My D’s college counselor told her that schools factor the FAFSA in their admission decision… I had no clue, she applied to a number schools EA… Will I hurt her chances of admission by filing FAFSA too close to the schools’ deadlines? Her earliest school’s deadline is Dec 15th…
Only at need aware schools (which is MOST schools), but even then… usually it’s not a make-or-break factor, especially if the student has good stats.
Your DDs college counselor is wrong. Most colleges (probably 99%) are need-blind, meaning that admissions has no idea what your FAFSA EFC is or even if you filled the form out.
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I heard that not applying for FA during the admission process will be taken by colleges as “not serious”. Is this true?
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You seem to be listening to some folks that are saying nutty stuff.
Do you think Bill Gate’s submitted FAFSA when his kids went to college?
We never submitted FAFSA and none of my siblings did either. All of our kids got into lots of schools.
We never did FASFA either.
I guess the school counselor thinks that all families sending a student to college will need a student loan?
Depending on what state you are in, and what your student wants to study, in addition to student stats (GPA and ACT/SAT) - that and household budget for college/any savings for college, and student merit - that entire thing needs to be discerned. Not something done first semester HS senior year either.
Perhaps most cost effective would be commuting to CC or nearby college and living at home.
Some students also are not prepared for the academic rigor of college, and the freedoms and responsibilities ‘going away’ to college.
EA makes me think your student is applying to competitive private schools. Maybe your student is high stat and can be admitted; and maybe your family is willing to make the financial sacrifices and take out the student loans.
We have a pretty strong household income, but wanted no student debt. In state schools with merit scholarships and our own savings plans took care of things. Some families cash flow college. It all depends.
@mom2collegekids , you are THE expert here on these topics for sure, and I do not mean to question you and ask this with much respect: but is that really true?
The oft-linked wiki list of need blind colleges is relatively short, some well known colleges have publicly gone need aware lately (or tried!), and I see many others mentioning they are not need blind on their webpage (admittedly they minimize the effects “for a small number of students” etc). I can provide the links if folks want but they are easily found and I believe you are probably aware of them.
Then of course there is the “Need blind admissions is a lie” position, which is complicated and harder to show evidence of. Not sure I believe that…
But I have been operating on the assumption that the truly “need blind” list is very small. But I hope what you say is true and you can convince me!
Same. Pretty sure the number of need blind colleges is small. I’ve never run into a need blind college outside of the top schools, with the exception of one or two oddballs here and there. My school and many others are all need aware – they don’t advertise as such, but they also don’t pretend to be need blind.
OP asked about FAFSA and effect on (EA) admissions.
Is the college going to care if the student qualifies for Pell grant based on the FAFSA?
If you want to be able to get limited aid such as SEOG, Perkins loan, federal work study, state aid (in some states first come first served), you need to file FAFSA early.
If you want need based grants from the college, you need to file CSS profile or college specific FA forms by their deadline.
Is FA and admissions office talking to each other?
Almost all Public Us are need blind (the outliers might be UNC and UVA, possibly UMich in-state). The student just gets gapped. All CCs are need blind. Same. That is Most of all colleges.
But the OPs question was regarding “admissions decision”, indicating some degree of competitiveness. Also still does not sound like the 99% number although I do not have the data to support that claim at the moment.
Respectfully, your statement sounds to me like it is factually accurate on its surface but fallacious non sequitur upon analysis.
@CourtneyThurston says “Only at need aware schools (which is MOST schools)”
@mom2collegekids says “Most colleges (probably 99%) are need-blind,”
Who is right?
Most schools do not require financial aid documents to be filed with applications. They will admit you without filing those documents, and are thus need blind for admissions. If you want financial aid, you have to tell them. Some school will not consider you for their own grants and aid if you don’t file the financial aid documents before admission.
My daughters both go to need blind schools, one public and one private. They were admitted in October and didn’t even file FAFSA until February.
@CourtneyThurston , I know a guy who just applied to Embry-Riddle, was accepted in November, and I don’t think he’s filed his FAFSA yet. He has no financial aid package yet, but has been accepted. The admissions office has no idea if he can afford the school or not.
@Postmodern Note the content listing in that wiki. No listing of colleges that are Need Blind and do NOT meet need. That would be the large subset of the universe that is missing. Also, in the second paragraph it states
I fail to see how it’s a non-sequitur. I was trying to correct a statement that some people will remember later that is false. Diction (word choice) is important to me for clarity and accuracy.
Then what is “U.S. institutions that are need-blind for U.S. applicants and do not meet full demonstrated need” in the middle of the page?
OK, I will respect that when we communicate. In return, please remember that meaning, intent and context are more important to me.
Schools where this could be an issue (and I don’t think it’s many) are ones that both promise to meet full need and are need aware. They will have decisions affected for a small number of students if necessary to keep to a financial aid budget. I heard someone from Connecticut College defend this policy by saying they would prefer to have a small number of decisions affected in order to be able to avoid offering admission to anyone they couldn’t offer full need to. Seems reasonable.
For schools that don’t promise to meet full need and don’t flat-out say they are need blind, I can believe that most don’t consider a financial aid application much or at all in admissions. They can just give out however much financial aid they have available.
Another factor is that this is the first year that financial aid form deadlines have moved up earlier. In the past, schools wouldn’t have even had that many financial forms to look at in November, so I’m not sure if they’ll start doing so now.
The answer is somewhere between the two.
Most schools do NOT consider ability to pay when determining admissions. I’m not sure what @CourtneyThurston is referring to.
Do you really think our nation’s public colleges or univs could get away with rejecting people based on whether admissions thought the applicant can afford the school, or not?
Besides, most schools only use FAFSA which doesn’t really reveal if a family has other sources (such as an NCP who’ll pay or a home with a ton of equity). And as for FAFSA, the lowish income folks don’t even need to list assets which can be sources of college tuition.
We would not have so many accepted and heavily gapped students complaining here on CC if most schools were need-aware.
Very few schools are need aware for domestic applicants. VERY FEW
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The oft-linked wiki list of need blind colleges is relatively short,
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The often mentioned list is for “need blind AND meets need” schools and THAT list would be relatively short.
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U.S. institutions that are need-blind for U.S. applicants and do not meet full demonstrated need
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That wiki list is pathetically short.
Common sense tells you that most schools are need blind because before this year, many people weren’t even filing FAFSA until spring…often LONG after admission decisions were made.
The number is 87, according to the Wiki article linked to by Postmodern.
My commons sense tells me that if the colleges publish their specific FAFSA deadlines, they are likely to have a strong reason for that. Most of them say “applying after the deadline cannot guarantee consideration for scholarships”. None of the schools say “applying too close to the deadline will jeopardize your admission chances”. However, our HS college counselor (who was an admission director at a famous private LAC last year) says that timeliness of the FAFSA plays a huge role in a guessing game the admission officers have to play to determine who is serious and likely to enroll. I can see that, but this seems hugely unfair to kids.
Perhaps that LAC was one of the need aware ones.
If it truly is a famous LAC, then it has plenty of applicants who don’t ask for aid and don’t file FAFSA
@BelknapPoint That is still a very small number, however, I don’t trust that list. It lists schools like UCSD, which isn’t need aware. I wonder if that list is including need aware for int’l students.
The article differentiates between schools that are need aware for international but not domestic students, and need aware for all students. Whether 87 is a very small number or not depends on the context.