<p>So the name of the GW student newspaper is The Hatchet. Would that make this story a Hatchet piece?</p>
<p>Confound it!! Is there anything anymore about the College Admissions process today that’s truly honest and transparent? An American university caught lying for gain. What a disgrace.</p>
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<p>An open admission community college’s admission process is quite transparent.</p>
<p>So are admit-by-numbers admission processes, although then people might argue that high school grades, class rank, and standardized tests are not as transparent as they should be.</p>
<p>Of course, cost and financial aid can be much less transparent than admissions. Even with net price calculators, comparing costs is a more laborious task that needs to be done on an individual student/family basis for each school.</p>
<p>“Some counselors have told me that they suspect some schools are need aware as they track the acceptances , WLs, and Rejections over time, even though the schools say they are not.”</p>
<p>They don’t have to suspect. My alma mater - #1 so-called need-blind LAC - published an article in its alumni magazine where a reporter sat in on the admissions process, and recorded how the admissions director recorded every “socio-ec” admit. Every school that makes use of Questbridge is openly using need in its calculations (and decides how many to admit, and how many not to, at least partially based on need). H. designed its new financial aid policy in part to ensure a supply a stream of lower-income athletes to whom it couldn’t officially offer "athletic scholarships. </p>
<p>There are no great secrets here. They are need-aware. The only question is how they use the information.</p>
<p>Many that are using Questbridge do so to get the socio econ students that they can admit often DESPITE the fact that they would be rejected just on their apps, their stats on a need blind basis. I’ve seen such apps and the sad truth is that income and academic success are strongly related. It’s difficult to get students with heavy need that meet how the cuts are being made at those college with high academic threshholds. Those kids also are not in special alum, development, athletic pools in the numbers that the high income kids are. So they lose out on those exceptions too. </p>
<p>The kids I am talking about by the way, are still from familiies that are not “poor” when it comes to mid fifty percent of income levels for families with colllege aged kids in this country. They are not PELL eligible. They have demonstrated PROFILE need, but would not get aid for our state schools, for example. They are familiies making $50-150K and qualify for financial aid at private colleges now charging in the neighborhood of $60K a year. </p>
<p>A counselor tracking these things can note if a school like GW is turning down on a regular basis such kids that have such need vs “lesser qualified” kids with no need, if the schoool is on the app lists heavily. Recording ever sorio-ec admit is a whole other story. they may be doing so to pull in more of such kids who would not be accepted on a truly need blind basis. </p>
<p>Which comes to a question of whether a school is need blind in admissions when it gives low soci-ec kids a boost in admissions, which a number of top schools do, and they say they are need blind. That’s not true either.</p>
<p>“Many that are using Questbridge do so to get the socio econ students that they can admit often DESPITE the fact that they would be rejected just on their apps, their stats on a need blind basis.”</p>
<p>Of course that’s true! That’s why they have to be NEED AWARE, rather than need-blind. And they need to be sure they don’t take too many of them, so getting them through Questbridge makes their lives easier, so they don’t - perish the thought - ever have to set foot in a low-income school. Every school in the country has what is called a budget, and has to pretty much stick to it.</p>
<p>Hi Everyone, I’m currently a student at GWU looking to get a grasp on what the general reaction to this story is by prospective students and parents of those students. Many of you seem to be very adamantly disgusted by this; others seem too jaded to be disgusted. I would message some of you privately, but apparently, I need to have made a certain number of posts to do that. So @shellfell, could you tell me a little more about your realization about your waitlisted-turned-admitted son? @bluebayou, did you end up changing your mind about GWU? Recommending against it to other parents? I welcome any of your responses as to how this story (or perhaps some other stories about GW) affected your child’s decision to apply to the school or your overall outlook on the school. If you’d like to email me instead, you can reach me at <a href=“mailto:sschaeffer@gwmail.gwu.edu”>sschaeffer@gwmail.gwu.edu</a>
Thank you.</p>
<p>^^GWU was a safety for my D, so being need-aware was a non-factor – she was accepted in RD with merit money. But there were other colleges that she liked better; after all the visits, it became clear that she was not big on urban campuses… </p>
<p>(Lying about being need-blind is just stupid, but did not impact much our opinion of the college.)</p>
<p>Even the need blind colleges manage to accept the same (small) number of needy kids year after year after year. While I’d prefer colleges say, look our budget for financial aid is X and once we’ve spent it there’s no more in the pot in the grand scheme of things it doesn’t make much difference. Most schools will accept some needy students and there’s no way to predict if you will be one of them. They just have to like you enough.</p>
<p>There have been some stories over the years about enrollment management consultants using sophisticated formulas to help colleges maximize the number of full pay or close to full pay students. Some of those stories involved doing online research on the market value of the houses of applicants. (of course, that may just tell you that one family is more in debt than another family with a cheaper house). Many colleges certainly know that specific prep schools are most likely to supply high income students.</p>
<p>Apparently, the most common policy for need aware colleges is to accept students with high need who are at the top of their applicant pool (for academics or athletics), but to avoid students with high need who are marginal for admittance. For example, the top students accepted during the regular admission cycles may have financial need, but the waiting list students are likely to be all full pay. That system is easy to administer, because the university is likely to have all of the student’s financial info when they make offers from the wait list, but the university may not have all of the financial info when they make early action admittances. </p>
<p>There are some upper middle income students who debate each year whether they should check off the box on college applications that they intend to apply for financial aid. For certain colleges, they fear it will hurt their admissions chances, and may not be worth the risk if they don’t expect to be eligible for much aid.</p>
<p>Yes, there are some universities that admit students with high need, but then expect the family to take out a huge amount of Parent PLUS loans each year to make up for the gap in the university’s financial aid.</p>
<p>Thank you, everyone for your feedback. I am a writer and DJ for WRGW News (GW’s radio) and this is for an article. If anyone would like to post, private message me, or email me with their name and where they’re from, I’d appreciate it. If you wish to remain anonymous though, that’s completely understandable and I will respect that.</p>
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<p>That was probably more of a dilemma before net price calculators. Now these applicants can use the net price calculators to see if they are likely to get any financial aid before deciding whether to apply for financial aid. Of course, a need-aware admissions school probably cares how much financial aid the student may need, so merely checking the box may not matter much if the applicant is in the range of $0 to $1,000 in financial aid (i.e. just at the threshold of need versus no need).</p>
<p>My D is a 2012 graduate of GWU, and I was never under the impression that they were need-blind in admissions. I don’t think most of their literature said that, certainly nothing I read from them did. Of course I learned about need-aware admissions here on CC, so I wasn’t assuming anything either.</p>
<p>D’s college was recently dinged in the media for being openly need aware. The college’s practice is to only fund needy students with top stats - but to fund them fully. They have one of the lowest Pell admit rate - I think right after GW. The net result is that needy kids get more funding if admitted - which is good for the kids.</p>
<p>Kennedy, I have no problem at all for those schools that are openly need aware. This way those kids with financial need can weigh that into their equation as to whether they should spend the money and time for an app to such a school or use one of app waivers for things also needed in the admissions process, or not. Many of the need aware schools do meet a goodly percentage of the need of those kids they do accept. Whether those schools that are need blind in admissions but just gap students terrilbly are better is subject to debate. As long as the infor is up front, it’s up to the applicant.</p>
<p>GW was being deceptive which probably netted them some extra applicants, some of whom they denied due to need, and that just upped their selectivity score. They deserve to get slammed for this.</p>
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? I’m not understanding this, mathmom.</p>
<p>If one of the rejected kids is better than some of the first 95%, then he would have been in the first 95%. They take some kids (1-2%, from what Admissions said) who are full-pay only, and might reject some kids that they would rather have taken than those 1-2%, but they wouldn’t reject someone whom they liked better than those who were in the initial round of need-blind admissions. They would take that person and bump someone else down to need-aware.</p>
<p>Unless an Admissions Office comes right out and gives their methodolgy, it’s impossible to know for certain. And that’s assuming they are being upfront when they do say. One school I know simply goes through the whole thing on a need blind basis but gives the accept list, A, B, C designation. The designation means nothing if you have no need. But if you do, the As and Bs will get the fin aid packages and the C’s will get what’s left. If the money doesn’t make it through the C list, kids will be rejected. That’s when enrollment management steps in. Better to get 10 kids needing $5K apiece , rahter than one kid who needs $50k. A high need kid on the C list is likely to get bumped. not so much a low need one, and none of the no need kids.</p>
<p>I see it as a violation of trust. Applying to college is expensive. If the school advertises one policy but secretly implements a different – less advantageous – policy, that’s committing a fraud on the applicants who relied on the school’s statements. It is also hard to reconcile that practice with GWU’s academic integrity policy and expectations that students submit honest and accurate information.</p>
<p>As noted, it doesn’t have to be a “less advantageous” policy. There are schools who claim to be need-blind but are quite need-aware so they can be sure to include enough low-income students (but not too many!) There are others (and GW may be among them) that might be working toward being need-blind, but don;t guarantee to meet 100% of need. Why admit students you are pretty sure won’t be able to afford to attend? that’s cruel! Being need-aware might be advantageous to many.</p>
<p>airiesathena, I don’t understand what Tufts says they are doing either. I think they go through and accept everyone they want until the Financial Aid guys says they have run out of money. Then they are need aware for the rest, but I suspect if someone in that last 5% is truly wonderful, they’d pull a needy but less desirable applicant out of the accept pile if they had too. If you apply ED obviously they can’t do this, but no one else hears early. I do think Tufts tries not to gap needy students. If they accept you, you should be able to afford to attend. I’m no financial aid expert though.</p>