn’t expect to be offered any more than what is typically offered to a student with similar stats". But according to big futures college board web site, for arbitrary examples, Sewanee gives non-need based/merit aid on the basis of religious affiliation. Macalaster and Kenyon give aid based on “minority status”, i.e. race or ethnicity. Sounds like a lot of schools give aid based on, really, whatever they want: need, merit, and a lot of things that have nothing to do with need or merit. Isn’t that “preferential packaging” ?
You asked, “Don’t all private colleges sweeten the pot for students they really want by doing this?”
For private colleges that legitimately offer only need-based aid, the answer is “no.”
IF a college is shown a more generous FA / merit aid package that an accepted student was offered by another "peer"college , they MAY increase their FA package for students they REALLY want to enroll… Happened to DS
At Pomona.
This would not apply at need-blind admissions schools that also offer merit aid, especially if the aid isn’t stacked. The financial aid office would have to know that a high stats, low income student had been given a merit award in order to adjust his need based award.
Private colleges want to do everything they can to entice the tippy top of the students they admit to choose them. The financial aid office can play a big role in that. They also want to build classes that have certain characteristics: socioeconomic, ethnic, and regional balance are important to many schools.
@Otterma yes…the financial aid office would know the AMOUNT of a merit award so that need based awards could be adjusted. BUT the reason for the merit award would not be necessarily given to the financial aid office. So “special qualities” of the student would not be known.
For the need blind schools, ‘it is a miracle’ that there is socioeconomic balance at the schools because the admissions office is not supposed to know. Now they might see something in the application that indicates low income, but if the applicant doesn’t want it known, he can just omit any reference to financial standing.
How do you define “socioeconomic balance”? Because at the elite need-blind, meets 100% need schools, the student population sure isn’t representative of the general population as a whole, socioeconomically speaking.
There is no miracle involved. Many other aspects of the application correlate to SES, so the design of the admissions criteria and their weighting can be done to target a specific SES balance and financial aid budget, even if admissions readers do not see any financial aid related information or make any decision on an individual applicant based specifically on financial aid need (as opposed to the correlating criteria).
An example of such is favoring legacies. Although not all legacies are from wealthy families, legacies tend to be distributed higher on the SES scale than non-legacies, since all legacies have at least one college graduate parent.
^^I don’t think the legacies are group the admissions office is seeking to balance. There are things that might indicate the low income students, like a zip code or Questbridge or membership in a school group usually including lower income students. Not everyone in the zip code or school or club will fit that SES, but if enough of them are accepted some will, and some lower income people will sneak into the groups that usually have upper income families.
The admission offices have ways to figuring out the balance, but at need blind schools they are not supposed to have that information.
I think it’s difficult to hide that you’re lower income. Zip code, types of ECs, and number of APs or dual enrollment courses taken compared to what’s offered can give college administrators a good idea of a family’s financial status.