No, read it on CollegeVine. However, haven’t you said something similar here (Is the University of Michigan and UIUC still need blind? - #5 by Mwfan1921)? Perhaps you meant to say that while UM does not meet full need for OOS, their admission process is agnostic to FA needs for OOS students. Not sure, but I believe it is material.
The vast majority of public schools I read are need aware for OOS and only a very few public schools like UvA are need blind for all domestic. I could be wrong it was from my early research when my Dd was looking where to apply.
Probably most are need blind for all applicants, but give no or much worse financial aid to out-of-state students (in addition to having higher prices for out-of-state students).
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From this link not many public unis are need blind. Most seem to be private schools.
That list of 115 colleges is far from complete. For example, there are 116 California community colleges that are need blind for admission (because they admit everyone). However, there is no financial aid for out-of-state students.
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College one is a 3rd party source, and less than reliable. Same as the incomplete list of need blind colleges on PrepScholar’s website. As ucbalumnus said, most public colleges are need blind…there’s no reason to be need aware if a school isn’t giving need based aid to OOS students.
Nope, that’s not what I meant to say. AFAIK U Mich does not factor financial need of OOS applicants into the admission decision.
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Remember Need blind/need aware are admissions terminology
Meeting your financial need, 100% financial need are financial aid terminology
Most colleges are need blind to US citizens and Permanent residents, however, only a small handful of schools out of the 4000 colleges and universities meet 100% demonstrated need.
Example:
Questbridge looks makes it affordable for all students accepted to their schools through the program (usually the family earns less than 60k) to graduate essentially debt free.
Posse, which is a leadership scholarship, does not take income into consideration when awarding their full tuition scholarships. If your family only makes $10k a year or million a year, if they win the the scholarship, they get free tuition (room board, etc may be based on their financial need).
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That’s correct. However, I think that even Posse colleges which are not 100% full need met will provide really good financial aid. They’d rather not lose a Posse scholar for an amount of money that is relatively small for the college (an extra $15,000-$16,000 a year).
[Aside]
The mission of QB is to identify high-achieving low income students for colleges which students generally do not think of as possibilities. It’s primarily a financial aid and academic excellence scholarship. The mission of Posse is to identify leaders who don’t generally fit the standard mold of “student leaders”, to provide them with merit aid, and also increase their chances of graduating by building teams of students who will support each other in college. It’s primarily a leadership merit scholarship.
So QB looks for academic excellence, while Posse looks for leadership excellence. A student with a GPA of 3.5 is out of the running for QB, but not for Posse. That is why most QB colleges are low acceptance colleges, while Posse colleges cover a wide array of acceptance rates and GPA requirements. That is also why QB just uses application packets, while Posse depends on interviews.
In the context of this thread, Posse is need blind, while QB is need-aware, but in the opposite direction from regular admissions.[/Aside]
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Super informative! Thanks.
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I think you might be confusing “need blind” and “need aware” with “meets full need”.
The vast majority of public universities are need blind for admissions meaning your ability to pay is not factored into your admission decisions.
BUT the vast majority of public universities do NOT guarantee to meet full need for all admitted students. The exceptions are UVA, and UNC-CH…which do meet full need for all accepted students.
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Well, that’s the thing. They are need-aware BECAUSE they want to be able to meet 100% of financial need. If they admitted students without regard to need, they would likely exceed their FA budget.
Thing is, need-aware or need-blind are red herrings. Forget about them. The only important parameter is whether the school meets 100% of need (as they define it).
What good would it be if a need-blind school offered admission, but then did not offer enough financial aid because they do not meet 100% of need? That does you no good.
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I see what you’re saying. I hadn’t read it that way.
Right? Who cares if, say, Penn State is need-blind? You’ll get in, but you can’t pay for it.
Again: The ONLY metric you should be looking at is whether the school meets 100% of need. Discard the phrases need-blind and need-aware from your vocabulary. They don’t matter in any practical sense.
Also, there’s a lot of context surrounding “need-aware.” (OK, I just gave advice to forget about that term, but now I am using it. 
) At Tufts, for example, the admissions office only considers an applicant’s need at the very end of the admissions cycle, when they are getting close to using up the FA budget. They are need-blind in the early part of the cycle. So if you really want to understand it, ask in the info session to explain what they mean by that.
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Need-awareness covers a full spectrum of possibilities. If a college is need aware, it could take a range of different actions with respect to applicants with need, especially those with high need. It could also easily change its practice under the broad need-aware policy at any time without having to notify its applicants.
Need-aware policy does have practical implications, at least at some colleges. WUSTL, for example, was need aware until very recently (after much criticism). It had one of the most affluent and least economically diverse student bodies. According to the Chetty study a few years ago, among the 65 elite colleges it evaluated, WUSTL had the greatest percentage of its students in the top quintile of family incomes and the lowest percentage in the bottom quintile.
THIS. And frankly that is the case at the vast majority of colleges.
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Adding to your great post, the issue is there aren’t many meet full need schools and they tend to be highly rejective, so not an option for most students.
However, there are many more schools that will meet full need or very close to it for some students….which is basically those students the school really wants to matriculate.
Here is a good resource that shows the average percent need met by school. This data comes from schools’ CDSs. Most recent data for most schools is 2021-22 (class of 2025), but 2022/23 CDSs (current first years, class of 2026) are starting to come out now, so this will be updated soon. https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5d1ad956be52e800010a2502/t/6313e32f429a5c059fd1356d/1662247728900/Domestic+Need-Based+and+Merit+Aid+(August+update%2C+2022).pdf
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How the college defines “need” is just as important, or more so.
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I’m glad someone brought this up. As it has been explained to me by those who would know, many need-aware private schools take into consideration ability to pay only for a % of the class. Of course, as an applicant, you’re not going to know if you are the one who was rejected or waitlisted because of your need. But it’s technically not accurate to assume every applicant at those schools are evaluated on ability to pay. That’s not how I understand it to work.
For Wesleyan, since the OP mentioned it, my understanding is that the number of applicants whose decisions are affected by need is less than 5% after going through a process like the one @gotham_mom described at Haverford or that @brantly describes for Tufts. Wesleyan is also very close to getting back to 100% need-blind admissions because they’ve had an adult in charge of their endowment for the last 7 or 8 years.
Moreover, to the point @Mwfan1921 has made, there are plenty schools that don’t (or more accurately, can’t) take need into consideration, but their aid may not be that great.
For example, Wesleyan meets 100% of demonstrated need and is also among the schools that have a delineated no-loan policy.
No-loan Policy
This is available to U.S. citizens and permanent residents, undocumented students, and DACA students whose parental income is $120,000 or less, with typical assets of $400,000 or less. International students whose parental contribution is less than $10,000 may also take advantage of the no-loan policy.
Types of Aid, Admission & Aid - Wesleyan University.
My undergraduate institution is need-blind by law, but they certainly include loans in their financial aid.
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