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[quote]
According to Dean of Admissions Bruce Poch, the ED process is fair and does not discriminate against less polished, economically-disadvantaged candidates...</p>
<p>"The schools financial aid office also guarantees to meet 100 percent of the demonstrated need of every admitted enrolling student. This allows students, the school claims, to be assured they will be able to afford the school before committing.
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That is obviously total b.s., especially in California with our inflated real estate values, and I am sure Poch knows it. Pomona, like every other elite private school uses "institutional methodology", which means that "need" is calculated by including home equity in the equation. Since in California it is very easy for a family to live in a tiny home with a high market value, it is next to impossible for a working class, homeowning family to have any clue what "demonstrated need" will mean. I mean, it is quite plausible that a family with a $60K net income might be living in a 1200 sq. ft, $700,000 home in a downscale neighborhood .... and not be able to afford to move even if they wanted to. Add in the private college's practice of counting the income of a noncustodial parent, even in the many cases when the ex-spouse is unlikely to contribute a dime, in a state with a very high divorce rate, .... and ED + financial aid is pretty much a joke.</p>
<p>I would note that the UCs give great financial aid. I really did get offers of close to 100% FAFSA EFC need, with very reasonable expectations as to loans and work study, for both my kids. So knowing that, it would be particularly risky for a the working-class, homeowning family to lock themselves in ED to a college like Pomona.</p>
<p>I am quite sure that Bruce Poch and every other college administrator knows that the ED applicant pool is far more affluent than the regular pool, and that ED serves a financial agenda as well as other factors. But if I were to impose a truth-in-advertising requirement on colleges, the first rule I would set is a requirement that the phrase "demonstrated need" be used only in conjunction with the FAFSA EFC -- let's see how many colleges say they meet "demonstrated need" in that case. And rule #2 would be that the colleges need to put on their web sites a financial aid calculator tailored to their own particular practices -- how about a web version of the actual software they use for their own calculations, with their own "professional judgment" policies factored in, for example? So that we divorced, homeowning, self-employed folks might have an actual clue as to where we stand?</p>