<p>I heard that Harvard (and every other university) prefers students who do not require financial assistance. This makes sense because Harvard wants to make money. If I don't apply for financial assistance to increase my chances of getting accepted into Harvard, can I apply for financial assistance afterwards?
How about for other top universities?</p>
<p>What you have heard is absolutely incorrect. Harvard is a nonprofit private college that is need-blind for all admitted students. For Harvard, you can apply for FA after getting accepted but it will give you less time to compare your package with other schools.</p>
<p>It depends upon the college. Harvard, Yale, Princeton and many other top schools have need-blind admissions – that means they do NOT consider a student’s ability to pay as part of the application’s process. So, you can apply for financial aid at any time during the process and it will not affect a college’s decision. However, other schools, such as Wesleyan, Stanford, Northwestern, Columbia and UPenn (to name a few) are need-aware – meaning that they DO consider a student’s ability to pay. See: [Does</a> Applying For Financial Aid Hurt Your College Admissions Chances? - Forbes](<a href=“http://www.forbes.com/sites/maggiemcgrath/2013/10/29/does-applying-for-financial-aid-hurt-your-college-admissions-chances/]Does”>Does Applying For Financial Aid Hurt Your College Admissions Chances?)</p>
<p>MeIsHM: If Harvard is a nonprofit college, what is the goal of the Harvard Corporation? I thought all private universities pursued profits.</p>
<p>gibby: For those other universities, do you know if I can say I don’t need financial aid, but apply for financial aid after I get in? (I’m also applying to Stanford and UPenn)</p>
<p>gibby - the article said schools like NU, Columbia and UPenn are need blind for Americans and need aware for internationals. </p>
<p>Harvard has deadlines for submitting FA application, so I do not believe you could apply for FA any time. Harvard is not specific about if a student’s family financial situation didn’t change then he/she would be eligible for FA later.</p>
<p>@oldfort: Thanks for the correction. Here’s a better article that highlights need-aware admissions policies for US students: [Across</a> U.S., colleges turn toward need-aware policies to manage financial shortcomings - The GW Hatchet](<a href=“http://www.gwhatchet.com/2013/10/24/across-u-s-colleges-turn-toward-need-aware-policies-to-manage-financial-shortcomings/]Across”>http://www.gwhatchet.com/2013/10/24/across-u-s-colleges-turn-toward-need-aware-policies-to-manage-financial-shortcomings/)</p>
<p>Clarification on Harvard’s Financial Aid: Harvard’s financial office does have deadlines for completing the CSS Profile and FAFSA, but those deadlines occur in March, long after SCEA acceptances have come out. That means for SCEA accepted students, it is possible to apply for aid after you have been accepted. However, as the RD acceptances are announced after the financial aid deadlines, it’s not possible to do the same thing, although a student could apply for financial aid in subsequent years.</p>
<p>The Harvard Corporation is just a governing board of the university. Its dogma is not to make profit.</p>
<p>Omni: you’re approaching this with a handful of misinformation. You’re not going to game admissions to those schools by applying w/o Fin Aid. So in your plan, you get accepted end of March, apply for Fin Aid, get an award before the May 1 reply deadline, and then decide if you can afford to go to the school? That’s a terrible plan.</p>
<p>The schools you’ve mentioned are need blind for admissions. And they are non-profit (look up what this really means). Advice from all the colleges: unless someone in your family can today, write a check for your next year’s expenses ($60K) from current savings, apply for Fin Aid.</p>
<p>gibby - I believe Harvard has deadline for both EA and RD, and if you miss the deadline you may not be eligible for FA. It is not to say that they couldn’t ask for additional information before they give you the final number. They may give you an estimate when accepted for EA and then give you the final FA number when they have your previous year’s tax return. But I don’t think they would accept FA application for EA students in the spring.</p>
<p>I don’t know Harvard’s FA policy well enough to say this, but at a lot of other schools won’t give you FA if you didn’t apply in the beginning, unless your family’s financial situation has changed. As an example, if your family’s income is 80K and you decided not to apply for FA, you won’t be eligible to get FA if your family’s income didn’t change. On the other hand, if at the time of application, your family was making 250K and you didn’t apply for FA, but due to loss of job, death, disability, your family’s income went down to 100k, then you may be eligible for FA after you matriculated. I know one of my family members recently tried to apply for FA after their son matriculated (at a different school) and they were denied.</p>
<p>@oldfort: With one child at Harvard, I’m familiar with their financial aid policies. For SCEA admitted students who did not indicate they needed financial aid on their application, they CAN apply for aid after being admitted so long as the applicant and their family files the FAFSA and CSS Profile by Harvard’s deadline. A student in this situation needs to call the FA office and speak with an officer to alert them that the student will be applying for aid.</p>
<p>I will defer to you on H’s policy. They have always been more generous than other institutions.</p>
<p>@MelsHM
This is really late, but I don’t think that you’re completely correct. Yes, schools like Harvard appear to be need-blind on the outside, and they may be non-profits. But they’re still universities - and universities are <em>businesses</em> (they sell their product - an education - to consumers, the students and parents). And businesses (even if they are non-profit) care about the well-being of their finances. This is the same for all universities. Just because a school is need-blind doesn’t mean that it doesn’t care whether it loses or gains money. If their goal was purely to provide an education and not play the political game surrounding college admissions, there wouldn’t be such things as “holistic” admissions or Affirmative Action. </p>
<p>I think that yes, for the most part, schools that say they are need-blind <em>are</em> need-blind. But on the condition that you apply for financial before the deadline. This way, they <em>know beforehand</em> how much money they have to ration out of their endowments or whatever to fund the students. If you don’t apply for aid (even though you need it), get accepted, and then ask the college for money. You’re, in a way, tricking the college. Colleges aren’t stupid. Most likely, they’ll either make up an excuse to not give you any/much aid. Or they’ll just tell you to apply next year with no guarantees.</p>
<p>
^^ That’s correct, but it’s a bit more complicated than what you might think. This is from my daughter-in-law who works closely with the Admissions Office at a top-ranked need-blind university. I suspect it’s the same at most need-blind colleges.</p>
<p>For each cycle of Admissions (SCEA and RD), there are many “rounds.” On the “first round,” every student is admitted to a need-blind institution without regard to whether they can afford the full-sticker price or not. Admissions is just looking at the student and determining if they have “the right stuff” – whatever that might be.</p>
<p>Then, once all students have been admitted, Admissions must reconcile the budget they were given by the university months before (usually in April/May of the prior year) with the students they just accepted. And they can’t go back to the University President and say “Oops, we have more students who need money than we have the budget for.” That’s not how it works. Every Admissions office is required to stick to their budget – and officers understand that they must enroll a certain percentage of students who pay the full-fare to help offset (along with their financial aid budget) those students that need aid. At Harvard, about 40% of students are paying the full sticker price – and that number has been pretty consistent for years. I don’t think it’s just happenstance. I think that after every student has been admitted on the “first round” without regard to need, there are subsequent rounds where Admissions might need to waitlist a certain number of either full-fare or financial aid students to make their numbers work. Admissions certainly knows after the SCEA round who is paying the full sticker price and who needs financial aid, and can adjust “their mix” during the second and third rounds of the RD cycle so they do not exceed their yearly budget. And I’m sure that Harvard sets aside a portion of their budget every year as some family’s circumstances change in mid-year (parent just lost their job) or if a student failed to apply for financial aid when they initially applied, but find they need the aid to attend.</p>
<p>Gibby, if true, that’s troubling, as it directly contradicts this statement on the Harvard website:</p>
<p>Financial need does not impact your acceptance to Harvard College. Our admissions process is “need-blind” for all, including international students.</p>
<p><a href=“Affordability | Harvard”>https://college.harvard.edu/admissions/choosing-harvard/affordability</a></p>
<p>It doesn’t contradict the statement, as everyone IS accepted to Harvard without regard to need. It’s only after thousands of students have been accepted on the first round that numbers are possibly crunched. </p>
<p>A yes goes to your question. Absolutely no barrier for you applying for FA after your admission. The most significant drawback (which might not be) is that you might not have a platform (on time) to weigh or compare the FA from other colleges. I think that you shouldn’t worry about Harvard’s quest for Profit, they are private but actually receive HEAVY endorsements from the government every single year (same for the other Ivies). I am yet to confirm the fact that FA negatively affects admission decisions in Harvard, well said huge FA request does have a seemingly negative effect in several colleges!!! </p>
<p>“I think that after every student has been admitted on the “first round” without regard to need, there are subsequent rounds where Admissions might need to waitlist a certain number of either full-fare or financial aid students to make their numbers work.”</p>
<p>If that’s true, then Harvard is lying about being need-blind across the board. If you’re need-blind except for the wait list, or except for the last 40 students admitted every year, then you’re not need-blind the way Harvard claims to be.</p>
<p>I agree that it doesn’t look like a coincidence that the percentage of full-pay students doesn’t vary much from year to year. That said, in practice, admitting from certain high schools is coextensive with admitting full-pay students. They know what that part of the class is going to look like. </p>
<p>Harvard (and other colleges) never have said they are need-blind “across the board,” so if in fact that is what is going on, they are not technically lying. </p>