<p>We would all like to believe that the process of need blind works exactly how it sounds it should. Personally, I find it incredibly hard to believe that an admissions office has no solid concept of how much money your family has. A quick glance at your state, region, and zip code can be enough to put a socio-economic label on your application. Even further, the admissions officer can look at your parents' occupations and infer your class. I know this may be an extreme, but even your hobbies can give away how much money you have.</p>
<p>So my two questions are: Who else agrees with me on any level of this need blind conundrum, and if you do agree, to what extent do colleges go to determine a social class or conversely, avoid the obvious facts of wealth hidden in the college application?</p>
<p>First, only 2% of U.S. four-year colleges are need-blind (and meet full need). These are the schools with such huge endowments that they don’t care who has money; they want top students measured by everything except money. Yes, it would be easy to guess the economic level of applicants if they wanted to.</p>
<p>Semantics. Maybe not “need blind” but “need not considered” – how’s that?</p>
<p>Of course socio economic info can be readily inferred. However the handful of schools that really are need blind (what? about a dozen out of 3000 US colleges?) hold that policy as a point of pride. Who are you to imply there’s some sinister fakery going on behind the scene? My alma mater is need blind admissions and also promises to meet demonstrated need for the full four years. It has one of the MOST generous FA programs extant. I’m very proud of that fact. </p>
<p>But another fact is only about 3-4 colleges can offer the same. </p>
<p>None of us can really know for sure if those colleges that claim to be need blind are truly need blind. I suspect they aren’t. I think for URMs and other very desireable candidates, they are need blind. But I doubt they are truly need blind for the run of the mill white and asian candidate, since such candidates are fungible goods. I applied to a “need blind” school and when I check the status of my application, it welcomes me as follows: “Welcome, (my full name), (my intended major), Financial Aid Candidate.” Now it’s possible that I’m reading too much into this label, but it seems likely that any time someone in admissions wanted to look me up, they would see that I’ve applied for FA. </p>
<p>For the record, I don’t care if “need blind” means need blind. There’s a lot about the admissions process that is deceptive or an outright lie. It’s just the way it is. I’ve come to accept it for what it is.</p>
<p>I think “need blind” is not what is proposes.</p>
<p>There are schools that refuse to give you merit info until they receive your Fafsa!! (ie Brandeis) Sure others do the same thing. Many of sons schools required financial aid info to be sent.</p>
<p>As we knew we would not receive financial aid, we did not fill out any finan. aid forms, info for second son.</p>
<p>^ Need-blind refers only to the admission decision. Need-blind schools are using FAFSA info to determine how much aid to give, not whether to admit.</p>
<p>That’s a great story Old College Try and I also tend to be skeptical about which schools really are need-blind. I think HYP are, smaller LACs, I don’t know. vossron, the smaller LACs actually don’t have unlimited endowments.</p>
<p>In the end what difference does it make? If you need financial aid then what choice do you have? I also agree with you Old College Try, there is a lot of maneuvering in the college admissions process at the prestigious schools that I just don’t have any patience with.</p>
<p>FWIW, I attend a very competitive public high school that places around 15-20 kids in the HYPS-type schools each year. My counselor has been advising students for 37 years and tracks the backgrounds of kids who go on to the best schools. She told me last week that those kids who applied ED and EA without requesting FA had much more success than those who asked for FA. The three best ED/EA successes so far (1 SCEA, 1 Dartmouth, and 1 MIT) didn’t need FA. The top kid in our school applied EA to Yale and was deferred. It’s not scientific but it may be a clue of what we’ll see come April.</p>
<p>Old College Try – you’ve got more than one variable in this scenario, early decision and applying for financial aid. I don’t know about ED for a school like Yale but for schools like Middlebury and Williams fill up half of their freshman classes using early decision, it is considerably easier to be admitted to either of these schools via early decision.</p>
<p>“the smaller LACs actually don’t have unlimited endowments”</p>
<p>Well, it’s relative; the endowment per student just needs to be large enough to support need-blind admissions. Smaller schools like Middlebury and Williams are still in the top 20 by that measure.</p>
<p>Need blind must not be confused with schools that are “Need blind AND meets need with small or no loans.”</p>
<p>Many/most state schools are “need blind” because they just admit by stats/formula and since they don’t meet need, they don’t care who they admit as far as finances are concerned.</p>
<p>BUT…it could be argued that need blind schools that guarantee to “meet need with small or no loans” would be tempted to consider zip codes, race, etc, during the admissions process since they are guaranteeing to meet any determined need.</p>
<p>I reviewed applications for two campuses with a ‘need blind’ admissions policy. I can assure you it truly was need blind. Yes, we typically had little or no difficulty determining applicants from rich and poor households. On the other hand, it is much more difficult determining were to draw the line between middle-class and upper middle-class. The applications include the parents occupation. However, while occupation does correlate with household income it is far from perfect. Consider two applicants from household in which the only working parent is a lawyer. The admission staff usually has no way of determining the parent works for a top firm with a salary of 500K or for a small law firm earning 75K. The admission staff did not have access to the FA data. On both campuses the student from the lower income household would be eligible for financial aid and no student loans.</p>
<p>Consider two applicants from household in which the only working parent is a lawyer. The admission staff usually has no way of determining the parent works for a top firm with a salary of 500K or for a small law firm earning 75K.</p>
<p>Well, if only one working parent is a lawyer, and the family lives in a modest neighborhood zip code/address and the student goes to the local public, or the family lives in a gated community in a posh zip code/address and the student goes to pricey private prep school, then it’s kind of easy to tell which type of firm the lawyer works for. LOL</p>