I’m struggling to figure out the true need-blindness-ness of some of the more selective schools. Full disclosure, we’re full pay and I’m trying to steer DS to places where that might be of some benefit.
I understand that all the truly selective schools (Ivies and top equivalents) are need blind and not shy about it. And yes there are plenty of high stat kids from all SES levels to fill each school many times over. But for those that have posted CDS data (CMU, NWU, Ivies, GT etc…) there is remarkable consistency in their year to year financial aid data. Some seem to have 30% get no financial aid every year (CMU), some (GT) seem to have around 50% each year. So is it just totally random that each year they seem to pick the same number of smart wealthy kids vs smart needy kids?
Actually, most colleges are need-blind. However, need-blind with good need-based financial aid describes a much smaller set of mostly highly selective colleges.
A college may design its admission criteria and process to get the desired result without explicitly being need-aware. After all, it has a financial aid budget that it needs to stay within, but also wants to be able to market itself as being a place where low SES students can go to college.
For example, the following admission criteria likely correlate to higher SES admitted students:
- Admitting many students ED.
- Emphasizing on standardized test scores.
- Requiring more standardized test scores like SAT subject tests.
- Requiring counselor and teacher recommendations.
- Requiring CSS Profile for financial aid.
- Using interviews.
- Being impressed by extracurriculars that are expensive or are associated with high SES.
The following likely correlate to lower SES admitted students.
- Being impressed by work experience.
- Being impressed by overcoming adverse situations.
- Admitting students through Questbridge or similar programs.
If the SES distribution of students varies from the goal, then the college can adjust its admission criteria accordingly. Since the highly selective schools use an opaque holistic admission process, such adjustments can be done “under the covers” without anyone really noticing.
In this era of rankings hysteria and such a huge focus on yield it seems naive to think that need wouldn’t be a consideration. Take a school like CMU, surely they know that they can’t give full tuition grants to more than x% of the incoming class and they have plenty of historical data to suggest their yield percentage from versions SES bands. I’m sure the yield for them with the donut hole kids is exponentially lower than it is for the upper and lower tiers. And they ALL care about yield.
As mentioned in reply #1, a college can change its admission criteria to target SES demographics without having to be specifically need aware.
Proxies for need or the lack of need is still need awareness. But they can probably sleep better at night if they act like they don’t really take it into consideration.