"Need Blind:" A Polite Fiction?

Parents Forum
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<p>But just as low income students are recruited so are students from high schools where more students are likely to be from high income families in the first place. From the Atlantic Monthly article I linked in post #3:</p>

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At the AACRAO conference two members of the University of Alabama's enrollment-management team demonstrated how, in their campaign for out-of-state prospects, they overlaid income data from the U.S. Census on maps of high schools in Texas to target wealthy students. (Alabama's data-mining strategies are inspired by the success of the credit-card company Capital One.) After the presentation I sat down with Roger Thompson and asked him how he approached recruiting at rich private secondary schools.</p>

<p>"Oh, if you're in enrollment management, those schools are fantastic!" he said. "There are some kids there that we'll buy. The National Merit kids, they're going to get a full ride. But if you're sitting at a private high school in Florida, where they pay twenty grand to go, we don't even bring financial-aid material. What's the point? You don't even need to talk about cost."

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<p>I am not quite as cynical as you suggest. I think for many "need-blind" schools their heart is in the right place, but they've got a business to run. And there are financial realities and practicalities to deal with. Like I said, they are as need-blind as they can afford to be.</p>

<p>And sure the diversity increases when you get up to the HYP schools - because those are the schools with the mondo endowments. They can AFFORD to admit as many low income students as they like. But the vast majority of schools just ain't that rich. Thus it's no miraculous coincidence that they hit their target numbers year after year.</p>

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<p>Brainstorm:</a> Merit Aid Is a Lie - Chronicle.com</p>

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<p>"The outreach programs at places like Harvard and Swarthmore are real. I know that Swarthmore's admissions office has a policy that every trip made by an adcom must include "x" percent (I think the number was 30%) high schools that are heavily diverse. There is a heavy finger on the scale to favor diversity, first generation college, lower socio-economic tags, and so forth."</p>

<p>This kind of travel planning happens at most highly-selective schools. Some schools go to places no others do (for example, for years, Tufts was the only school sending an admissions officer to the Rio Grande Valley). Schools do this kind of targeted recruitment travel because they know that many kids don't have access to information about their schools and, if they do, they don't consider the schools because they have bad information about cost, affordability, and financial aid. Many times, my school visits to the South Side of Chicago, Appalachia, and the border area in San Diego County, for example, are/were more about educating students generally about elite colleges and financial aid and less about my particular school. And, frankly, I enjoy these kinds of visits more than others, as I know that I'm giving these kids valuable information. But no matter how many trips like this I have done, the majority of schools visits are at private schools or at public schools in more well-to-do areas/suburbs, simply because these are always the source of the vast majority of "competitive applicants."</p>

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<p>"How much can it really change, year to year? Swarthmore is only enrolling 375 kids a year. What's the most the mix could possibly swing? 30 more need students? That's only $1 million on a $116 million operating budget. Need-blind full-need means that the board has pre-authorized spending whatever it takes in financial aid to meet the need. But, it's easy for the board to do that, because what's the most it could swing, even if you just threw darts to pick 'em in the admissions office?"</p>

<p>A situation like this would put an admissions dean in hot water at most schools, actually, because it would mean they aren't communicating basic information about their applicant pool well to others at the school. An extra $1,000,000 in a financial aid budget at Swarthmore, for example, probably would require around an extra $20,000,000 to $25,000,000 invested into the school's endowment the prior year for this purpose (schools usually use about a 4 to 5% return/interest on the endowment to fund their annual budgets - so think about how much money the schools that are going no loan are needing to raise to do this - at Brown, for example, going no loan requires them to have an extra $4,500,000/year in their financial aid budget - that's an extra $100,000,000/year needed in their endowment. Considering they are projected to lose about $800,000,000 this year thanks to the economic crisis, it becomes clear that them maintaining this no loan policy is going to be tough!). Admissions deans use complex yield models to project who will come and who may not. The way they prevent a surprise for the financial aid office is to take a look at the applicant pool in January, when all applications are in, and give the FAid Office and Budget Office a rough idea of how many students have indicated they intend to apply for aid. The FAid Office then uses its own yield model to project a probable aid budget, usually based on historical data from past incoming classes. Fingers are usually crossed that the Board has approved enough to cover the need of the entering class (and the 3 others!). FYI - usually, after salaries, financial aid budgets are the largest line items in a need-blind school's budget. </p>

<p>This year, from what I have gathered from my colleagues at a variety of schools, seems to have admissions deans and financial aid folks a bit nervous, as more kids are applying to more schools and more families are indicating they will apply for aid. There is a certain level of crapshooting involved, but there is usually enough cushion in the financial aid budget to cover additional need. That being said, an extra $1,000,000 is HUGE at most schools, especially when you would have roughly a month to figure out from where you're going to get it!</p>

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<p>From coureur: "as need blind as they can afford to be." I'll buy that! There's no doubting that many colleges are aiming for as much socio-economic diversity as they can afford, and are doing their best to account for the academic disadvantages of those who haven't been fortunate enough to have the best preparation that money can buy. But "need-blind" always sounds so self-congratulatory.</p>

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That being said, an extra $1,000,000 is HUGE at most schools, especially when you would have roughly a month to figure out from where you're going to get it!

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I think the 100% need schools might run into quite a hit for the coming year just from the students they already have enrolled. I'm working on my taxes now.... and guess what? I have a HUGE capital loss to claim (at least huge for me - its going to be a significant reduction to my AGI). I bet I'm not alone -- I had about half of my savings in an investment account, and when things went awry last year, I decided to liquidate everything -- in hindsight it was a good thing I did, because the Dow has only gone downhill from there. And I'm one of the people in fairly good shape -- since I am self employed, my "job" is secure, and my earned income was actually higher than usual last year. What about kids whose parents were laid off? </p>

<p>Of course there is a corresponding drop in value of assets, so I think that the numbers are going to tend to show a lot more "need" for most families that have been receiving financial aid.</p>

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<p>Many colleges are very nervous for this upcoming year because the statistical models that they have been using are probably not going to be good for predictive value with what has been happening this year. It's going to be interesting to see this outcome. Too bad many of us are in it.</p>

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<p>That's a serious misunderstanding of the SAT-to-wealth correlation. The correlation is strong when you consider all high school students, but it disappears or more likely (for all sorts of demographic and admissions reasons) reverses itself in the population of students who are admissible applicants to any given elite college that promises to meet 100% of need. Those SAT ranges are <em>extremely</em> restricted. </p>

<p>Anything that amounts to affirmative action for the wealthy, of the kind that you propose (i.e., making sure there are enough rich kids so that the aid budget doesn't max out), would almost by definition work against an SAT/income correlation. </p>

<p>On the other hand, admissions preference for things that correlate positively with poverty but negatively with SAT, such as being black or Hispanic, would tend to increase the SAT/income correlation within the population of admits and attendees.</p>

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<p>Even if the number of need students stayed exactly the same, just the unpredictable year to year fluctuations in applicant income levels could lead to errors of that magnitude. But there are other, larger sources of unpredictability. One has to add the uncontrollable changes in financial aid eligibility of the already enrolled students. The difficulty is compounded by the effort to also engineer a host of other numbers beyond the financial aid budget, and the unpredictability of the yield. Overshooting by 1 percent can be huge in terms of the reserves the university must maintain to compensate, and it's very hard to forecast anything with that accuracy.</p>

<p>It is a complicated optimization-and-control problem. It's not the "Chinese menu" and it's also not what you might imagine, where admitting thousands of students evens out the small individual variation.</p>

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<p>I still think a lot of posters are confusing need-blind admission with meeting 100% of financial need. From what I can see, a lot of schools, including most top-notch publics and a lot of competitive privates outside the ivy league, admit based on a set of fairly objective criteria which don't include need for financial aid. Once you get accepted, though, the financial aid may not be much at all. It would seem to me, that a needs-blind admission policy in and of itself doesn't really cost anything. Then, they can control the year to year costs by the financial aid offers they make.</p>

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<p>A college admissions officer does not have to be too perceptive, much less a detective to guess the general financial capabilty of the applicant's family. Ready made clues:</p>

<p>-- Applicant goes to an expensive private school for high school (eg. Dalton in NYC) vs a public school in a not affluent neighbourhood
-- Parent's education/professional qualification/occupation
-- One parent working, both parent's working
-- Home address (with Google maps and satellite views revealing size of home, backyard swimming pool, etc)
-- Student hobbies (skiing, lacrosse correlate with high income)
-- travel overseas including repairing homes in Fiji is a dead give away
-- summer abroad (without corresponding mention of scholarships)
-- Student mention of "difficult family conditions in essay" or illness of main bread winner points to substantial need</p>

<p>So, no matter how high the "chinese walls", these are highly porous structures. Besides, you don't need explicit collusion when you have memos freezing campus hiring and pay for staff staring the admissions staff in the face when they come to work. So, subliminally, an admissions officer may not make push hard for a low income student likely to need full aid when they are not sure their institution can carry that burden for four years to graduate this low income student. And even if he wins that battle, he know the FinAid Officers might gap that candiadate in a classic "admit-deny" strategy.</p>

<p>I agree with Siserun that there are many sources of variation in need (including the need of enrolled students) that may play havoc with the FinAid Budget. This year, if anything, all those sources of variability conspire to a huge upward shift in need for enrolled as well as prospective students. </p>

<p>This is a perfect storm for Universities/Colleges -- and only likely to get worse next year. Waiting to see how quickly the elite universities begin an open retreat from their ostensibly "need-blind" policies. And for the very elite (HYPS), how long before the recently expanded generous income thresholds for families are reduced. Everyone seems to be waiting for the other institution to fold. So, once one of these elite institutions does announce the retreat publicly -- watch out for the stampeding hurt..... all eager to reduce the burden of FA on themselves.</p>

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Applicant goes to an expensive private school for high school

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<p>Some private high schools have lavish financial aid and admit low-income students. </p>

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Parent's education/professional qualification/occupation

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<p>Some parents work in nonprofits with professional degrees, and (to your next point) some parents are laid off from former professional positions. </p>

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Home address (with Google maps and satellite views revealing size of home, backyard swimming pool, etc)

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<p>I know several examples of addresses in my town for which Google Maps points to the wrong house, for reasons I'm not sure about. But in general the mistaken house has similar levels of infrastructure to the correct house, and usually swimming pools are very conspicuous in aerial photographs of houses. </p>

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Student hobbies (skiing, lacrosse correlate with high income)

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<p>I also know of community youth sports and high school sports that students can participate in even with low income, including through scholarships for the star players, but the more equipment or facility fees a sport requires, the more I might guess its participant has a higher than average income. </p>

<p>I agree with the suggestion that if a student has some unusual channel for travel or summer study, for example scholarships, the student should mention that in a college application to establish context of the student's activities. </p>

<p>But I disagree with the idea that the crystal ball gives an exact answer for every student. In general, a highly selective college can already count on most of its applicants coming from families with above-average household incomes. The student for whom that starting assumption does not fit should be sure to make that clear in the application file.</p>

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<p>Tokenadult bring up a good point. If your demographics are misleading in any way, it should be spelled out.</p>

<p>Recently I was working with a young woman applying to top colleges from an elite private school where she is on a full scholarship. Initially she didn't want to put that fact on her application, she found it embarrassing.</p>

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<p>It is worth noting that even these schools with mondo endowments seem to hit the same % of full payers every year..</p>

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<p>It's not one thing that can tip off a college that a student is from an upper income family. Address, school, parents' professions and education, asking for financial aid, etc.</p>

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<p>For the top colleges it's nothing so insidious. It's just a lot
easier to achieve if you're rich and that translates to the app.
There's probably 50 qualified rich apps for every 1 qualified
low income. To get even to the 10% Pell Grant level the top
schools have to develop very specific policies and outreach
programs - there just aren't that many super qualified low
income candidates.</p>

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<p>Sounds good, but apparently this kind of outreach is one of the first things to go at some top schools when financial reversals call for belt-tightening. Harvard just announced it was cutting its admissions office travel budget by 50%, essentially eliminating all in-person out-of-town outreach except on joint tours with other top schools. They'll try to compensate by spending more time online and e-mailing---a surefire way to reach low-income communities, don't you suppose?</p>

<p>Harvard</a> Admissions Cuts Its Travel Budget - The Paper Trail (usnews.com)</p>

<p>The next day MIT followed suit: </p>

<p>MIT</a> Admissions Cuts Budget - The Paper Trail (usnews.com)</p>

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<p>That's exactly my point -- the elite schools are SO restricted in the upper most income range of SAT scores in their admissions policies that their applicant pools are overwhelmingly skewed toward the affluent end of the scale. </p>

<p>They could easily pull a class of qualified applicants by widening that band -- taking more students in the 1300/1900+ range -- or go even lower. The 83% mark for SAT scores is around 1280/1800 and I think anyone in that range is well-qualified -- we are still talking the top 17% of all college bound students -- but to widen that band would also change the demographics. </p>

<p>I don't think the primary reason for the narrow band is to discriminate economically -- but I do think that the need-blind / guaranteed need combination is built around a certain set of expectations about the admission pool, and they aren't going to make changes to admission criteria without considering the impact on their financial aid budget.</p>

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<p>need blind policies within the context of extremely competitive
application processes are there to serve the needs of the college
and their "upper class" clients. Some colleges WandL for instance
make very little effort and others - Oberlin, Swarthmore etc make
it look pretty good - up to a point. But even with a need blind
policy the overall admissions process ensures a largely wealthy
clientele. There is no real incentive to change those policies, in fact
they are often twisted to ensure "diversity" How many low income
white suburban females are there at say Swarthmore or Williams
or even Princeton for that matter? Probably could count them on
one hand - and no incentive to admit more.</p>