Grinnell to remain need blind ... for now

Colleges and Universities A-Z Grinnell College
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Following months of debate, Grinnell College announced Saturday that its board had voted to keep the institution need-blind in admissions. That news cheered many students and alumni who were alarmed when the college announced last year that it was considering the possibility of moving away from considering all applicants without regard to financial need. Last year's announcement caused a stir among private colleges because Grinnell's $1.5 billion endowment is among the largest of liberal arts colleges, leaving many wondering if this was a sign that more colleges would move away from need-blind admissions.

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<p>Read more: Grinnell</a> will stay need-blind, but seek more students with ability to pay | Inside Higher Ed
Inside Higher Ed </p>

<p>I guess this is good news for middle class families with a child planning to apply in the next two years, but it does make one wonder if slightly expanding the size of each class doesn't make the most sense to get more full-pay students who help subsidize those in need of FA.</p>

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<p>it’s not an issue of expanding the class to get more full-pay students – that would require getting away from need-blind admission to do so! That’s still a decision for preferential admission for some percentage of the class. Making the class larger comes with its own set of costs, too, I would think, especially with housing. </p>

<p>Grinnell has been working hard to increase its alumni donations. Its wealth is not as sustainable as a school like Williams, which has a comparable endowment but which generates significant income from alumni giving. That would actually make a big difference, I suspect. </p>

<p>I think that alumni have not given historically in part because they feel that Grinnell is “rich enough.” Now that the alumni understand the correlation between giving and maintaining campus diversity, perhaps this dynamic will change.</p>

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<p>Kington has talked before about ways to increase revenue while in theory remaining need blind–things like increasing the percentage of international students and recruiting from wealthy zip codes. I think when you do that type of stuff, it’s actually more intellectually honest to just go to a need aware policy, as other similar LACs (Macalester, Oberin) have, because in effect that’s what you are doing. When you are taking a kid from Greenwich or Scarsdale, you can pretend you don’t know that there is a very high likelihood that kid will be able to pay, but that’s a pretty thin figleaf.</p>

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<p>Of course you’re right SDonCC, and I’m sure that’s why they haven’t gone that route thus far. But maybe the Wesleyan model makes the most sense (not sure of the details but something like 90% need-blind and 10% need-aware) or something along those lines.</p>

<p>I didn’t realize until I read the article that Grinnell lags behind so many of its peers in annual fund-raising. That’s something that take a lot of time to develop, but I hope you’re right and that the successful alumni reconsider their own giving. Very important to have BOTH a well managed endowment AND big, unrestricted dollars coming in each and every year (and a few unexpected bequests from low-profile alumni who were smart investors never hurts either!).</p>

<p>nepop, funny you mention Grinnell possibly recruiting more heavily in wealthy zip codes. I was surprised that Grinnell wasn’t in attendance at the independent school college fair I visited last year on Philadelphia’s affluent Main Line. Maybe it was just a fluke, or maybe Grinnell attends the larger Main Line college fair instead, but looking over the list of college matriculations from my son’s school for the past five years, there are none from Grinnell, which seems like an ideal match on paper. None from Carleton either and only one from Macalester. </p>

<p>Frankly, the fact that these Midwestern schools are not hot commodities around here has a lot to do with my initial attraction to them as alternatives to the more highly sought-after schools in New England. Seems like a ripe opportunity for these MW LACs to pick up a few full-pay matches, but maybe they’ve tried in the past and it wasn’t worth the expense?</p>

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<p>No question Grinnell/Carleton/Macalester with 30% acceptance rates are attractive alternatives to NE LACs with 15%. But, yes, I think even with that these schools have been a tough sell with a lot of East Coast kids. 20 years ago, Grinnell was the dark side of the moon if you were from New England. As the world gets smaller, maybe not so much. Thus, Grinnell’s dramatic increase in applications over the last few years.</p>

<p>The only school visits/college fairs the Grinnell admissions rep for our state attended were privates and weathly school districts.</p>

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<p>The school has posted information on the website. This is one example of some of the discussion:</p>

<p>[Frequently</a> Asked Questions - President | Grinnell College](<a href=“http://www.grinnell.edu/offices/president/grinnells-finances-and-enrollment-management-strategies/faq]Frequently”>http://www.grinnell.edu/offices/president/grinnells-finances-and-enrollment-management-strategies/faq)</p>

<p>As usual, Grinnell is open, forthright and inclusive of the community in formulating and implementing its strategic initiatives.</p>

<p>I love their tagline: “Join the effort to keep Grinnell excellent, diverse and accessible.” That says it all.</p>

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<p>I come from a wealthy East coast district… but Grinnell does not visit our school. I think that we might be too conservative for them. Probably not a great use of their time… But from our perspective, those Midwestern LACs were fabulous fabulous fabulous and not just because of the reduced competition. My heart was sold on those schools for my kids over the East Coast LACs and I think that my peers here are really missing out by not looking at them more.</p>

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<p>nepop. what you are saying about intellectually honest approach may be true, but if you look at the percentages of FA students at Williams, Swarthmore and Amherst, all similarly high-endowed schools that are need-blind, they are at in the 50% range of student body who get aid. Grinnell is in the 80% range. How do those other schools get there? I suspect they do alot of recruiting in the wealthier areas…</p>

<p>It appears that historically, Grinnell has not done much to promote itself – and not just to attract high-income families – but just in general. In a variety of ways, the school is now working to change that.</p>

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<p>SDonCC–I also am sold on the Midwestern LACs. In fact, son #3 is applying only to Midwestern LACs. And not just because of the competition. And I agree that Grinnell gives a higher % of its students aid than Wiliams/Amherst/Swarthmore, though apparently not so much by choice. So, take my comments in that context. I think the difference between Williams/Amherst and Grinnell is that Williams/Amherst don’t have to recruit the East Coast prep schools and the Scarsdale and Greenwich Highs, Grinnell does. Williams/Amherst have a higher % of kids that went to private school, and no doubt a wealthier student body, without having to try all that hard. Notwithstanding that you and I get what it is that a Grinnell offers, I think it’s still a tough sell with an awful lot of East Coast kids and their families. I guess my point is that if you are going after a certain % of students who can pay full boat, why not just say that, make say 20% of your admissions need aware, get to the same place, but without the illusion that you are need blind. I’m not sure you help the cause of economic or other types of diversity by saying you are need blind but then recruiting in wealthly areas to up the number of full/high payers vs. being need aware with some percentage of your class.</p>

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<p>The problem is that the administration is doing a great job right now of using a lot of words while not saying anything. Not to mention that it seems almost wrong to continue to pretend that Grinnell is need-blind while stating things such as increasing merit-aid for wealthy students in order to increase yield of wealthy students, who then pay more than other non-wealthy students even though they get a 10k scholarship. Not to mention all the ridiculous programs the college still has money for. Yes, cutting course-embedded travel won’t save a lot of money, but it is a start, so why not start there before moving on to financial aid? </p>

<p>What surprises me most about this is how oblivious the college seems to be that this might drive even more alums away from donating to the college. If I were in the position to donate to the school, I would very much reconsider it, were my money to go to an already wealthy student who can afford Grinnell even without the 10k scholarship rather than to a student who actually needs the money.</p>

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<p>I doubt Grinnell is giving out merit aid to attract wealthy students. I suspect that the goal is to attract the best applicants who might not otherwise choose Grinnell. This is also a way to attract students from the east and west coasts who might not otherwise apply to the school.</p>

<p>To attract higher income students, Grinnell needs to attract students from the east and west coasts. That’s the primary way to decrease the numbers of students on financial aid. For the time being, Grinnell might need to do it with merit scholarships. After a few years, when high school graduates report back to their communities about how wonderful Grinnell is, other students will want to attend, too.</p>

<p>Clearly, one of Grinnell’s aims is to be taken as seriously by students throughout the country (and, maybe, the world) as they take Williams or Amherst. Whether that’s a suitable goal is a matter of opinion.</p>

<p>Lots of upper middle class families feel the pain of sending their children to private colleges, even if they do not qualify for financial aid. I see nothing wrong with a student from such a family choosing Grinnell over, say, Amherst, because of the $20K per year scholarship. Some alumni might applaud this effort in the interest of making their alma mater more competitive now and in the future. Others might feel they don’t want to contribute to scholarships for upper middle class kids. So far, Grinnell’s problem seems to be that they cannot get their alumni to donate anyway.</p>

<p>Personally, as a California parent of an applicant who did not receive merit aid and was not expecting it, I was very disappointed to find out that Grinnell is raising tuition. My daughter was attracted by Grinnell’s reputation for excellence, it’s liberal student body, and the fact that the fees were a little less than for comparable schools.</p>

<p>I believe schools should make determined efforts to be accessible to students from across the economic spectrum. Students with college-educated parents should be expected to have higher SAT scores than first generation college students. Yet, it’s a little unrealistic to expect schools that do not have both large endowments and steady streams of large donations to remain need-blind. </p>

<p>As a society, the best way to give access to high quality education to all students, regardless of income, is to improve public higher education. If not for declining support for the UCs, my daughter might have applied only to public colleges. There’s not really that much a few top LACs can do on their own.</p>

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<p>“I doubt Grinnell is giving out merit aid to attract wealthy students.” Actually, I think Grinnell has made pretty clear that is what it’s doing.</p>

<p>“Clearly, one of Grinnell’s aims is to be taken as seriously by students throughout the country (and, maybe, the world) as they take Williams or Amherst.” As an East coaster, I an tell you this is a long, long way off. A more modest goal–say to be competitive with Colby, Hamilton or Bates–is probably more realistic.</p>

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<p>nepop: I agree wholeheartedly with you that being competitive with Williams or Amherst is a long, long way off. Given Grinnell’s location in Iowa, I don’t think it will ever happen. </p>

<p>(BTW, I am originally from NYC and am more familiar with the NE than you seem to think.)</p>

<p>Although Grinnell ranks a little lower on USNWR college rankings than both Hamilton and Colby, I think the school is already essentially competitive with both of them. (My guess is that it always was.) Hamilton is an excellent but very regional school that attracts mostly students from the NE. Most of my daughter’s friends haven’t even heard of it.</p>

<p>If you google “chronicle of higher education” and “where does your freshman class come from”, you can find a very interesting interactive on this subject. Essentially, college students in the NE want to stay in the NE, and students from Illinois (probably the Chicago area) and the west coast are willing to travel anywhere to attend college.</p>

<p>What makes you think that Grinnell wants to give only applicants from wealthy families merit aid?</p>

<p>I suspect the truth is more complicated than you let on. The truth is probably that the most qualified applicants interested in attending Grinnell probably come from elite community public high schools and magnet schools. Many of these students come from families that might not qualify for financial aid but still feel the pain of college fees. They are willing to go to a slightly less prestigious college to save money, or, maybe, they didn’t win a spot in the lottery of admission to a top 10 school.</p>

<p>I am convinced that the students who have the easiest time getting admitted to top colleges are those who come from well known, elite private schools. When the admissions offices of various top colleges discuss their yield in May, I am sure they pay attention to the numbers of students enrolling from the top 20 prep schools in the country. These are kids who have choices of colleges in the NE and are not shut out in a lottery game. They also are more likely to have parents who donate more money to charity than it costs to send their kids to private colleges, so they would never choose a school based on finances.</p>

<p>I am delighted that the president of Grinnell seems to be acknowledging this dirty secret of recruiting from high end neighborhoods and schools. I am certain that all the top schools are guilty. But I don’t feel as badly about recruiting kids from elite community public schools and magnet schools.</p>

<p>With rare exceptions, each of the top 10 universities and top 10 LACs will not accept more than 2 or 3 students from my daughter’s upscale community public high school. That’s not the case with elite private high schools that send large numbers of students to all the Ivies, Ivy equivalent schools, Williams, Amherst, etc. If you look at the matriculation lists for places like Trinity in NYC, you don’t see a lot of students going to places like Grinnell, especially outside the NE, but they’ve sent dozens of students to Harvard in the last 5 years. These elite private school kids don’t face the same lottery in college admissions to schools in the NE. Most of the students at my daughter’s high school who don’t win the lottery of a spot at a top ten school wind up at UC Berkeley or UCLA, but they are ripe for Grinnell’s picking with a merit scholarship.</p>

<p>As I said earlier, my daughter did not receive merit aid. However, if Grinnell tries to attract some of her classmates at her ultra-competitive community public high school with 40+ NMSQT semi-finalists a year using merit scholarships, I don’t have a problem with it. And these students have earned it BIG TIME. The principal of my daughter’s high school doesn’t understand the big dreams the students have of attending an Ivy League college and doesn’t see any reason to help in ways I am sure a headmaster at an elite private school would. These kids face resistance every step of the way. </p>

<p>I know white middle class/ upper middle class kids with parents who are college graduates who have been attending a ho hum high school and have 4.0 GPAs and mediocre SAT scores. They have been having an easier time getting admitted to top private colleges early decision and early action (much to our surprise). So many colleges emphasize high GPAs (which are easier to achieve at less competitive HS) over high SAT scores and don’t want to accept too many students from any particular high school. My daughter is absolutely dismayed. She doesn’t understand why it should be easier for the kids she knows at a ho hum school to get admitted to college than for her. She has a lower GPA from a much more competitive HS, and she has much higher SAT scores. Given the competitive nature of her high school where students seek awards for everything they do, even her extra-curricular activities are more serious and more time consuming. If the students we know from the ho hum high school read more, their verbal SAT scores would be higher. Why should they be excused for having low verbal SAT scores? Their college educated parents read to them when they were little. There’s also a public library across the street from the high school I am thinking about.</p>

<p>The system is not fair. But I am a little sick of the condemnation the kids at my daughter’s high school receive. They’re fighting their own uphill battle, too. If Grinnell decides to award them or kids like them merit scholarships, so be it.</p>

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<p>Grinnell ranked above Hamilton and Colby for many years on these reports and was not that far off from Amherst and Williams. What I believe happened is that Grinnell refused to play the rankings game, develop specific strategies to increase their rankings. The college also did not really play the networking game. It was (and I think still is) one of the most principled colleges in the country. Meanwhile many other colleges were playing the rankings game, some cheating (many more have been caught I am sure). I applauded Grinnell for staying out of the game for a long time - but as people became obsessed with rankings over the last couple of decades I think it has begun to hurt so I have had to rethink. I like President Kingston a lot - he really, really wants to make Grinnell a more visible college. He is smart as hell and his heart is in the right place, but he has a strategy. Some days I agree, some days not so much. I don’t think he’s selling out that much, but it is sad when these things become relative.</p>

<p>Grinnell is trying to increase its yield with the early writes. This is psychology 101. Two major effects on choice are primacy effect and recency effect - you are more likely to attend the first or last campus you visit. Also Grinnell is very different from what people expect. The campus is really beautiful, but it is the sense you get from being on campus, the sense of shared community which really comes through. I think that will be more important as we enter a new time in our society, one in which community is becoming more important. The thing though is to get the students to the campus. And even if you didn’t get an early write - which is probably based at least partially on cynical premises - you should definitely visit.</p>

<p>Good luck to everybody. As I have heard from so many people, very few students regret choosing Grinnell.</p>

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<p>Let me be clear–I am not condemning anything Grinnell is doing. I think it’s a wonderful school, I hope my son ends up there. But, as has been discussed on other Grinnell threads, Grinnell is changing. CenterUSDad is right, Grinnell stayed out of the game for a long time, and seems to be figuring out to what degree and how it wants to play it.</p>

<p>nosering–my son is in the same situation. Ultracompetitive, rigorous Catholic school, a B+ average is a major accomplishment, no grade inflation. Compared to the local public his older brother went to, 75% of kids made honor role, the grade curve started at B+. Colleges don’t seem to be able to see the difference when it comes to admissions.</p>

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<p>I want to thank all of you who’ve shared your perspectives on this issue. I’ve been so impressed with the caliber (and the tone!) of the discussions on the Grinnell threads here on CC. Believe me, it has a VERY positive affect on this prospective parent.</p>

<p>From the very first time I read about Grinnell a year or two ago, I bookmarked it as school that I’d like my son to investigate when the time came to look at colleges. While I agree with those of you from the NE that there is a tremendous bias towards the big name east coast LACs, I really believe there is a self-selecting group of families for whom a school like Grinnell would really stand out. You’re absolutely correct, however, that it’s essentially unknown in these parts–although LACs in general aren’t that well-known or highly valued where I live, except among those (again) self-selecting families who sacrifice to send their kids to independent schools or who live in some of the more progressive school districts.</p>

<p>My son attends a very fine Quaker school (one of many here in the Delaware Valley), and while I have no idea how it ranks with other “elite” private schools in the NE (and, frankly, I couldn’t care less), it’s very competitive with other college prep schools in the area for students. While it’s true that the majority of these kids go on to schools in the Northeast, many travel to other parts of the country for college, including the Midwest, schools like Oberlin, Macalester, Kenyon, Columbia College, U. Chicago, and Wash U. We have friends whose daughter (rejected from Pomona), is now at Carleton. (I keep meaning to ask them if they looked at all at Grinnell for her.) </p>

<p>Personally, I’m glad Grinnell isn’t a popular school in these parts (yet anyway!) because it gives me hope for my son. In my mind Grinnell is every bit as impressive as Bates, Colby, Colgate, Middlebury and several other hot-ticket LACs in the NE. The distance factor is an issue, if I’m being honest, because of the expense involved in getting back and forth, but most families at my son’s school are much more affluent than we are. We’re going to need aid (need-based or merit) to make a private LAC work, but many folks could afford to pay full freight. </p>

<p>Perhaps Grinnell should consider focusing on families who choose Quaker and other more traditionally progressive secondary schools and/or high net worth zip codes that also skew Democratic as a way to target the kinds of families for whom a school like Grinnell would be an outstanding choice. Also targeting the faculty of other liberal arts colleges across the country, many of whom want to send their kids to LACs as well, might be a potential source of high-quality applicants. An Amherst, Williams, or Swarthmore professor’s kid might fall in love with Grinnell (especially if he or she is a fan of Marilynne Robinson!). All it takes are a handful of influential families to choose Grinnell, and many more will follow.</p>

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<p>the student newspaper has a great article on the situation:</p>

<p>[Trustees</a> vote to keep college need-blind, raise student revenue in other ways (updated)](<a href=“http://www.thesandb.com/news/trustees-vote-to-keep-college-need-blind-raise-student-revenue-in-other-ways-updated.html]Trustees”>http://www.thesandb.com/news/trustees-vote-to-keep-college-need-blind-raise-student-revenue-in-other-ways-updated.html)</p>

<p>LucietheLakie, I feel like I’ve heard that Grinnell already has alot of professors’ kids at the school. The school is well known in the academic world.</p>

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<p>Very surprised that Grinnell does not already use CSS. I believe that on average CSS results in 10 to 20% higher EFC. Does so by taking into account assets that FAFSA does not (e.g., home equity) and other sources of contribution such as non-custodial parent income and assets in divorce situations. SDonCC, you made the comparison earlier to Williams, Amherst and Swarthmore. I wonder whether this is a big part of the difference in terms of the wealth of the student bodies, those schools all use the CSS (as do most “elite” LACs). If Grinnell swtiched to the CSS, I would guess that it would make a big difference, it would result in higher revenue while maintaining a need blind policy. But also result in some kids choosing to go elsewhere because of the increased out of pocket cost.</p>

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<p>nepop - Grinnell’s fin aid forms (including NCP form) are pretty much covering all major sections of CSS. I spent more time finishing Grinnell’s forms then CSS. I think that Grinnell doesn’t want their students to pay CSS fees.</p>

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<p>great thread, thanks for sharing this info.</p>