Is anyone aware of a recent list of “need-aware” colleges? I have this from 2010 but don’t know if there is something more up to date:
http://www.usnews.com/education/articles/2010/03/23/colleges-where-need-for-aid-can-hurt-admission-odds
You can find this info on specific college websites as well. Are you looking for specific colleges and their policies?
thanks @thumper, DS and I looking somewhat broadly so we are trying to get a list (and maybe the linked one is the one we’ll have to go with to jumpstart our research
The critical thing to remember about “need aware” colleges, is that if they do want your kid, they will find the money for your kid. It is only when the student isn’t particularly interesting, and has a big need, that they don’t admit them.
Wouldn’t web scraping all of these pages for all possible schoolId numbers yield the list of schools that report need-awareness in their common data sets? Example:
http://www.collegedata.com/cs/data/college/college_pg02_tmpl.jhtml?schoolId=456
I think it is easier to find a list of need-blind schools. We use the one on Wikipedia. Note that need-blind and meet full need are two different categories.
The vast majority of colleges are need blind, but only a small percentage of those claim to meet full need, and that claim is not worth much by itself, since colleges have various definitions of “need” that they will fully meet.
The list of need blind colleges on Wikipedia is very incomplete.
If the point of this exercise is to maximize need-based financial aid, I would focus less on whether a school is need blind or need aware and more on whether it guarantees to meet full need.
Need aware schools often do offer substantial need-based aid, and admissions at need blind schools are skilled at guessing at applicants’ probable need; however, financial packages at schools that guarantee to meet full need are usually reasonably close to the estimated figures in their net price calculators. As always, there are exceptions.
A school can have an accurate net price calculator without necessarily having good financial aid or claiming to meet full need. For example, a school with poor financial aid might show a high need student a truthful estimated net price of an unaffordable $30,000 or so.
I’m not sure there is a single authoritative list; nor can we be sure of accuracy. We found for example, that Brandeis did not make the US News list for need-blind, but were listed on Wikipedia. We called Brandeis directly to clarify and they stated they were need blind.
We tend to be looking at need-blind in conjunction with meet-full-need and Wikipedia shows these different permutations.
ETA: added the other poster’s name
It is the need blind without the claim of meeting full need where the list is extremely incomplete. Such a list would probably include thousands of colleges.
Remember, the “meet full need” claim is not very useful, since colleges have varying definitions of “need”. Use the net price calculator instead.
I would disagree with anyone dismissing need awareness as a factor. Meeting full need is obviously the most important factor but need awareness can have a very big impact. My advice is check common data sets for amount of financial aid given in previous years. Also if you require substantial aid pell grant percent is good to check. Obviously you have to take into account school size but this will give you a good idea of how generous a school is and how much need awareness will matter. For example I applied to a number of need aware schools with around 2000 students. A few of these schools gave as little as 10M per year many gave around 30M and a few gave more than 45M. There’s obviously some big differences in budgets and how need aware school will be.
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There are certainly situations where a need-aware school with a lot of applicants will decide against the student needing financial aid.
Also, meeting full need can mean different things to different universities. And, it isn’t just in the funding side of the equation where you see the discrepancies; for some universities, meeting full need might mean not including things like flights to campus, or books in the expenses side.
The point could also be to find colleges where NOT needing aid is a competitive advantage? That could be useful too.
For US citizens and US Permanent residents, the overwhelming number of colleges in the U.S. Are Ned blind, which means that your ability to pay will not be a factor in the admissions process. I don’t consider this to be a big deal because on the financial aid side, most colleges don’t meet 100% demonstrated need. At some schools the gap can be very small, while at others it can be very big.
As someone previously mentioned , if a school really wants your kid and your kid meets the institutional mission niche they are trying to fill, schools will definitely do preferential packaging to make themselves more attractive to you.
The other side of this coin is that there are a number of schools that will admit deny, meaning that they will academically admit you, but will not give you enough money to attend. A few years ago BU straight out stated that while they are need blind, they are not talent blind when it comes to giving out their money and will offer generous packages to the students they want.
At schools that are need aware/ need sensitive, this process usually does not kick in until toward the end of the process when they are exhausting their budget. A school will decide when it comes to similarly qualified candidates where should they spend the money; should they spend $50k funding one student or give 5 $10k merit scholarships as a way of tuition discounting 5 full pay families.
I think what you need to do as a family is have the money talk now about how much you are willing to pay or borrow for college. Then use a bottoms up approach to find the fattest schools on your list; safety schools. A true safety should meet the following criteria; a school where your child is likely to be afmitted( preferably through rolling admissions/ early action), a school that offers what your child is interested in, a school that is a financially feasible option for your family ( automatic guaranteed merit is a plus) and if it is the last school standing, your child will be happy to attend. If you can get 2/3 of these on your list ( because everyone likes having options) you are halfway there.
Then use the net price calculator but be reminded that the estimate is inky going to be as good as the information you submit. It can have great inaccuracies for divorced families. Single parent households where the school does require information from the no. Custodial parents, business owners, people who own real estate outside of their primary hone.
Most schools don’t care about agreements or court orders stating who should pay what for college. Parents are first in line when it comes to paying for their kid’s college education. When parents say no, they are essentially saying let other people’s parents pay ; full pay parents, taxpayers. Parents who contribute to their schools).
I hate to sound like a broken record citing “my neighbor” but they made a lot of mistakes. One was taking the advice of a hired counselor not to fill out any FA forms. The kid applied to one Ivy and a number of need aware schools. The family is doing pretty well but not stratospherically well and likely would have received some aid, but I think the counselor wanted to maximize admission results for his own ego. Well . . . the kid was admitted to a number of need aware schools that he could not attend because he applied as full pay but they somehow didn’t pay attention to the sticker price. If you really can pay out of pocket comfortably it can give an admissions boost but if you can’t or are on the edge it isn’t a sound strategy. (not that OP was planning to do this, but it is one data point)
Re: #14
The practice of “preferential packaging” is basically embedding (unadvertised) merit scholarships in what are ostensibly need-based financial aid packages. However, this can mean that the school loses some applicants who write it off as unaffordable before applying after seeing a too expensive net price in the net price calculator.
Totally agree with post 14.
To the OP…why do you want a list of need aware schools? Do you want to avoid them, or do you want to apply to them?
Not that there is anything wrong with that.
CRD…nothing wrong with either thing. But curious why the OP needs this info.
The very vast majority of colleges are need blind for admissions.
Well…unless the OP is an international student!