LAC waitlisting and high financial need

Applying to College
1

<p>3/4 of the LACs my kid applied to waitlisted her; she has significant financial need. We are still waiting on her favorite school. </p>

<p>What is the point of schools doing this? Why not outright rejects? This is the Financial-Need-Waitlist-Deny thing going on. I've read here on CC about the accept/deny based on accepting but offering very insufficient FA. </p>

<p>Really, what is the point of waitlisting vs rejecting when FA is a big issue? </p>

<p>I was surprised to read that Smith meets full financial need of students taken from the waitlist.</p>

<p>Thank God for safeties.</p>

2

<p>It’s known admit/deny, some schools outright admit the student and offer no or little aid. Unfortunately this economy is causing more of this. Good luck to your daughter, I’m sure she’ll love her college experience despite these hiccups.</p>

<p>And while you never know, it’s widely believed the wait lists this year at all but the very wealthiest schools (and even there perhaps) will favor the full pay students. It’s pretty much a reality that these schools just need the money.</p>

3

<p>I’m not quite sure about this, but I think those who are need-blind continue to accept/deny based on the app itself, but the story is different for waitlisted kids who can afford to pay full expenses so that the whole $$ balances itself out for the school. I might be completely wrong tho.</p>

4

<p>At schools which are need-blind, they don’t know the financial need of the students they waitlist. So your question is somewhat irrelevant – she was waitlisted for reasons other than financial need.</p>

<p>If the LACs your daughter applied to aren’t financial need blind, that’s a different story. Perhaps they want to send out the message to your daughter that she was really close to being accepted. </p>

<p>There are many reasons why colleges decide to waitlist students. Financial aid is by no means the only reason, and you shouldn’t assume that your need for aid was the reason.</p>

5

<p>The point is so that people will be admitted from the waitlist if they still have available spots after the people who were already admitted have responded.</p>

6

<p>Well, I thought that everyone knew that the ‘need-blind’ of the LACs is not really need-blind, but need-aware, to some degree or another. </p>

<p>My point, mostly, is when the schools advertise that they meet 100% of financial need, what they DON’T tell you is that you have to get admitted to get that financial need met, and having financial need might affect that decision about whether or not to admit you…</p>

<p>“We meet 100% of the financial need of our students…but unless your kid is a genius, his/her chances of getting admitted with financial need are less than those with no financial need.” </p>

<p>I’m talking about significant financial need, with a <em>very</em> low EFC.</p>

<p>I naively thought that if my kid fell into the school’s range of stats, etc., that they’d get admitted. I was thinking stupidly that almost-need-blind was part of the ‘meet 100% of financial need’ thing. </p>

<p>Will hear from the last LAC today. DD knows that a significant financial-aid package must come with an acceptance, if there is one. Waitlists= no go. Luckily, the less expensive colleges are quite acceptable. She’ll have to attend grad school anyway, if her major remains anthropology. </p>

<p>Well, anyway, I know it’s a crap shoot, and with dd having a big financial need, we thought it would be worth the chance at the selective LACs that say they meet 100% of financial need. I mean, if the kid gets accepted, that’s great, right. I was just surprised at the 3 wait-lists, and one of those 3 was NOT a reach. </p>

<p>If my dd gets waitlisted at all 4 of the LACs, no one will be able to convince me that it wasn’t due to financial need. If those 4 were reaches, surely she would have been rejected at at least one of them…</p>

<p>Anyway, who can blame the colleges?? Their endowment funds took huge hits just like our 529 did. If I was going to dish out $30,000 or more to a needy student, why shouldn’t I want to give it to the needy student who is also a genius??? Two birds with one stone–merit $ and financial aid rolled into one.</p>

<p>I read the thread on how the LACs do the admission decisions–it’s got lots of articles, not just anecdotes. I understand that their money is limited. It was worth a try, anyway. I’ll let you all know how it goes with the 4th LAC later today.</p>

7

<p>There are a lot of policy variants at LACs. The problem, if you want to call it that, is that need blindness tends to correlate with selectivity. So it’s possible for the same student to be wait-listed at a truly need blind school because the competition is so intense and for the same student to be wait listed for financial reasons at a less selective, but need-aware school. The result looks the same, but I don’t think that you can conclude that the need-blind schools were not adhering to their underlying policy of being need blind.</p>

8

<p>I got accepted into a LAC which has had its endowment severely impacted by the economy — and I have an extremely low efc. Hope schools are really following the need blind procedure :)</p>

9

<p>There are just a few truly need-blind schools, and they follow the need-blind procedure; need-aware schools cannot and don’t claim that they do. </p>

<p>I’ve found need-aware schools to be open about their policies; this is typical: “… admission policy is need-aware rather than need-blind: the college can afford to give financial aid to just over half of students, and when the financial aid budget is tapped out for the coming year, financial need can affect admission decisions.”</p>

10

<p>dsc6: I don’t know where your daughter applied so can’t comment on their specific policies. But there is a difference between need-blind and meeting 100% of need. </p>

<p>There are LACs that are need-blind, which means your daughter’s need for financial aid is not considered as part of the admissions process. Some parents on CC argue that no school is totally need blind (because the percentage of financial aid recipients doesn’t change from year to year), but if we take these colleges at their word – then we have to believe that at least for the majority of their acceptances, financial need is not considered.</p>

<p>So I’ll repeat my initial statement: There are many reasons why colleges decide to waitlist students. Financial aid is by no means the only reason, and you shouldn’t assume that your need for aid was the reason.</p>