<p>so need-blind schools don't consider an applicant's financial status right? if that applicant is from low-income family or from a wealthy family it wouldn't matter. i think thats what it means but dont schools who are need-blind also practice affirmative action which consider socioeconomic backgrounds?</p>
<p>Need blind means that they will not reject or accept(dubious) a candidate based on his/her family's income level, or their ability to pay for tuition. It shows a commitment to accepting a student regardless of their financial circumstances. But it does not in any way promise financial aid so remember that... </p>
<p>Affirmative action does not consider socioeconomic backgrounds. It considers racial backgrounds. People somehow are brainwashed into correlating this with socio-economic status. Must be the TV stereotypes...</p>
<p>oh what the heck...... thanks for clarifying</p>
<p>This is actually a good question that I discussed a few weeks ago with an MIT alumni interviewer. The agreed intended meaning of "need blind" is that needing financial aid won't lessen your chance of being admitted. </p>
<p>The meaning of "affirmative action," a term first used in an executive order about federal employee hiring by President Kennedy, is often debated. When colleges talk about affirmative action, they could be talking about taking some active step to make it more likely that some population of applicants will apply to college, will be admitted if they apply, or will complete college if they enroll. There is a professor and former economic adviser to President Clinton who explicitly advocates that colleges practice affirmative action for the poor. </p>
<p>BW</a> Online | July 7, 2003 | Needed: Affirmative Action for the Poor </p>
<p>It's unclear whether many colleges provide much affirmative action to poor applicants, but IF and only if a college proclaims that it is need blind in admission and fully funds grant-based financial aid according at a student's demonstrated need, then you might as well mention any tough economic circumstances your family faces to provide context for your application. After all, poor families can't afford many kinds of extracurricular activities, or tutoring for school subjects or college entrance tests, or many other things that rich people can provide to help their children get into college. Mention your context if your context is important to your application. </p>
<p>That's what the MIT interviewer thought was funny about MIT's current position: MIT claims, and I believe it, that it tries to practice affirmative action for poor applicants, but it still uses the terminology "need blind" that seems to contradict that policy. You can mention that you are poor if the college mentions that it can fund full grant-based aid for poor students. That should be a plus factor in your application.</p>
<p>oh wow. alright i understand now. thanksssss</p>
<p>In my opinion, there are very few need blind institutions, and these are ever changing. Harvard, Princeton, Dartmouth, Amherst, Williams and a dozen or so others prefer needy applicants. Pure and simple, in spite of their protestations to being need blind.
It is my belief that there are others that say they are need blind that are actually acutely aware of their financial aid budgets. I hesitate to name names. Suspicion only.</p>
<p>well, do these schools have access to hard numbers of student financial situations? or would they just be making inferences of a persons financial situation based on their app. i think the underlying relation between need and AA is the oftentimes-wrong assumption that URM = socioeconomically disadvantaged, even though it works sometimes.</p>
<p>cuz for need-blind schools, i wonder if adcoms will just pull up ones fafsa or css to see how theyre doing.</p>
<p>At the kind of colleges I'm talking about, the admission office and financial aid office have separate staffs, and the financial aid budget is such that the admission office can admit whomever they like and the funds will be there to provide full financial aid. </p>
<p>Other, "need aware," colleges may admit candidates up till when they run out of financial aid funds, and then admit the last part of the class solely from applicants who didn't make an application for financial aid. My family has no interest in applying to such colleges.</p>
<p>I do believe there's a huge problem with practicing affirmative action and being need blind. The whole point of affirmative action is to give URMs who didn't have the opportunities everyone else did to have a chance to succeed at a good college. When admissions offices are need blind, what usually ends up happening is wealthy URMs taking the spots of poor URMs. This totally defeats the purpose of affirmative action in the first place. Either colleges should be need aware and practice affirmative action, or need blind and not practice affirmative action.</p>
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When admissions offices are need blind, what usually ends up happening is wealthy URMs taking the spots of poor URMs.
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<p>That is definitely not how that process plays out. At the end of the day colleges look to build a community of learners and it is equally important that low income students see that not all minority students are poor. Since no one is promised a spot anywhere, when one student is selected an another student is not, no one has taken anyones "spot."</p>
<p>The main reason that they do not totally look at socio economics, but they are taken in context to the rest of the application is that if they solely looked at the body count, there are poorer white student than poorer minority students by the plain and simple fact that there are more white people in the country. However, portionally there is a higher percentage of low income minority students than there are white students (one of the reasons that there are lies, damn lies and statistics).</p>
<p>While colleges are need blind in the admissions process, this simply means your ability to pay or not to pay, your having a financial need, whether it is $1 or the full cost to attend will not be a factor in admissions decision.</p>
<p>However, there are still ways to determine ones SES with out looking at thier tax statement. Let us begin with the BIG GREEN 2008-2009 FEE WAIVER from the college board that the admissions department receives which pretty much shouts I am a low income student.</p>
<p>let's look at your address, admissions counselors know their territories, they know affluent neighborhoods and school districts.</p>
<p>lets look at the common app where they ask the parents educational level.</p>
<p>let's look at the section that asks what is it that yoru parents do for a living</p>
<p>let us not forget the check box that specifically asks "are you applying for financial aid?"
Let us look at the school profile which gives the 4 year graduation rate, the percentage of students that are receiving free or reduced lunch, what percentage of students at your school are accepted to 4 year colleges.</p>
<p>they look at your EC's for example they know that if a student is an equestrian, a competitive figure skater, hockey, competitive swimmer, etc. those are not inexpensive activities to be in. </p>
<p>If the student is working a job at the local supermarket 20 hours a week to help support their family, babysitting younger siblings because their parents are working 2 jobs to make ends meet, they know this too (this is why it is important to tell your story and to have a good relationship with your GC, who will assist in telling your story).</p>