I read somewhere that these need-blind college admissions are not truly need-blind as they know if you need financial aid. From the common app, I don’t see a place asking me if I am applying for financial aid. For example, NYU does not ask me if I need financial aid on the common app. Does that mean it’s truly need-blind?
Lots of schools ask on the app. Most admissions and fin aid work independently.
Even IF the college asks you if you are applying for aid on the application, that doesn’t mean that admissions will know your LEVEL of financial need.
Schools that are need blind don’t take your financial need into consideration.
Schools that are need aware could take your financial need into consideration.
Bottom line….if you need financial aid…apply for it!
I think you have your terms confused. Regardless of if they asked on common app and most do…they will know by if you fill out a fafsa and CSS.
Need aware means they, in theory, could use the amount you need in the admissions decision. Need blind means they will not factor in your need to make an admission decision.
You may be asking does NYU guarantee to meet 100% of demonstrated need. NYU Does not but many schools do.
Here’s every school that meets need. But some, like Lafayette, are need aware.
Need blind schools….the admissions department has no idea if the student completed a FAFSA or Profile. Those forms are in the financial aid office, not the admissions office.
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But I don’t think that was the question. Or I took the question to be how would the school know…I wasn’t specifying admissions per se
@cqian8828 Can’t speak for all schools, but I can say this from our personal experience. I have my kids 182 days per year and my ex is with them 183 days. Therefore, she is considered the custodian and is responsible for financial aid forms, until/unless the college asks for the second parent’s information. My eldest applied to Vanderbilt. Vanderbilt admitted her. A couple of days later she told me Vanderbilt Financial Aid contacted her and said, “Congratulations and we notice your custodian did not fill out the financial aid forms. We advise you to do so.” Her mother completed the forms (they did not ask me for my financials) and the aid was absolutely fantastic. There was no upside for Vanderbilt Admissions to accept her if money was an issue and there was no upside for Vanderbilt Financial Aid to go out of their way to ask my daughter to apply for aid. Obviously, Vanderbilt honors the term need-blind.
Are you saying you don’t trust them to be honest about their admission policies because of something you “read somewhere”?
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Just an FYI…this is changing for the 2023-24 academic year. The parent who provides the most support will be the custodial parent, not the parent who the child lives with most.
@kelsmom do I have that right?
@bloomfield88 Vanderbilt reserves the right to ask for financials from the non-custodial parent even though they don’t typically require the non-custodial profile. Not sure how often they ask for this information .
By law we do 50-50 support. Oh well, doesn’t affect us anyways. Our last one graduates in 2023. Regarding the question, the semantics are immaterial. The point is Vanderbilt is truly need-blind.
I never understand why people don’t believe schools are need blind FOR ADMISSIONS when they say they are. If a schools doesn’t want to be need blind, it can just change to need aware. No big deal, no points lost. If someone needs a lot of aid they might decide not to apply to a need aware school, but so what - they weren’t going to go there anyway if there was not a lot of aid, and isn’t it better to know up front than after you are accepted and can’t afford it?
There are need blind schools that promise to meet 100% of need as they define it. Very difficult to get into. There are need aware schools that promise to meet 100% of need, and some even say as the class fills they become even more aware and that they do not meet 100% need off the waitlist or for transfers.
And then there are hundreds of schools that are need blind and don’t meet 100% of need. They give the aid they think you need or what they can afford, and know that for some students that won’t be enough. That’s how it is.
Could you tell the name of the blog and quote the essential info? Some folks f us don’t open blog links here
In the end, I guess you need to figure out who you think is lying, an admissions office or a blog from a company that will take your money to help fix it.
And if it’s the admissions office, does that mean you beleive everything else they say about test-optional, holistic admissions, etc, etc., is also a charade.
Ivy Coach, an ($$$$$) admissions counseling service. The essential info can be summed up as “they are lying, we know people” and the straightforward quote “most colleges are lying through their teeth.” (ending with “ We look forward to hearing from you”)
Well there you have it. If someone wrote it on the internet, it must be true. 
Believe the colleges. Don’t believe the colleges. What other option do you have? And does this change your selection strategy?
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If a college wanted to gauge your ability to pay they could start with your zip code.
However, I think colleges are upfront in how their admissions process works.
Need aware schools are more likely to meet demonstrated need where a need blind school might admit students without providing enough aid for them to attend.
IME, the estimated price calculators are a good place to start.
Life would certainly be easier if everything was more black and white.
I am skeptical about how “need blind” schools really are, or if there is a sliding standard for applicants. Several things make me skeptical. First, the percentage of prep school kids that get into T20 and other prestige privates seems disproportionate to how selective these schools seem to be. Second, anecdotally, I know some prep school kids that have gotten accepted to top universities that had absolutely no business getting into those schools. Third, it is quite a coincidence regarding the percentage of accepted kids at top schools that come from families with over $200k a year income.
College applicants from families in the 1 percent have an edge (cnbc.com)
Correlation does not equal causation, but that is one heck of a correlation.
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What? You don’t think WUSTL is after an economically diverse class?
From 2017 - The median family income of a student from WashU is $272,000 , and 84% come from the top 20 percent. About 1% of students at WashU came from a poor family but became a rich adult.
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D20 attends a school that ranks similarly to WashU - and gets a very significant need-based FA package. The school is need aware and has been shifting to much more generous FA policies including a sliding scale for tuition that ranges from free to 10% of income, up to $125K. If you just read the headlines, it looks rosy. Deeper delves into data show acceptance rates have been decreasing and the percentage of students getting aid is decreasing. They take a few “needier” students and give them more money and take more students who need less.
You love to bang that drum, don’t you? They definitely screwed up on inclusion, but the numbers you cite are for students born in 1991. Those “kids” are 30 now. The data used in the study is 12 years old.
If you want to look at something recent, look at their Pell numbers compared to other peer private schools. This years class is 18% eligible IIRC. That’s a far cry from where they were 12 years ago (6% I believe). While still slightly below the “most selective” 20 or so private universities, it is far from the worst offender today.