<p>I would never share my income level with a GC, I think the only way they could (should) know is if the student had free/reduced lunch and fee waivers that they had to sign.</p>
<p>There are many ways of skewing your student body toward higher income students without being overtly need-aware. You can fill a large percentage of your entering class with ED applicants, who tend on average to include more full-pays because applicants with need are often reluctant to pre-commit to attend without having the opportunity to compare FA offers. If you’re an elite private college with an affluent alumni base, you can admit a lot of legacies who will tend to skew higher-income than the rest of the applicant pool. You can recruit heavily at elite private prep schools whose applicants will tend to skew higher-income than public school applicants. You can recruit heavily at the “best” suburban public high schools which will tend to be in high-income school districts. You can recruit athletes for sports like crew, sailing, skiing, golf, and squash that tend to skew higher-income. Heck, you can just place a heavy weight on SAT scores, because it’s well known that high SAT scores are a better predictor of household income than of success in college. It’s not entirely an accident that at many elite private colleges, 50% to 60% of the students are full-pays, despite COAs now reaching $60K per year or more.</p>
<p>And once you’ve done all that, you can admit a few first-gens and Questbridge applicants and then give yourself a congratulatory pat on the back for doing your part for upward social mobility.</p>
<p>D’s college is need blind, but in addition to the FAFSA they need CSS Profile and their own profile disclosure. Our income dose qualify for aid, but we did not get a penny because we had too much assets CSS profile and their own profile form made us ineligible. So whats need blind whats not it is nebulas.</p>
<p>If the GW student is still here…</p>
<p>Falsely claiming to be need blind gave GW an advantage over other colleges which had the same policies as GW really has but told the truth. The greater the # of applicants to a college, the more selective it appears to be. Colleges that are need blind attract a greater # of applications for at least 2 reasons. (1)Students who NEED $ are more likely to apply to need blind colleges. (2) Many students, as a matter of principle, only apply to need-blind colleges. That’s especially true if a college is a “reach” for them; they like knowing that they didn’t get in just because their parents were able and willing to foot the bill. By lying about its practices, GW made admission to it more competitive than it otherwise would have been–thus unfairly beating out more honest administrations in US News and other rankings.</p>
<p>At some NYC public magnets, the # of private colleges to which students can apply is limited. It’s now up to 8 at my offspring’s alma mater, but that still means you have to pick where you apply carefully. Many of the students need fin aid. They are very unlikely to waste an app on a school that isn’t need blind.</p>
<p>Out of curiosity I checked Naviance for one of the NYC public magnets. Looking at it…I don’t think GW is telling the truth even now. It has rejected students with extremely high GPAs and SAT scores–stats WAY above the average of students that GW accepts from the school. If there was only one such case, I’d think there was some problem with the app. However, IMO, it happens too often for that to be the case. I suspect that GW is rejecting high stats kids who need full rides. That impression is strengthened by one of the comments to the story–by a Harvard student who was also accepted by Brown and Stanford(?), but wait-listed at GW. She is receiving very generous fin aid from Harvard.</p>
<p>What makes all this even worse is that GW was already “outed” for lying and using admitted student stats as enrolled student stats. When it corrected that falsehood it should have also corrected this one.</p>
<p>I’ll hazard a guess that there’s a line outside the counselors’ offices at any high school that limits the # of applications. In that line are the students who need fin aid and applied to GW. They’ll be arguing that due to this lie they ought to be allowed to apply to an additional college.</p>
<p>So, what other schools are doing this? How/Are schools going to become more transparent? Will they fink each other out to the press?</p>
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<p>The simplest is to not give very much financial aid grants. Then most of the high need students won’t attend because it is too expensive for them. (However, the few foolish enough to attend on excessive private student loans or parent loans might worsen the graduation rates when they run out of money or borrowing capacity before graduation.)</p>
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<p>Or [lacrosse</a>, the sport of future investment bankers](<a href=“Businessweek - Bloomberg”>Businessweek - Bloomberg).</p>
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<p>GW has been known to reject or waitlist kids who seem insufficiently interested in the school. They don’t like being a safety (since that also reduces yield) - so it’s possible that also played into what you see on Naviance. </p>
<p>I got this straight from our GC when GW was still on my son’s list as a warning to demonstrate interest and to make sure they knew we had visited.</p>
<p>Good thing the bar for girls lax is so much lower…stick and goggles and she’s set. Camp and tournaments…those are really pricey for any sport.</p>
<p>In reference to lacrosse, my son went to an urban public high school and paid about $75 towards the cost of his gear for varsity lacrosse. He then bought his own gear second hand after high school graduation for about $150, with the intent of playing for an intramural team in college. </p>
<p>In reference to athletes thinking that their athletic ability will pay their way through college, there is a need for a real reality check. First, if you are serious about a sport, it may make it impossible for you to work during much the school year and during much of the summer. Many employers want to hire someone for a few months at a time, with regular availability, which may not be possible. That lost income needs to be considered. </p>
<p>Second, the vast majority of colleges are Division III schools, which are forbidden by NCAA regs from offering any athletic scholarships. The NCAA even checks financial aid info from individual schools to make sure they are not giving athletics more need or merit aid compared to non-althletes. The number and amount of athletic scholarships available from Division II schools are strictly limited for each sport. For Division I schools, considering the amount of time needed for many sports, you have to wonder if you would come out ahead in life if you put that same energy into more studying and internships.</p>
<p>My daughter is a freshman who plays a Division III sport. That college is affordable to her because of merit aid based upon her ACT scores. She never paid more than $50 to be on a team before college, but she plays alongside women who paid thousands of dollars a year in fees and travel expenses to be on tournament teams during high school.</p>
<p>D is a crew kid - and all a kid needs to row crew is a good pair of socks.</p>
<p>^ curious what kind of fees for the boat/dock/whatever, or is that covered by public school?</p>
<p>D rowed for a club targeting kids that wouldn’t necessarily be able to access the sport on their own. Some kids were full pay - which was ~$1,500 per year - and others paid nothing. There are actually a couple different programs in our area that offer this type of setup.</p>
<p>Nice. We have a similar program though it is a good 45 minutes away so not a good option for D…who I think would really enjoy the sport.</p>
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mathmom: my understanding is that the truly wonderful student would have already been part of that 95%. </p>
<p>Most schools admit from the top top and reject from the bottom up. So part of that is deciding who is truly wonderful and taking them before they’ve taken 2,500 other people.</p>
<p>^Yes assuming they do a first read, and accept part of the class quickly, but from reading the admissions blogs, it sounds like they go through the folders one by one. I only know how grad student admissions worked at Columbia, but what would happen there was three people would read the folder (1 student, 2 profs) and each would score it, top scores got accepted, low scores got rejected. Maybe some in the middle got a second read, but not by me (a student reader.)</p>