<p>How do Adcoms know if an applicant is a full pay ,meaning that the family does not qualify for need based financial aid?</p>
<p>Do you have to notify? Do they infer by not filing fafsa?</p>
<p>The question is related to an article in the Boston Globe.
Being full pay may be an advantage in these tough times according to the article..</p>
<p>If the school considers this in evaluating, not submitting FAFSA or submitting one but not meeting requirements is all the school needs to know. 1) you don't submit FAFSA so you can't apply for FA or 2) you submit FAFSA but don't qualify for FA. Either case, schools which are not need-blind will then consider you in that light. No need for a separate notification to the schools that you won't be applying for FA. By default one must apply for FA in order to be considered.</p>
<p>Yeah, FAFSA timing forces the issue. the Adcoms more than ever, in the current severe recession and erosion of Univeristy/College investment funds (used to pay merit aid), will need to accept more full pay students and fewer Financial Aid students.</p>
<p>In addition, many schools that use the Common App have a check-box to indicate whether you will be applying for need-based aid</p>
<p>If you apply for aid but don't get any, will the adcoms know to evaluate you as a full-payer?</p>
<p>The best way to get the message across is to check the box on the front of the application that says not applying. Let's face it, they are less likely to yield a kid who tried for aid and didn't qualify.</p>
<p>Good point. I suppose I'll have to force my parent to fill out one of those calculators in detail when the time comes and figure exactly what is going on. I hope the market is good by next year; the college fund probably lost another 5% of its value Monday.</p>