Help us settle a debate among friends. If someone is in the fortunate position of not needing financial aid does that actually help chances of admission (in non-need-blind schools?). And by how much does it help?
Thanks
It’s depends on how much the school needs full pay vs. fin aid students. In such cases, it can be an advantage, sure. But how much? Who can say? And it’ll likely vary year to year. The answers are : probably and unknowable.
Honestly, there aren’t many schools in the country that are totally uninterested in how much financial aid an applicant needs. But the majority of colleges are not basing their decisions on ability to pay.
The college is going to admit the people they really want, regardless of ability to pay. They will offer what financial aid they can, and the student accepts or declines. Probably where ability to pay is most important is when they have filled most of the class and have run out of financial aid for the year. Those last spots will likely then start going to full pay students. They know that some students won’t be able to make the finances work. That’s just one of the reasons why they accept more students than they have places for.
So is there a way to use it to make your full pay chances of admission more likely, other than timing? If you don’t fill out the FAFSA, for example? How can it be made known on the application
Well, some good indicators are “highest level of parents’ education” and “parents’ professions.” Kidding of course :-). Pretty sure there is a question right on the Common App that asks if you are applying for financial aid.
I believe some colleges require you to submit a FAFSA even to be considered for merit aid. Those colleges are more likely to not be highly selective. I may be wrong about that. Very selective colleges are going to require the CSS if applying for financial aid. If your child is one of the last being considered, they might well check to see if the child applied for FA or submitted a CSS, becasue they may have already disbursed their aid for the year. You don’t need to tell them anything, they will know.
Your strategy is only likely to make a difference if your child is in that pile of undecideds, when they are still picking their class. Still, it certainly doesn’t hurt to not need financial aid, especially at colleges that are need aware. You can find a list of need aware colleges by googling. In theory, it doesn’t make a difference at need-blind colleges.
Ok thank you for the replies!
In theory it doesn’t make a difference at need-blind colleges, but it would be hard for them to ignore someone who obviously can pay full freight. They probably would view that person, if qualified, as potentially offsetting the need for another candidate, allowing them to take both.
Theory only here.
Not needing aid allows one to apply ED which for some schools is the best thing you can do to increase the odds of acceptance.
It should be irrelevant to applicants if a school is need aware or need blind; meeting full need is the important thing. Would you rather attend a need-blind school that doesn’t meet full need, or a need-aware school that does? A school’s being need blind or aware doesn’t affect how much you like a school, but rather only the chance of admission. If you otherwise like the school and it’s a good match, apply, especially if it’s your number one choice. At over 400 schools there is no application fee; apply for a waiver if it’s truly a burden. Check the school’s Common Data Set section H for the percentage of students receiving financial aid; the higher percentage, the less need-aware is an issue. Also check the net price calculator (colleges defined “need” differently, using FAFSA or PROFILE options).
It helps if you are waitlisted. No, there’s no additional way to bring it to their attention other than not applying for financial aid.
I would think that filling out the FAFSA and CSS profile would be helpful documentation that need-based aid would be unnecessary. If the school has no FAFSA data, what is to stop the family who can afford one year at an expensive college from filling out the FAFSA for subsequent years?
In addition to what others have mentioned, a student without financial need is likely to have a better resume than a student with significant need. They may have attended a better high school with better guidance counselors, had more extracurricular opportunities, had educated parents who could help them with admissions, etc. Colleges do judge applicants in the context of their circumstances, but being affluent still confers significant indirect advantages. I liked this Inside Higher Ed [blog post](“Need Blind”) about how community colleges are the true need-blind schools. 
@WISdad23 You can fill out FAFSA any year you want. It only entitles you to federal funding - a loan and a possible Pell Grant for very needy families (and other even more limited grants). Filling out the FAFSA in subsequent years is not a way to fund college if you can only afford the first year.
Take a look at the book titled “Creating a Class” by Mitchell Stevens. This was written about 10 years ago and from the viewpoint of an observer in the admissions office of an unnamed New England college. Its pretty obvious after reading the book that the school is Hamilton College.
But the important point is that during Stevens’ year long stint in the admissions office, it was clear that Hamilton gave preference to students who were full pay. In fact they had a term for it – “free”. A student was “free” if he/she required no financial aid. All things being equal, Hamilton was much more likely to take a full pay student. Throughout the book, Stevens mentions several students he follows during the course of the admissions year, and the uncomfortable discussions that happen around the committee table on accepting a “free” student over a similarly qualified student needing aid. The decisions are never easy, but financial aid budgets are finite.
Since that time, Hamilton now claims to be need blind, but the points still remain. How much effect does being full pay when applying to a need-aware college? Not sure it has ever been quantified, but it is a good question.
When did NY move to New England? From his bio it looks like it was Hamilton but I don’t know why they tried to “hide” the fact it was in NY.
@“Erin’s Dad” I don’t know, just asking:
My understanding is that one’s financial aid at a college is determined year by year. The family’s financial situation will change so the FAFSA is filled out annually. Conceivably someone might not fill out the FAFSA the first year which would result in no need-based aid. But the subsequent years they could complete the form and be eligible for substantial aid. Is that correct? If so, a college that offers need-based aid would be prudent to review the FAFSA and CSS profile before offering aid. An absence of information does not necessarily imply the absence of need.
I’m certain that it will vary from school to school. But one admission officer at a upstate NY LAC was asked that question directly and he said that being full-pay is of most help to students who are right on the cusp.
A college can be need-blind with respect to individual applicants’ financial aid applications (or lack thereof), but could design its criteria to correlate with high or low income and wealth in order to get the desired mix of income and wealth backgrounds and hence financial aid budget. For example, greater emphasis on test scores and legacy status would tip the admit pool toward wealth, while first generation students are likely to be less wealthy (yes, there will be individual exceptions, but the colleges just care about the overall class composition when meeting their financial aid budgets).
Two words: Zip Code.