<p>My daughter's college counselor told her class that not applying for financial aid will make a huge difference in admissions this year. She said they will be looking for a higher percentage of full-payers in the ED pool, so now's our chance to make reach school more of a possibility.</p>
<p>Any thoughts? Does "need blind" REALLY mean they don't consider financial status of an applicant?</p>
<p>Well, most schools, obviously barring HYPS, only have a limited amount of money to give away for financial aid purposes. That means that eventually they will end up giving some sort of preference to kids willing to pay full. That’s just my personal opinion though.
Most will tell you that since the college says it’s need-blind, it most definitely is.</p>
<p>Like Princetondreams said, the few schools who say they practice need-blind admissions don’t seem to be wavering from that stance. However, plenty of ED/EA schools don’t state that so are able to pick/choose based on financial factors. I would concur w/your GC about FA versus non FA applicants for those schools. </p>
<p>I guess it all depends on which school your child wants to apply ED.</p>
<p>We were explicitly told by an insider at a top 30 LAC that full-pay would make a difference – that the college prided itself on having been need-blind in the past, but due to both endowment losses and reversed individual situations of current students (parents losing jobs, etc.), that they felt that they “owed” their current students continuance of FA and therefore for the next few years they’d weight their pool more towards full-payers.</p>
<p>I don’t think this year is going to be much different than last year, or the year before. The recession and associated hit on endowments prompted some colleges that had practiced need-blind admissions to amend that practice. For instance, some formerly need-blind schools applied a means test to the last 5% of the applicant pool. Of course, as T26E4 says, most colleges don’t practice need-blind admissions. It has always been better to have a $75K EFC than a $15K EFC; this year isn’t any different.</p>
<p>As for whether or not colleges are telling the truth when they say they are “need-blind” I am inclined to give the admissions people the benefit of the doubt, although I may be a minority on CC.</p>
<p>hudson: I’m with you. The few “need blind” schools are fiercely proud of that practice and have made it sacrosanct. That’s the message preached to the admissions officers, who, in turn, preach it to the masses.</p>
<p>As an alum of one of these, it’s a closely watched (and supported) issue for the alumni coummunity as well. (and our endowment lost Billions – yep with a “B”)</p>
<p>One thing to keep in mind is: If you need aid to attend, it does no good to gain an admissions advantage by not applying for aid. You might “get in,” but unless you can pull ~$50,000/year out of your pocket you will not be able to attend.</p>
<p>Schools that are *need aware *generally do NOT allow you to apply for aid after you are accepted or in subsequent years if you did not initially indicate you would apply for aid.</p>
<p>So, if you can attend without financial aid - don’t apply for financial aid (and honestly, if you don’t “need” aid, you don’t have “need,” and are not likely to qualify for financial aid 
).</p>
<p>**If you can’t attend without aid - apply for aid! **Otherwise you might find yourself with some impressive admissions letters to frame and hang on the wall while you attend community college…</p>
<p>Really depends on the school. Won’t matter at ivies but will matter lots at LACs below the very top few.</p>