I have recently taken a deeper dive into this topic and surprised to learn that schools such as Wesleyan and Tufts still appear to be need aware and Haverford who had been need blind recently went back to need aware. I was very surprised to learn this that school of this “level” still take ability to pay into an admission decision.
They have not yet figured out how to use proxy measures of need (e.g. legacy, first generation) to finely tune an expected level of aggregate financial need for the matriculating class, and/or they are trying to hit the very edge of their financial aid budget with no room for errors in estimates.
5 Likes
This was the topic of this New York Times article:
3 Likes
These schools have relatively lower endowments and/or operating budgets, so have to decide which applicants they want to invest in…at least they meet full financial need for all students (as they calculate it).
That seems preferable to the majority of schools that are need blind but don’t meet full need for all students (although I understand most schools don’t have the funds to meet full need for all students).
2 Likes
Why were you surprised? Even schools with higher rankings have budgets they need to work within. Some just can’t fund every single student with high needs. But many of these DO fund those who are accepted. Most need aware schools state that your finances may be considered.
6 Likes
Even at Need Blind schools a high percentage of students are full pay. Take Duke for example, only about 50% of students need financial aid. That percentage stays remarkably consistent over the years. This makes you wonder what exactly is the meaning of need blind. Perhaps at the level of an individual student they are need blind. But in aggregate, they clearly are not.
Even Harvard with its huge endowment could afford to give everyone a full tuition scholarship to every matriculant. But they don’t. Reason is that they rely on tuition revenue to balance the budget.
So it’s not surprising that schools with lesser endowments rely more on tuition income. The common app asks about students parents – their degrees, job titles and mailing address. Why else would they do this except to estimate how much they can afford? Schools farther down on the totem pole rely on discounting to attract full pay students.
3 Likes
At need blind schools…actually most schools…the financial aid department (which awards need based aid) does not see the application for admission.
1 Like
IMO, that’s because about half (or more) of the freshman class at Duke, like a number of its peers, are admitted via ED and the majority of ED applicants (along with the majority of legacy applicants who apply RD) are full pay.
3 Likes
According to the Harvard lawsuit, the admissions office are actually very good at determining who is low-income and who is high-income. They flag low-income applicants by estimating who is low-income for example. During their ‘lop’ process, they take into account who is full-pay and who isn’t full-pay according to the admissions testimony.
It’s really not that hard to determine whether someone is going to be full-pay or not though.
4 Likes
Have you seen data that support this? (not challenging, just asking as I would like to see that data)
I am not sure the majority of ED applicants are full pay, but it could be true, I just haven’t seen the data. Of course, a larger proportion of students applying to college are full pay as compared to the general population of HS grads.
As another poster up thread mentioned, each class at many of the highly rejective schools is comprised of 50%+ full pay students, and I think that is no coincidence (there are many proxies for income, as well as CB’s Landscape report). The proportion of students with need is increasing at some highly rejectives, for example, at Amherst, where 57% of the class of 2027 (CDS 2022-23) received need based aid.
With that said, the reality is that for the highly rejective schools, their NPCs are highly accurate, which means non-full pay families who can afford/are willing to pay their school-calculated EFC can and do apply ED, for any of the reasons that applying ED can make sense. Not to mention all the college access orgs whose applicants are often applying ED (Questbridge, Posse, College Possible, etc.) Awareness of the NPCs is far from high though, especially among limited income students and counselors at their schools.
2 Likes
I’ve seen data relayed to me from another school (not Duke), so I can only speculate. Understandably, these schools do not disclose such data. In theory, an ED applicant can use NPC to get some idea on CoA. But in reality, many applicants (including some presumably more informed applicants on CC) either don’t use the tool or don’t trust its accuracy/reliability.
The NPC also may not be that useful to a significant portion of applicants who can’t, or are unwilling to be, full pay.
1 Like
Pretty much can determine by zip codes, high school, parents education, and parents career- all questions on the applications.
5 Likes
Most schools have higher aggregate financial need student profiles and smaller budgets than the most selective private schools. While fudging the definition of “need” can allow greater claims of “meet full need”, that only goes so far.
Well, let’s not confuse “need blind” with “meets full need.” A lot of colleges are need blind – most state schools are. @njmomster They may or may not meet full need though! Likely they won’t. Now on to the second category – meets full need. This is where things get tricky. Very few schools can take every kid that needs full aid. It is no surprise that most super selective schools have >50% full pay students.
That and having $$ helps students become stronger applicants.
Also, let’s not confuse “meets full need” with “good financial aid”, since each college can define “need” however it wants, and can have requirements that exclude some classes of students from any financial aid (e.g. divorced parents who are not cooperative).
2 Likes
There is certainly intermingling between the financial and admissions offices, even at need blind schools. I’ll give you two examples:
James Nondorf (UChicago) - Dean of College Admissions and Financial Aid
Jessica Marinaccio (Columbia) - Dean of Undergraduate Admissions and Financial Aid
How is it possible to be in charge of both admissions AND financial while still being blind? Now there probably are colleges that manage to keep things separate, but I don’t think this is as common as people think.
1 Like
There is supposed to be a Chinese wall between the offices. A Chinese wall, however, is never impermeable. The two offices often share certain resources (including people). Only the colleges that consider FA applications after the students are admitted can be regarded as having a true separation between the two.
This is from Skidmore website. I feel like it’s quite misleading:
Is Skidmore College need-blind?
No. Skidmore is “need aware,” meaning we offer all admitted students 100% of the financial aid for which they are eligible.
Do you seriously think these two deans are looking at every college application and financial aid form? Of course not. They are administering their departments. That doesn’t mean they commingle information.
4 Likes
Great insights here. At highly selective schools, do high-achieving, full pay applicants have more of an advantage in the early or regular round?
Ours was deferred by Tufts ED1 and another T30 school EA. Wondering if any “full pay advantage” would have already been considered or whether it will weigh more heavily in the regular round when “shaping” of the class occurs.
And if anyone knows, is this the same at need aware schools (Tufts, BU, Skidmore) as it is at need blind schools (BC, ND, etc)?
Thanks in advance.