If you cannot afford, you cannot go to that school. They just need to factor that in the expected yield rate to admit enough students.
Understood, thanks. It still clearly affects the makeup of the enrollment though, right?
Do you think it is possible - as I have read articles about - that it may be tacit but not explicitly considered during admissions? I am not suggesting anything conspiratorial, mind you, I am just suggesting that adcoms know the math and the metrics even if the admissions voting process does not explicitly track the FA checkbox. It’s in their mind as they look at the kid.
I would think adcoms are getting rated by yield too. It certainly wouldn’t make them look good to continuous admit schools who turn them down for one reason or another.
I think that selective need-aware colleges are very sensitive about not being perceived as preferential to full-pay students. Hence the explanation that they only consider need for the final 5 to 10% of class, and then only if 2 students under consideration are equal. I wonder it it is more widespread than that.
Full-pays would help with yield, first by being more likely to go the ED route, and also by being able to attend if accepted. I’d also guess retention rates for full-pays are higher than students with high fin need, with SAT/GPA being equal, as they’d have fewer financial reasons to transfer or drop out. And would colleges also be looking into the future with full-pays, maybe anticipating more money given to endowment?
I don’t mean to sound cynical but realistic. I admit I’m also self-interested, as we will be full-pay.
@sleeplessmom1, the college website explicitly mentions if it is need blind.
FWIW - While describing the admission success to a very competitive program for their S, one of our old friends mentioned that “even if it was a financial stretch, we maximized our chances by not applying for FA…looks like it worked”. It is a private college claiming to be need blind. I don’t know if that stand really played any role in their S’s admission or not; but for some reason, our friends believe it did.
They would pay more attention to admission stat that the yield rate. To accept more full pay but less qualified students would hurt the admission stat. Accepting full pay students does not mean they can ensure the yield rate either. Many students would turn down affordable choices for better schools.
Full pay doesn’t mean less qualified, one doesn’t preclude another. Top tier schools can fill their classes with well qualified, full pay students many times over.
‘To accept more full pay but less qualified students would hurt the admission stat.’ If a full pay is indeed less qualified than a student the school is trying to lure with merit (and who is comparing other offers), wouldn’t the full pay be more likely to attend? I think that families needing merit or fin aid would have a larger list of schools, with potentially more acceptances.
‘Top tier schools can fill their classes with well qualified, full pay students many times over.’ True for the very top, who could conversely fill their classes with nothing but brilliant kids from families making under 100K. Harvard, Stanford, Chicago get whatever cream of the crop they want. But outside maybe the Top 25 Universities and Top 25 LACs, aren’t there more freshmen slots available than families who are absolutely full pay? Seems to me being able to go full pay can get student into a school a tier or two above a similar-stats kid needing fin aid. (Where the lines are drawn between ‘tiers’ I don’t know).
Not all top 50 LACs and N universities are need blind. If a college is not need blind then yes, absolutely full pay can be an edge. Tie breaker, whatever you call it. Full pay can forgive another gap in the app.
I know some need blind schools that don’t offer FA to their wait list students. As long as they always estimate their yield correctly, they can cash in on a bunch of guaranteed full pays by going to the wait list…they will still call themselves need blind, yet still get that extra guaranteed CF by make WL full pay. I know of 3 top 30 LACs/NUs that have this policy.
^^^ @suzyQ7 , any chance you might name them?
Any chance they start with C, W and T? 
Just guessing really.
Note that even if a school is need-blind, it could design its admissions criteria to produce an admit class that skews higher or lower income and wealth, since many criteria are well correlated to that, even though there may be individual applicants who are exceptions. For example:
- Legacy preference skews toward higher income and wealth, since that selects for students from college graduate parents, who tend to have higher income and wealth than the overall population.
- Looking favorably at extracurriculars that are expensive (e.g. requiring lots of travel) versus looking favorably at working to earn money to help support one's family skew in opposite directions.
- Having numerous application items (e.g. subject tests, recommendations, CSS Profile) can skew toward students from high schools where the "college admissions train" is well publicized and presented, and many students go on to four year colleges. Students at other high schools may not realize that these items are needed, since parents, other students, and counselors are less likely to be aware of them (and counselors may be busy with non-college matters). The distribution of these types of high schools is correlated with income and wealth of the areas served.
- CSS Profile requiring non-custodial parent information can effectively deny students with uncooperative divorced parents financial aid. Divorced parents and their kids tend to be poorer than others.
And driving a Honda Civic rather than a BMW, will hurt my dating marketability on Tinder. But if I can’t afford a BMW, then I can’t afford it.
Schools w small endowments cannot afford to admit & fund an unlimited number of high-need students, PERIOD.
It’s 100% true. A full-paying URM with good stats is known as a golden goose in admissions.
^ That’s a few bit more criteria than being just full-pay, even if true.
From what I recall, at every college info session we’ve been to, we hear there is a firewall between admissions and fin aid. Do they finally get together for lunch when it comes time to work the wait lists?
Will my embarrassing zip code be taken into account? (Hint: small town in NC, epicenter of the bathroom wars.)
I’ve no broad knowledge on the subject but do have a close friend who works in admission at a state flagship. Many years ago when my son was still considering that school, she asked him if he had the state’s saving plan. He said he did not. Delighted, she told him he had a chance. When all else was relative, being a full pay international or OOS student was best. In state fully pay was also good. State savings plan - only if seats were left over.
@delilahxc, do the participants in that state’s saving plan get a discount?
Very much so. They purchase tuition as whatever age they are buying into the program. We did not have the initial investment to get into the program. But relatives (who have since moved out of state) purchased into the program when their children were very young. They were able to purchase a 4 year tuition plan (at that time - these rates are not even close to still true) for about $6K. This can’t be done any longer, obviously. But for some, it is a huge tuition differential and the more select universities can treat it so.
If admissions officers at a state flagship are indeed discriminating against students with a “state savings plan,” that is a real problem and doesn’t even sound ethical. We did not participate in a 529 type plan in our state. Our kids both went to state schools at full pay. But, I do know people who had those types of plans. I would be incensed if I found out that my kid did not get admitted to a flagship, or other good state school, because of a parent’s participation in a plan like that. Maybe an investigative journalist needs to look into this in your state!
A 529 is a different sort of plan than the prepaid tuition plans referred to in #38.