Thanks @3SailAway
The funny thing is schools like Lafayette advertise how they meet 100% of need to drive up applications etc. but what they donāt tell you is that even if you have a great application they will not admit in order to avoid having to meet that need. Another reason it might make sense to ED if you have a lot of need?.
@AlmostThere2018, so youāre saying that even if AOs see the financial information of a full-pay applicant, they will tend to disbelieve or disregard that financial information if the applicant happens to live in a lower-income zip code and attends the public school there? Even if the zip code covers the area of an entire heterogeneous community (which does happen to have some middle-class and affluent people)?
Iād rather a school that is not need blind but meets need once admitted, than a school that says theyāre need blind and then judges based on an applicantās high school or home town. There are plenty of kids that come from middle class towns and go to expensive private high schools - on full financial aid.
Hi all, Lurker here with an S21. 
@AlmostThere2018 You can paste a link to an article that is behind a paywall to an archive site like archive.is and then it will save the article. Here is a copy to the full WSJ article: https://archive.is/Rzzao
@meddy that mystery school in OH is also doing a good job managing COVID so far and has figured out how to accommodate all students on campus this year in singles by scheduling a three-semester year to spread them out.
@kethra Welcome! Lurk no more!
Hi all, with @mamaedefamiliaās encouragement, Iāll unlurk. 
Iāll introduce our situation: S21 has a 3.5 uw GPA with a good amount of course rigor (9 Honors and 5 AP) and has qualified for the National Hispanic Recognition Program. Unlike many on this thread, he unfortunately missed NMSF by one point! His local (we live in a suburb of Seattle, WA) Oct 3rd SAT test got canceled, so since we are chasing merit aid, I signed him up for a 10/3 SAT in Coeur dāAlene, Idaho, 4.5 hours away. S21 is not thrilled as he suffers from car sickness. Weāll make it an overnight for the two of us so that he can get some sleep the night before the test.
He wants to study CS so we are targeting non-T20 schools that would have the most merit aid, since our EFC is $45k but due to needing to prioritize retirement savings due to getting a late start on retirement savings (long story), we can honestly really only afford about $24k per year EFC comfortably. We would prefer him to attend a less prestigious university in order to graduate with NO student loan debt.
Our current application list includes:
- Univ of WA (no merit aid, but in-state fees, and can live at home)
- Texas A&M
- Univ of Texas Dallas
- Univ of Central FL
- Arizona State
- Montana State
Maybes: Univ of South Carolina, Univ of Arizona, Univ of AL, Univ of Utah
We want to move to TX in the next few years, so we would love to target any other TX schools that you can recommend. I am a researcher by training, so I am researching NHRP scholarships so much, as well as any other GPA/SAT merit scholarships since S21 has no community service, and his only EC is marching band. He is an introvert who skipped a grade, so prefers to play Magic or Dungeons and Dragons than doing social stuff in person.
I already replied to your other thread, but when I saw this I immediately thought Texas Tech!
While he wouldnāt qualify for the sweet NMF deal, maybe the Presidential? It covers the OOS tuition and half of the cost of in-state attendance if Iām reading it right.
https://www.depts.ttu.edu/scholarships/incFreshman.php
As I mentioned in the other thread, I think you could get at or under budget at UNM, UT-Dallas, ASU or U of AZ (great new Honors College) if he gets a good result on the SAT.
@inthegarden ā No, thatās not what Iām saying. If a school is need blind, the AOs donāt see the financial aid info for applicants during their file review at all ā thatās the definition of āneed blind.ā
However, I think even at need blind schools that at some point in the process someone at admissions is aware of the class taking shape and how many come from certain localities/schools and that info may come into play to make some admissions decisions at the margins, i.e., someone who seems more likely to be full pay (or close) might get a second look. I have not read Jeff Selingoās new book but Iām guessing that might shed light.
At āneed awareā schools (which is the vast majority of schools) AOs do have access to financial aid info on applicants and they make decisions based on that info ā not based on zip codes or anything.
So the meeting with Williams went well, D21 said the AO was very detailed in answering her Covid question. This was not an interview or evaluative, her school has many college that come to school (in non covid times) and meet with students. Her college counselor had told her before that she would be the only one in the meeting and it was the territory rep.
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Thanks, @AlmostThere2018, somehow I thought you were saying that even need-aware schools would somehow make inferences about a studentās ability to pay based on zip code (perhaps holding a bias from the get-go before scrutinizing the applicantās financial info) and that worried me, coming from one of the poorest areas of our state.
Need aware schools know exactly what the applicantās family needs in terms of fin aid, because they work closely with the FA office. At some need aware schools admissions doesnāt look at the FA numbers until the end of the process, while some schools know that early on in the admissions process.
With the 2019 group here, I remember parents saying that FA offices sometimes contact the kids before decisions were released to get more clarification on something submitted to FA office even for need aware schools. The guess was that, once admissions admits a student, they let FA office know and then they go to work on a package. Those kids who got those calls from the FA office always seem to get good news on admissions when decisions came out. You can also be totally crazy and watch each schoolās portal. I believe you can sometimes see when they download FA forms. Some kids applying to need blind schools so those forms downloaded well into the RD cycle and hoped that meant FA was getting ready to put a package together for them. It did seem that was a clue. Didnāt work for us because we didnāt apply for aid but I was so jealous of kids getting that clue! While it was probably not foolproof, I remember a lot of kids get accepted after seeing changes on their portals.
If this is your first going through the process, be warned. Watching portals is a thing. Lol.
At some schools I think there is a pile of maybe admit, depending on level of need.
Itās a thing for some schools too, especially those that track demonstrated interest. I heard a Lehigh AO talk about tracking how many times applicants accessed their portals. They had some applicants who never even set up their portal, and suffice to say those applicants did not receive good news come admission notification day.
@homerdog ā For D18 we got a call from Barnard to get additional FA docs before RD notification. It was a pain b/c they needed some tax returns from an old LLC. (No other colleges asked for this and she applied to a lot of CSS schools!)
Anyway, I was sure this meant she was getting accepted, but then she got WL. I guess they were putting together packages for a wider group than just the āyesā pile. Likely, she went from āmaybeā to WL ā who knows ā but I was a little salty about it after the fact b/c I had to FAX them the stuff ā yes, FAX! Fort., I found an online service where you can fax from your computer. Which is silly ā b/c isnāt that why we have email? LOL.
@Mwfan1921 ā thatās crazy about Lehigh! Kids have to demonstrate interest AFTER they apply. Thatās ridiculous. My S has advocated for putting Lehigh back on his list but Iām not convinced itās right fit for him, and this tidbit does not help!
Lehigh does seem a bit over the top on āshow them the loveā, but really, if I were making hard decisions about whom to accept and an applicant never even set up their portal, that would be an easy decision for me too.
@AlmostThere2018 I was OBSESSED with Amherstās portal. One day, the font changed on something (I canāt remember the details now) but kids here and on Reddit were freaking and some kids had a font change and some did not and it seemed like the kids who had the font change had the highest stats. I was also able to get into Amherstās class registration one week before the RD decisions came and that was consistent with the kids who had the font change and thenā¦
DENIAL!
So that was a waste of hours of my time going down that rabbit hole. I obviously had way too much time on my hands. I swear Iām not going to get caught up in that this time.
We are here to support you and help you stay strong! LOL!
Took a break but S got the Colorado School of Mines Golden App submitted yesterday - woo hoo! Now if I can just get him to finish his big essay this weekend he can then submit most of the the rolling EA schools in September or early October. We should know for sure about the 10/3 ACT by then. His teachers have a bunch of weekend deadlines - midnight on a
Friday or Saturday night. Not helpful.
Need to backtrack and ask for an optional letter of rec from an elective teacher but his tech teachers are busy with remote support right now.