I’m an only child, single mother (although not legally divorced), medium income. However I now live in a highly affluent area (top 5 in the US) and attend a top ranked high school after years of living in a very poor county.
My question is: would colleges see my zipcode/high school and automatically infer I am from a very well-off family? I am not sure if I will be able to apply for financial aid because my mother’s salary is not too low. Is financial aid the only way to have admissions officers consider my socioeconomic status when applying?
Need aware schools consider your ability to pay when they consider your admission application. So some schools DO know your finances when your application is reviewed.
Most schools are need blind for admissions…admissions doesn’t know about your finances.
So…if your family is higher income, why is this a concern for you?
Remember to run the Net Prive Calculator on the websites of the school’s you’re interested in. You will need to include your dads financial info. That’s what the college’s use to determine your net price and not your zip code (barring merit aid).
At need blind schools it may benefit you. They will infer that you can pay from your address. They will not see the FA application you submit since they are need blind.
Absolutely apply for FA if you might be eligible. Do the NPC calculator to see if it is affordable but you most likely have to include your dads income and it is not always accurate for divorced families.
“About 80 percent of private colleges are entirely need-blind, according to a 2008 report by the National Association for College Admissions Counseling. But a former GW admissions officer said all colleges collected enough details about an applicant, from zip code to parent’s level of education, to understand their financial picture.”
Here is another citation, that I found quickly, not quite as on point since it deals more with recruitment:
“Plus, if a public university sees an out-of-stater it likes and thinks can foot the whole bill, it will likely take the lead on making contact: Chany said that universities can see mailing lists based on SAT/ACT scores and can get a sense on income level based on the student’s zip code.”
Whether a need blind school uses OPs fancy zip code as a source of information is up to the school and in his case it would be incorrect based on his op. My point was there are different levels of need. A need blind school is more likely to ASSUME (perhaps incorrectly - since they do not have access to his or anyone’s) CSS) that the kid living in 90210 (Beverly Hills), even if he checks the FA box on the Common App, will have a much higher EFC (lower FA need) than a kid living in a more blue collar zip code and will be a less expensive admit. There may be other items on OP’s Common app that belie his fancy zip but that was not part of the original question.
Since “the concept in college admissions that admitting institutions do not take into consideration an applicant’s financial need in weighing whether or not to admit the applicant, defies logic. Think about it from a numbers standpoint. If MIT, an institution that is “need blind” and also one that “meets the full demonstrated need” for both domestic and international applicants, admitted a class in which every single applicant needed financial aid, they’d be in big trouble.” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bev-taylor/need-blind-admissions-is-_b_5615698.html
A school can truthfully say that it is need blind in that an individual applicant’s financial need does not affect the admission decision, but the school can design its admission criteria and procedures so that the overall admit class will come close to a target financial aid profile. For example, the following admission criteria can be adjusted to affect the admit class’ financial aid profile:
Require CSS Profile and non-custodial parent information for financial aid: screens out many poorer applicants with divorced parents.
Require counselor and teacher recommendations: in low income high schools, counselors and teachers may not be as experienced in writing impressive recommendations.
Emphasize SAT/ACT scores: tend to correlate well with wealth.
Require SAT subject test scores: low income students are more likely not to notice the requirement until it is too late, because they are more likely to be in schools where college aspirants are mostly looking at the local community college or commuter-based state university.
Use interview: low income students may not conform to upper or upper middle class behavioral norms expected by alumni interviewers.
Admit much of the class early decision: attracts non-financial-aid applicants who do not need to compare financial aid offers.
Extracurriculars: some types of activities tend to correlate with high or low income.
Of course, the above is mainly in the context of highly selective holistic admissions schools with good financial aid.
There is a likely much larger class of schools that is trivially need-blind in that they admit purely by stats, and are only moderately selective. But many of them do not give good financial aid (or they may be state universities who give good financial aid only to state residents). An even larger class of trivially need-blind schools are open admission community colleges.
If the admissions staff is making decisions based partly on perceived financial factors (zip code or anything else), than the school is not truly need-blind for admissions purposes.
Why is this a concern? Looking at it from an objective view, any applicant w/ only half the income of typical families in his ‘Beverly Hills’ community wouldn’t want to be judged on the same scale as them.
Which is more impressive, stellar stats and ECs on a middle class kid or the same stats on a kid from a very affluent, privileged family?
So my take on this is that for need blind schools applying without FA would be a disadvantage, whether they see the zip or not.
You aren’t disadvantaged when you attend Greenwich High School or Beverly Hills high even if your family earns less than the kid sitting next to you. And my guess is that your definition of “middle class” doesn’t jive with US Census data (look it up).
There are kids on free or reduced lunch at affluent high schools. Is that you??? If so, your GC’s letter will likely find a tactful and graceful way to signal that you have grown up in an impoverished environment despite your zip code. But your family income is 150K in a neighborhood where other people earn 500K- that STILL doesn’t make you middle class.
I read the question if wondering if more aid is given to the student from San Francisco with a family income of $100k than the same student who lives in Des Moines.
A private school might consider that, but most financial aid calculators dont.
According to the US Census Bureau the income my mother makes is exactly middle class - $40k, and my father does not make income and is legally separated. I never did say I lived in Beverly Hills, or the equivalent. Nor did I attribute the word “disadvantanged” - please don’t jump to conclusions.
I simply wanted to know how colleges would take this into perspective. In the end without fa I doubt they would look into it much, so my question is answered.
Will both of your separated parents be cooperative on financial aid forms? Most of the schools with good financial aid use the CSS Profile in addition to FAFSA and require both parents’ financial information.
$40,000 annually is a little below the US median household income of about $50,000 annually, although still within what is realistically the “middle income” range. Be aware that “middle class” is used on these forums very flexibly, such as “middle class but will not get any financial aid anywhere”.
What I meant in #17 was that some people describe themselves as “middle class” even with incomes in the top 3% or so ($200,000 or so and up).
With an income of $40,000, the OP should definitely be eligible for financial aid if the separated parent issue does not get in the way and the college gives good financial aid(many do not, so check net price calculators).