<p>"In addition, the Common Application used by more than 500 colleges asks prospective students to check a box if they intend to apply for financial aid. Some independent admission consultants advise students not to check it — to wait until they are admitted before giving the college any hint they will ask for aid."</p>
<p>My daughter is a junior so we haven't been through this yet, but don't you apply for financial aid long before you're accepted, basically at the same time as you're applying to the college? I'm wondering whose mistake this is, the reporter's or the admissions consultants' or mine in understanding it.</p>
<p>Didnt read the article, but my advice is not to try and second guess the school.
If you are going to apply for aid, then say so.
While some schools are need aware & may look at need before admission especially if they are a 100% need met school, it doesnt make sense to me to hide need, if you need help to attend.</p>
<p>As far as timeline goes, for example, oldest applied to a private school that met need.
We filed PROFILE by deadline which was in November ( this was for regular decision).
Application for admission was filed shortly after that & FAFSA was filed early January.
We recieved admission packet with aid offer in March.</p>
<p>The majority of colleges are need blind for US citizens/ Permanent residents so checking or not checking the box will not make a bit of difference. Even for schools that are need aware/need sensitive, this comes in to play as schools are close to exhausting their financial aid budget.</p>
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<p>This is the best advice to take if you need $$ to make college happen to not get money. Many schools have strict guidelines where if you don’t apply on time, you won’t get aid so make sure that you make the deadlines. Since most schools are not as flush as Harvard, if you apply late, you most likely will end up getting less "free money in grants and scholarships because that money will be gone. In addition, there is aid that is given on a first come first served basis; FWS, SEOG, perkins loans.</p>
<p>BAAAD advice, unless you have a secret source of money that will step in and it’s so worth it to get into certain need aware schools that you will sacrifice the aid. For those schools that are need blind, it’s not going to make a bit of difference, and that’s most schools. BUt my guess is that the article is aimed at those applying to schools that are selective and on a lot of kids’ A lists, like GWU, JHU, Gettsyburg, Dickenson, COnnecticut College, F&M, just to name a few, where, yes, they are need aware for some of the kids and you can up overall chances by not applying for aid. Maybe it’s worth it for you to get your kid in GWU and hit up Grandma for the money rather than get the $10K or so of aid you might get from them when you run the NPC. You know Fordham is need blind so you put in for aid there, the same with BC and Williams. You know Wesleyan is not need blind, so you don’t apply for aid there. Yes, you can strategize that way. But then you aren’t going to get the aid when you get in , and at some schools, get red shirted for aid in future years. These schools are on to these tricks, you know.</p>
<p>Also, even at those schools that are need blind and meet full need, if you do not get your financial aid requests in on their time schedule, you may not get access to some of their grants. They state that V-E-R-Y clearly on there web site. So you try to play games with those schools and you can be out a lot of money unnecessarily, and some of those penalties do carry forward. </p>
<p>So, yes, if you decide getting into, say Lehigh, Lafayette is worth sacrificing some aid money, go right on ahead, but understand the consequences of this, that can be for future years too. </p>
<p>Some people like to gamble. I think this is silly advice… if you apply to a reachy college where you can’t afford to pay the full cost and then hope they will toss some money at you after the fact is taking a risk and gamble. If they don’t honor the late request for financial help then you wasted an application (and an acceptance). There are much better strategies for getting tuition discounts than this one. </p>