<p>In state status does not affect financial aid awards at UVa. In anything, out of state students have bigger packages because their tuition is higher. I'm not a financial aid officer, but that's my guess.</p>
<p>"Need aware" could mean two things. On one hand, a school could be looking for what are called FTEs, full-tuition paying enrolled students. On the other, a school could use knowledge that a student is from a low-income family to understand parts of their application (goodness knows it's expensive to participate in certain activities and those prep courses are extremely pricey). Those are just assumptions on my part. I would think that a phone call to the schools to which you're applying would clear up their position on this issue.</p>
<p>I realized that only a few posts have addressed the OP's main question: does financial status play a role in admissions and how much. I think it's fair to say that for the vast majority of schools, ability to pay is a factor.</p>
<p>Some gross generalizations: The schools that are need-blind and meet 100% of a student's calculated need are generally among the most selective and best endowed. They tend to offer little or no merit aid. This link in post #8 gives a sense of just how small this group is.</p>
<p>Then there are schools that meet 100% of need and are need aware only at the lower cusp of admission. They try to admit the best qualified students regardless of need, but at a certain point, their FA budget is gone, and often, when it gets to the final cuts or wait list, they need to favor full-pay students, or students who who have minimal financial need. With some exceptions, these schools also tend to allocate relatively little of their FA money to merit money. Schools in this 100%-need-met, need-aware, little-merit category are still mostly among the relatively wealthy and selective. </p>
<p>The vast majority of colleges have to make hard choices: they simply can't afford to admit everyone they'd like and meet their full financial need. The good news is that many of these colleges use merit scholarships to try to compete for top students (some have big awards to just a few, others offer more awards in smaller amounts), but setting aside merit money inevatibly means having somewhat less for purely need-based grants. </p>
<p>On top of that, most colleges package financial aid preferentially: more outright grants to their most sought after students, more loans and work study to more average students. By checking out school's common data sets, College Board, USNews Stats, etc., you can usually figure out, in a rough way, where a particular school fits into this scheme.</p>
<p>Hah! in the the constant "CHANCES?" requests all over this forum, looks like STATS might not be as important as MONEY! - the ultimate tie breaker!, the dirty little secret of higher academia in the US of A!</p>
<p>I just saw that Lawrence University is now test optional. Next, just make it gpa- optional and better yet, just submit your parents' CSS profile.</p>
<p>and when they say they 'meet' a student's need, giving a bunch of loans is not really meeting the need since the principal still has to be paid. I know this one (truly) poor student who, after her first year owes $40,000! They hardly met her need.</p>
<p>Need blind is something of an oxymoron. How can these highly selective colleges shape a diverse socioeconomic class without peeking at financial information or otherwise finding out? Do they use proxies like suburban school, zip code or just make inferences based on essays?</p>