<p>northeastmom,
Yes, I know about cases like that but if you want to send the "I can pay" message --it doesn't have to be as subtle as zipcodes and polo-playing ECs-just don't ask for money.</p>
<p>Pyewacket, Well you're right, but they don't know if you are just not asking for money bcs you are wealthy enough to pay, or whether you just did not fill out forms for whatever other reason. When they accept you, they want to know that you will pay the bill and attend, and not reject them for lack of funds.</p>
<p>Somehow the some schools find out bcs I know some kids that I did not think would be accepted to a school, but I knew mom and dad would gladly pay whatever it costs and guess who attends these schools. Sometimes schools are guessing. I know a fellow who was admitted to schools that I did not think he could get into (same fancy zip as the others), but these parents do not have the same funds, but still are middle to upper middle class. He did not attend those schools bcs he was accepted without merit aid. This student did get into schools where he had what they wanted and at those schools he was offered 8-12,000 without the financial forms (either in at or above the top 25% sats, and at one school there were other factors).</p>
<p>I guess it should be no surprise that we do not like to think of colleges being run like businesses. We are used to the idea that secondary education is largely public and free. Of course, even public school education is not truely needs blind. The richer districts have more money to support education.</p>
<p>I am not sure how many colleges are need blind, regarding admissions. For what I can tell, for the top 50 selective colleges, many are totally needs blind or nearly so. For the top Ivies, being needs blind is not too difficult. With billions in endowments, they can afford to offer lots of financial assistance. Of course, they would rather not and would rather use the money for other purposes. Below the ivies, many of even the top 50 have a more difficult time with needs blind admissions. Many do not have the money available to sustain needs blind admisions and to provide enough assistance to meet the FAFSA EFC gap. I am sure they would rather have enough tuition income that they could cover the gap for every student.</p>
<p>In some regards, I guess it may not matter if school's are need blind in admissions. In one case, our kids are not admitted or we cannot afford to send them.</p>
<p>
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'Good luck getting any institution to tell you exactly how the handle the ability to pay as a driver in their admit decision,'
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</p>
<p>This comment worries me.</p>
<p>It's the petty money that I may have neglected to pay that i'm worried about.</p>
<p>I did application fee waivers at two of my universities. Will they see me as an applicant who is "cheap", and will less likely to admit me, just because of fee waivers?</p>
<p>"We are a financial need family to the max. (Including fee waivers for apps.) My D got into every Ivy applied to & the only (top) Public applied to, and with full rides everywhere.</p>
<p>Like everything else in college admissions, there are a handful of schools (HYPSM + AWS and a couple of others) that can afford to play by different rules. Not to say that these schools don't manage their enrollment because they do."</p>
<p>Actually, they not only play by the same rules, they MAKE the rules. This is why on the whole, members of this group of colleges over the past decade have had among the LEAST economic diversity among the leading schools. From there, others are followers.</p>
<p>There are schools that have made commitments to increase economic diversity. Amherst is the prime example currently, and has been working on it for a decade, but in order to do so, they have to give up the need-blind charade, and they do. They have to seek out, and then accept, low-income students, and in order to do, they have to KNOW what their financial status is, and act upon it. In short, NOT need-blind. It is expensive to do, not just in the amount of aid offered, but in recruiting in the right places where such students are to be found. Williams (from what I read, but I have no inside information) seems to have given up trying to do that themselves, and instead are relying on Questbridge, which is a heck of a lot cheaper than trying to raise their profile in low-income communities. </p>
<p>There are schools that have made historic commitments to economic diversity. Smith started its commitment in 1975 under Jill Kerr Conway. Occidental has been extremely active in pursing economic diversity goals. Berea started a hundred years ago, and in doing so, specifically discriminates against high-income candidates, and gives all accepted student free tuition. Given the much smaller base for applications, and a yield as high as Harvard's, they are in fact about the most selective school in the country, specifically because of their "need-based" admissions policy.</p>
<p>"...In the past several years schools like Harvard, Princeton and Brown have shifted financial aid dollars from loans to grants, helping to ensure a free ride for the neediest students once they get in."</p>
<p>Numerically, the largest number of beneficiaries of this policy are not low-income students (there are still precious few at these institutions), but students with family incomes in the $100-$150k range who have increasingly been going elsewhere rather than paying full freight. HYP, etc. hate to lose a candidate they've accepted, and since they accept precious few low-income ones, it is this latter group that is targeted by the policy. THIS is how you increase yield, not by accepting low-income students. (If you were them, wouldn't you do the same? I know I would.)</p>
<p>The colleges and universities pay good money to enroll and train their admissions staff in enrollment management strategies. Their staffs are highly professional and know what they are doing. If you don't see prestigious colleges with huge endowments enrolling substantial numbers of low-income students, you can pretty much assume it is because they like it that way.</p>
<p>One interesting part of the article I saw was that College Board tells schools which school you listed first on your test score send order. If this is true then why not play dirty back? Why can't we just buy a separate report for each school? Or is there a better strategy. Like putting your reaches first on a two school send out. Just throwing the idea out.</p>
<p>I understand if a for profit corporation profits, and if a not for profit keeps sufficient revenue flows to maintain their operations. What I object to is when a corporation, public or private, misleads people about what it really is offerring them.</p>
<p>When I first came to CC, I asked why a "need blind" school would need to recieve financial information before students were accepted. I was curious as have other posters been, about how a school stays need blind and yet so consistent from year to year in how financial aid is distributed.</p>
<p>I cautioned my own D on a ride home from a college reception not to believe the Need Blind stories that she had heard that night. Mini's posting support what I was observing...I believe for many schools they will take certain students with large pell grants and then focus the rest of their admission on the students who need little or no aid.</p>
<p>The more challenging the obstacle course the less chance a lower or moderate incomed student has unless their parent can mimic the skills of a private school counselor. Which is why some of us came her.</p>
<p>Bravo to the magazine that continues to enlighten us. Carolyn, good post as always.</p>
<p>Mini:</p>
<p>I think you are letting the details cloud the big picture a bit. The only number that really matters in an economic sense is the average net price charged for tuition, room, and board. You can arrive at that average net price many different ways, just like an airline. You can do like Amherst does and charge a lot of rich students full price, leave out some in the middle price range, and get a few more Pell Grant kids. Or, you can get more customers overall who receive financial aid and fewer who pay full sticker price. Or, you can make it sound like you have great financial aid, but make bigger portions loan and work study with your grads carrying a heavier debt load. At the end of the day, no matter how you decided to do it, you still end up at the same place -- average net price charged for tuition, room, and board.</p>
<p>For all the talk of Smith's largesse, their average net tuition, room, and board is $904 per student higher than Swarthmore's. How can this be? Easy. They charge their rich customers more (a higher sticker price), they have a slightly lower percentage of customers who receive any financial aid, and they ask their students to carry heavier debt in the financial aid packages they offer. There's no free lunch. If you have more rich customers and more really poor customers (Pell Grant) and your average net price is higher, somebody is taking it in the shorts -- in this case the average schmuck in the middle. Or, you could give the average scmuck in the middle a little more of break and somebody else takes it in the shorts -- either charge the rich customers a little more or pick up the tab for fewer really poor folk. As you know, those decisions are highly intertwined with median SAT scores.</p>
<p>BTW, Smith could do just like Berea and make it free for everbody. All they have to do is reduce their operating expenses from $57,500 per student to $30,077 per student and they wouldn't have to charge anybody one red cent to attend. Swarthmore could make it free for everybody by reducing their operating expenses to $40,777 per student (about the same as Oberlin). </p>
<p>Would Smith and Swat be the same quality schools as they are now? Nope. Probably not. I imagine that you would probably kiss that period opera program and internships and a bunch of professors goodbye. Swat could dump linguistics and engineering and the honors program and the faculty leave policy and increase class sizes. Concentrate on the bread and butter stuff, hire some grad student TAs from UMass and UPenn to teach intro classes, and you could probably get operating expenses down where it would need to be and make it free. </p>
<p>Would it be "fair" to give all those rich kids free rides? Probably not, but it wouldn't be a bad strategy for a school looking to boost their SATs -- the other currency colleges accept. I'm actually surpised that one of the super big endowment LACs hasn't gone that route. It would be the ticket for Grinnell. Even Iowa looks good for free! Princeton could probably do it, too. They've got so much per student endowment, they don't even know how to spend it.</p>
<p>I have been telling the kids (on the kids' boards) forever that "need blind" doesn't mean what they think it means. This information was well known to those of us who have worked or volunteered in college admissions, and it is WONDERFUL that at last we have something to back us up. BTW a visit to the enrollment sites that Carolyn suggested was an eye-opener.</p>
<p>Ditto what nedad says-- this is a fascinating read! Thanks Carolyn. I am still a bit challeneged to figure out which schools priorities are where-- and therefore what to "sell" to whom. Granted, it is early in the morning and maybe after a few cups of coffee this will become clearer, but until then, Carolyn and nedad- could you help narrow down how to parse out this information from the colleges sites, or from the enrollment sites? How can we tell if this year school "A" wants blue-eyed girls over 6 feet tall from the back woods of Arkansas (sorry, don't mean to pick on anyone-- just an example), and school "B" wants wealthy national merit atheists who play the piccolo? How do we read between their lines to establish a better college shopping list for our kids? How do our kids figure out how to market themselves better to each school? </p>
<p>In the analogy to big business, it has long been known that colleges want not only to admit kids who can get in, but who can stay in, graduate, make big $$$ and donate back to the alumni ass'n. So is the circle of life. Makes sense to me. But what I don't get is the lack of a clear "job description" as it were, from the schools at the get-go. How can we truly tell what the "job" is the kids are applying for? If we knew better, we could help them "tweak their resume" a bit and tailor it to each school they are applying to. Thats the part that seems so unfair to me. The kids are applying for a very competitive "job opening", and yet they dont know what they (the colleges) are looking for. How does that make any sense?</p>
<p>
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How do we read between their lines to establish a better college shopping list for our kids?
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</p>
<p>Excellent question, and I'd sure like to know the answer! I was naive and did not know that colleges had such a directed "system" to select their classes. It all such a game! The right stats, the desired ECs, saving in the best name, the optimal zip code, showing interest but not too much interest...how on earth is the average person supposed to figure this out if the colleges won't tell us?</p>
<p>I feel sorry for the kids who don't have affluent parents sitting around trying to figure this stuff out on their behalf. Along with the daunting finances, low income kids once again fall behind because their families don't have the time/expertise to finesse the system.
The Atlantic article was fascinating, just read it yesterday and still trying to figure out if it alters our college strategy.</p>
<p>I think that it's important to recognize that the vast majority of students go to college within 250 miles of their home. I estimate that most low income students probably live at home and go to college in their hometowns. That includes low income students who start at community colleges, which often are very affordable, and which may give substantial merit aid to high-achieving local students.</p>
<p>What many of us do here -- examining colleges nationwide to figure out where we can find the best education and best economic deals for our kids -- is a luxury. Most people in our country have no interest in sending their kids that far away, and would be perfectly happy having them live at home and commute to the local 4-year or community college. </p>
<p>More than likely, there are special financial opportunities for such students, and the GCs can give good guidance on things like this. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, for low income families who want more options, they always can do research on the Internet or thorugh some of the readily available college guides that are at libraries and bookstores. There are so many more options to get good information than what most of us had when we went to college.</p>
<p>" saw was that College Board tells schools which school you listed first on your test score send order. If this is true then why not play dirty back? Why can't we just buy a separate report for each school? Or is there a better strategy. Like putting your reaches first on a two school send out. "</p>
<p>Now that we know what the College Board does, it's clear that there's no reason to list colleges like HPYS, which don't care about demonstrated interest, first.</p>
<p>Far better, probably, to list colleges like Tufts, Emory, Wash U, which do track demonstrated interest.</p>
<p>Or alphabetical order?</p>
<p>Last year there was a thread about how to list schools for fafsa/profile too. I think you were supposed to list your state school first for some reason. Is there a correct order for the financial forms? Thanks.</p>
<p>Years and years ago, when I first met my H, a motorcycle rider, he explained to me something called countersteering, which basically means turning left to go right, and vice versa. He said most riders don't do this, they turn left to go left, etc. Well, this certainly confused me. I mean, obviously they were turning the way they meant to go, weren't they? How come they're doing it the opposite way, but still get where they intend to?</p>
<p>Well, he explained that it will work, but you have to push harder, and you're fighting the bike when you do it this way. (Motorcycle riders, bear with me if I'm not explaining this perfectly, but I think I have the gist.)</p>
<p>Anyway, rather than wholesale conternation over new news, let's look at the results. Most students, including ours, do go to their first choice schools. Most of us here have seen wonderful results (look at the list of where last year's group went--migosh, is that impressive.)</p>
<p>So I don't think this article's info should be a panic-inducing paradigm shift. It's interesting, it's some people's views extrapolated over a much huger system, and one can mine if for some ideas and tips.</p>
<p>But overall, whichever way we've been steering, we've been getting where we meant to go, even if we've had to fight the bike at times.</p>
<p>Well, the links are interesting and certainly debunk many information session "truths" . Most of us were skeptical of those claims already. I have to say it doesn't change our search parameters or application strategy a whit . </p>
<p>Through a fortuitous choice based upon a combination of my cynicism, my daughter's heartfelt desire for a "comfortable place" with kids she can see herself living around for 4 years, and our economic situation, we had long ago decided that she would be going where she was an object of the admission department's lust. </p>
<p>Full freight payers can choose the "best" private or OOS publics that their stats allow them to attend. Most of the rest of us are limited to our own in-state publics or schools that "want" or have institutionally determined that they "need" our kid to go there .(Usually it's schools where the kid's stats are top of the mark, sometimes 100 or more SAT points above the 75th %-tile and a half a point above the median GPA. Sometimes it's that plus oboe, sports, urm, geographic diversity, or gender) . I don't think that will make many headlines. Now if we could just get someone at one of these elite school's to admit that's what's going on- that would be newsworthy. But I won't be holding my breath that they'll give up their artfully designed and fiercely maintained fiction. </p>
<p>So to recap for those playing the home version of our game, High Stats Edition:</p>
<p>High stat -full freight-choose your schools; high stat with recognized need- choose your schools very carefully after review of the average FA packages at each school for your family's income and asset levels and as much as possible the enrollment strategies at that school; high stat with unrecognized need- you better let the schools choose you (and throw in a couple of "flyers" just in case the FA gal is drunk the day she figures your EFC).</p>
<p>As always, just my opinion.</p>
<p>EDAD said:" I guess it should be no surprise that we do not like to think of colleges being run like businesses. We are used to the idea that secondary education is largely public and free. Of course, even public school education is not truely needs blind. The richer districts have more money to support education."</p>
<p>And I would like to add my pet peeve in all of this, that private schools can be discriminating ,change admissions criteria while being supported by us, the taxpayers. They recieve their support not only from tuition ,but from Alumni donations,and the floating of state backed municipal bonds for their capital programs. They receive our tax money for research and other programs then get to claim in some cases ,the ownership of the intellectual property from the research. I have said it before and will say it again. College is a business just like any other business with one exception :they get to be discriminating when it comes to their admissions policies . They can refuse to allow the ROTC on their campuses while receiving tax dollars through the back door. They can pick and choose which government mandates they will comply with....Reality stinks doesn't it?</p>
<p>jym and lkf,</p>
<p>While I understand the frustration expressed, the point is (I think) not that the strategy from Admissions is deceptive, but that the deciding elements cannot be determined until all the apps are in, the current deficits known (including non-financial), the new assets clear. Obviously the full picture is not available even to a college until all those apps are in.</p>
<p>I think what has been best reinforced by carolyn's link is the importance of including financial safety <em>factors</em> throughout the college list -- regardless of one's income level. (Financial safety, financial match, financial reach should be modifying your academic safety, match & reach schools. That modification could signficantly reconfigure <em>everyone's</em> college list.) No, we can't "know," but perhaps now we can make better guesses? Full freight families do have a greater degree of freedom, but I don't agree with curmudgeon that they have no or few concerns -- esp. when applying to well-endowed schools. We saw abundant indication of that this year.</p>
<p>I worry a little bit about over-marketing from the student's end, although I acknowledge that a little bit of that is probably necessary. Seems a little contradictory to counsel a student to be & sound honest, genuine & natural in an essay, etc., but simultaneously consider how she or he will "look" or "be received" by a college.</p>