We did our FAFSA and qualify for a Pell Grant. Does this influence admissions in any way?
Specifically, does a Need Blind or Need Aware school see that on the app and with shy away because they know you have great need?
Or do they see it and it is a positive because they are always listing their Pell Grant stats and they are trying to have a high proportion of Pell recipients?
It works both ways.
For most colleges- which do not meet full need (whether they are need blind/need aware or nothing) it doesn’t matter. They admit you without regard to your finances. They do not pretend that their aid will be enough for you to attend. So in most cases- unless you can commute, do your work study, get some small aid AND your Pell- you decline because you can’t afford to attend.
For the others- which DO claim to meet full need (again, regardless of whether they are need aware or not), it depends. Some colleges are actively trying to increase economic diversity. Other colleges pay lip service to it, but at the end of the day, they use merit aid to give 10 kids scholarships of 5K each, rather than give YOU the 50K you might need to attend.
My suggestion? Don’t worry about it. It is no great bragging rights to get admitted to a bunch of colleges you can’t afford to attend. Focus on running the NPC’s at a bunch of places your stats suggest you can be admitted to, and come up with an affordable list.
thanks for responding @blossom.
D is applying to mostly Need Blind schools like Middlebury, Bowdoin, Amherst etc - schools with a fair amount of money. I guess what I am asking is do they see that she qualifies for a pell grant on the app, or just that she is requesting aid? She is on full ride at a private school, it is not readily apparent what her financial circumstances are.
There are a few Need Aware schools like Bates on her list, and they speak of wanting to “enable” low income families. We kind of fall through a weird crack: white, private school - not what comes to mind when thinking of low income diversity. So I worry that they will not want to pay the balance for D as she is not part of that classic criteria that one thinks of for low income.
Well, @blossom, if they are need blind the admissions office should not even know if the student is Pell eligible when making the decision. Princeton is obviously going to become need award only for Pell students. (How? We just have to trust them that they will only use Pell eligibility as a plus).
But OP, there is nothing you can do about it anyway. I don’t think it will matter at the majority of schools (because the majority of schools are need blind in admissions) until the waiting list when more schools convert to ‘need aware’, but there is nothing you can do about it anyway. If you are Pell eligible, you need FA and lots of it so have to apply for aid early. Most schools are happy to have the extra $5-6 grand the federal government will be chipping in (plus probably SEOG and work study eligible).
If a kid from Bridgeport CT or Camden NJ, whose single parent drives a school bus applies to Princeton, they are going to use their significant powers of prediction and assume that the kid is Pell eligible and they don’t need to be told that the kid is applying for aid in order to discern that. Occasionally they will be wrong but more often than not they are right.
OP- Amherst and the others do not see that she qualifies for a Pell. But again- it doesn’t matter. There are lots of white kids on scholarship at private schools and they all manage to make it college (or at least most of them).
You and your D should be looking very carefully at the Naviance data from her college. If kids with profiles like hers typically get into the schools on her list, AND you’ve run the NPC’s and you can afford what these colleges tell you that you’ll be paying, then as long as you have a rock solid admissions and financial safety you should sleep fine at night. She may or may not get into some of the reachier schools on her list (Amherst) but as long as you’ve run their numbers and are comfortable with the family portion, you’ll be in good shape. And if she doesn’t get into Amherst, it’s not because of your finances. Lots of full pay kids (thousands for them) get rejected every year!
Your D should speak to the college counselor at her school about addressing (in a subtle way, but private school counselors are skilled at this) the socio-economic issue if your D thinks it’s been a factor in her education. For some kids it is- bridging the social gap has been a big part of their private school experience. For other kids- it really hasn’t been. Their parents make less money than the parents of their classmates- yawn. Your D can decide if she wants to raise this with her counselor who will know the right, tactful way to address it in the letter.
@twoinanddone It is my understanding that the application clearly shows that you are applying for aid on the top right corner.
Your write “Princeton is obviously going to become need award only for Pell students. (How? We just have to trust them that they will only use Pell eligibility as a plus).” Thats exactly my question. If they see a student is applying for aid, do they see they are Pell eligible (and @blossom says no). If there ARE able to see that does it give a boost? I think a school like Princeton is truly need blind: they like a kid or not and they have plenty of money to not care about the possible outlay. But a school like Bates or Smith is clear that they are not as well endowed as many others and they do have to take financial outlay as a consideration- usually in the last phase of admits or admits from the waitlist.
@blossom Can you clarify what you mean by this?
…her counselor who will know the right, tactful way to address it in the letter.
OP- I don’t know your circumstances and don’t know the kind of private school your D attends.
But if your D is first Gen and has fully assimilated into a private prep school filled with kids who are 3rd and 4th generation legacies at places like Bates and Amherst, the college counselor will know a tactful way to 'signal" that this is not the typical prep school kid. Her being white doesn’t change that! There is a reason that the private school wanted her for the student body, and the counselor will be able to reference what an addition to the student body she has been (and implying that she will do the same for the college).
It will NOT be “take her- even though she’s white and not affluent”. But it will be a graceful “signal” which will get the job done.
Will your D get in everywhere? Likely not. But nobody gets in everywhere. And private schools are very good at making sure that every kid has a home next year. You do YOUR homework and make sure there are at least two schools which your D is sure to be admitted to which you can afford based on the NPC’s on the college websites.
What @blossom is saying is do you or your daughter believe that that your family income is a factor in her school performance that should be addressed for consideration in the admissions process?
Do you think that the school should mention that your D attends as a scholarship student?
As others have already mentioned, at need blind schools, if your D does or does not get admitted, it won’t be because she needs money to attend.
in the case of Princeton, the school is need blind for everyone. It does not matter if you are pell-eligible or can afford to pay full freight. admissions and financial aid function as 2 separate entities. Princeton will do the preliminary financial aid process for every student who is applying for financial aid because the financial aid department does not know who is going to be admitted until they are informed by admissions.
Princeton simply stated in 2016 that 21% of the class of 2020 was pell-eligible students.
https://www.princeton.edu/news/2016/11/14/pell-eligible-students-comprise-21-percent-princetons-freshman-class
However, is need blind really need blind? There can be indicators on the application such as education level/occupation of parent, high school (especially the school profile), fee waivers, home address/ application through Questbridge that can signal that a student is low income
Our situation is unique. D started the private school being full pay but a confluence of circumstances has made our finances precarious, especially in the past few years when we have lived off (and fully depleted) savings. D is on full ride from an external source, a grant. CC knows this. I doubt CC knows she is Pell eligible. D is not First Gen; her dad has a masters from Yale. We are creatives who have hit a super rough patch financially that seems to stick around more than we had hoped. So I doubt an admissions office would notice this from the markers @sybbie719 cites.
I am sure she will have a home next year her school has them apply to a seemingly absurd amount of saftey’s so that the ‘average RD student has in excess of 5 choices’ which seems like a marketing thing to me as many of those choices are places the kids never go. I just want her to have a home she is happy to go to!
OK. Since around 2006 Amherst has described its admissions policy as “high need affirmative” rather than need-blind and as of just recently, Princeton does too, not the exact same language but same idea.
This article suggests there are 30 schools specifically looking for low income high achievers as part of a partnership with a Bloomberg-spported foundation.
I’d check that GC indicates that D is low income and an amazing student. IMO it can’t hurt and it might help.