ED acceptance chances for younger sibling if older on financial aid in need blind Ivy League

Elder child had to take some financial aid when we were affected by Covid situation. We are a little better but far from recovered financially. We are hoping to be better by next year and not apply for financial aid for elder child next year, which leaves a gap of one year , when our younger child would apply for ED to the same " need blind Ivy league" . Technically since its a need blind Ivy league, child’s acceptance should not get affected by elder siblings financial aid, but we don’t want to take chance, should we decline financial aid this year ( even though we qualify and need it this coming year) just so the school sees that we have been paying regular fees for 2 years before our second child applies ( Effectively the financial aid for first will stop in June and the younger will apply for ED in November that same year). TIA for feedback

No.

Don’t decline financial aid if you need it and put financial stress on your family. It isn’t going to affect your child’s chance of admission (and siblings aren’t counted as a legacy).

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You are not thinking clearly. Your elder child’s financial aid status will have zero impact on younger kid’s acceptance prospects.

Take the financial aid.

And if your younger kid would be eligible for financial aid, apply for that kid too.

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The ivy league schools market themselves as need blind. I’ve always been skeptical of this fact. Mysteriously every year they have roughly the same percentage of students who need aid. And the bulk of internationals are all full pay. I’ve always found it strange that most of the admissions directors are also head of the financial aid departments. While they say that the decisions are independent of each other, I’m not so sure.

What I think happens is that after a first pass, students are divided into three piles: accept, maybe, deny. They then go through the accept pile to make sure the institutional needs are met: males vs females, majors, geography, race, etc. At Duke, they call this “sculpting” the class. At every step along the way, I’m sure they are running the total FA numbers. The wealthier schools like Harvard don’t rely on tuition revenues as much as smaller colleges. So the weight that each college places on FA during the sculpting rounds may vary. They use sophisticated multivariate modeling to predict the incoming class composition.

But for Ivies, I’m not sure applying for FA for your current child will have any impact on the decision for child #2. If you need the aid, just apply for it. Ivies are generous with aid, so take it.

Clearly you don’t trust the system.

Trust the system!!!

Why would you not take $$ if offered.

I know, you think it might lead to rejection. It won’t - but a student applying to Ivy is, depending on the school, 85 to 97% headed to rejection - so it likely happens anyway.

But it’s not going to be because you applied for aid.

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Only HYP (amongst the Ivy League) are currently need blind for internationals. As for claiming to be need-blind - believe it or don’t believe it. It is what it is.