@Chembiodad yes, I realize that. My comment was tongue in cheek. I’m of the impression that most of the very selective colleges do not offer merit scholarships. Probably because they don’t have to.
@123France, yes,I assumed that! While yes they don’t have to, they also want to push every $ of Aid possible to Need;
- Percent of Students on Financial Aid: approximately 50%
- Average 2016-17 Financial Aid Award (scholarship, student loan, work-study): $47,003
- Financial Aid Budget: Nearly $40 Million
All of the highly selective schools are able to do the same, which is wonderful.
Considering Hamilton is around $66,000 per year tuition, R&B, colleges really need to make a concerted effort to be as need based as possible. I’ve looked at other forums where some students were very hesitant to apply ED to schools because they needed a good amount of FA. My brother and his wife just had a baby. I cannot even fathom what tuition will be when she’s ready for college.
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@123France, Yes, I know as we have two there at same time. I don’t understand that reasoning as a college will provide FA information at the time of ED acceptance and if its not affordable per the NPC previously assumed, you can move on - if its a meet 100% of demonstrated need school, they will meet the NPC need - understanding that its more of a guessing game outside of that relatively small group.
Well for the Class of 2035, it should be ~$100/year.
Posse match is 40-50% at ED. Each participating school accepts a "posse’ of about 10 students from a particular geographical area. Some schools may take 2 posses of 10 each from 2 different areas. To get to the 10 they accept, the posse foundation sends them approx. 20-24 applications.
Well for the Class of 2035, it should be ~$100/year. My brother lives in NYC. They just signed her up for nursery school when she reaches 2 years of age for $12K a year. That’s nursery school- 2 1/2 hours a day. He was grumbling about that! I informed him that private K-12 school in NYC is around $40k per year. I don’t know if they’ll have any more kids…
@wisteria100, thanks for the clarification. That’s a great acceptance rate - so around the same as Questbridge overall.
@123France, Private K-12 in NYC goes up to $50k, and that’s before other costs and donations.
I might have rounded to a more conservative 30% (from 29.52%) for the latter figure, but with the figures above, wouldn’t this convert to 1500 basis points (BPS), @Chembiodad?
Yes, that would be 1500 bps - moving too fast.
Best wishes to those awaiting ED II acceptances in the next couple of weeks!
Hi 4junior,
Hamilton P’21 here. I just read through this whole thread and your other thread Hamilton vs Vassar for EDII. Thought you might find this recent article in the Hamilton Spectator interesting https://spec.hamilton.edu/january-admits-not-granted-need-blind-status-in-admissions-d9fbb6815ae0
According to this article, Hamilton is need aware regarding January admits. So if you did apply for financial aid then they would factor your ability to pay into whether they’d admit your daughter as a Fall admit or a Jan admit—if I’m reading it correctly.
Not going to weigh in on if it’s fair or not that they offer these extra spots only to those who can afford that semester in London. As you will read in the article, not all of the Jan admits did the London program but most did.
Makes me think of when Wesleyan went from need blind to need aware back in 2013 or 2014. My oldest daughter graduated from Wes in 2016 but was admitted when Wes was need blind—not sure if it would have made a difference or not. Wesleyan meets 100% full need for all students but they say for the last 10% of the students they accept they consider if the student needs financial aid.
Glad your daughter decided to apply EDII at Hamilton. I totally understand how you feel about how your daughter would prefer to be a fall admit. If my daughter had been a Jan. she would have gone somewhere else. (She does receive financial aid but this article is the first time I realized that financial aid isn’t offered to Jan admits.) BTW my daughter thought Vassar was the school for her but we wouldn’t let her apply ED. She wound up being waitlisted at Vassar then looked at Hamilton with fresh eyes and realized Hamilton was the right place for her and was grateful she didn’t do ED at Vassar. She was offered admittance off the waitlist in May but stuck with Hamilton and hasn’t regretted it.
Good luck to your daughter and I hope the article provides some understanding of how they select the January admits and alleviates some of your concerns.
It does seem disingenuous for Hamilton to claim they’re need blind
when they’re in fact not so for January admits
https://spec.hamilton.edu/january-admits-not-granted-need-blind-status-in-admissions-d9fbb6815ae0
https://www.hamilton.edu/admission/finaid/needblind
@Sue22, Bowdoin, which is also a need-blind school, is need-aware for waitlist students, in addition to international students and transfers - https://www.bowdoin.edu/studentaid/prospective-students/need-blind-full-need.shtml
IMHO striving to be need blind for ALL applicants should be the goal.
Didn’t know that about Bowdoin. That seems disingenuous to me as well, but at least Bowdoin’s up front about it. Hamilton’s financial aid page says nothing about being need aware for January admits.
Upfront, buried in the small print? Maybe best to wait for Hamilton administration to comment officially as this is a student editorial in the student newspaper.
I actually think a lot of need blind schools are not need blind when it comes to the WL. They do after all have to balance a budget. Perhaps the Ivies don’t have to worry about that, but most others would. Hamilton extends aid to upperclassmen studying abroad, I would have thought the Jans who go to London would be considered to be under that program.
https://www.edvisors.com/plan-for-college/college-admissions/need-blind-admissions/
According to this link, only 5 need blind schools are need blind for the WL
@wisteria100, Not sure how to read that list since they only filled in the information for a few of the schools. According to the MIT admissions blog,
yet their need blind (waitlist) slot is left blank. It seems as if Edvisors filled out the info called for the most then left the last column blank unless a school specifically listed that they admit need blind from the WL.
I’m sympathetic to the needs of schools to balance the budget. My own kids are at a school that is only partially need blind (admits the majority of the class need blind then looks at the numbers for the last 10 or 20 percent) so even need blind for all US students not admitted from the WL sounds good. I just hate it when I feel like a school’s playing it a bit fast and loose.
BTW, readers should be aware that the list in post #117 contains many schools that are need blind but do not cover full need. IOW, they may take you but they won’t guarantee they’ll give you sufficient money attend.
@Sue22 You’re probably right about the edvisor list.
I don’t have a problem if schools have to be need aware for some, as these schools are very generous with aid. But they should be more up front. Does seem a little disingenuous if they claim need blind, and get the good press from that, but then have 45 Jan admits plus 33 WL admits plus 30 Int’l admits, they are not need blind for. That’s a significant portion of the class.