<p>dt123, if your analysis is correct, I agree. Unfortunately, I suspect it is not. I suspect that these schools give a most kids all, and gap a few horribly. I think the aggregate stats would be the same in either case? but the individual impact would not.</p>
<p>dt123 -- it doesn't work that way -- the average statistic that a college meets 99% of need doesn't mean that every applicant gets 99% of need met - it is much more likely that 99% of the applicants get 100% need met, and 1% get nothing. That's still rather "safe" - unless you are in that 1% who has been turned down for aid. Most likely that 1% is in the "admit-deny" category -- someone who is a borderline candidate for admission. </p>
<p>I think the bigger problem is that the 99% figure indicates that somewhere along the line, the college may be fudging a little with the data -- because it really is hard to see where that number would come from. My guess is that a 99% figure for entering students reflects a larger number of admittees being turned down for aid -- for example, the college may meet 100% need of 90% of students admitted, giving nothing to the remaining 10% -- and of that 10%, only a few decide to enroll -- resulting in a final figure of 99% among enrolled students. </p>
<p>It is a huge mistake to look at the average percentage of need met and conclude that a given student will get that percent of aid -- college financial aid departments simply don't work that way.</p>
<p>"Among LAC's, the lowest ranked 100% need school I could find was Connecticut College at #36."
Calmom- Here are some lower ranked LACs that claim to meet 100%of need:</p>
<p>Reed #47 (Their aid policies changed a couple years ago to eliminate gapping--but they are no longer need-blind for the bottom of their admitted class.)
Lawrence U #53
St. Olaf #55
Beloit #61
Knox #73</p>
<p>Probably no coincidence that my younger son applied to 3 of these schools :)</p>
<p>I found the same problem with the National Universities. Only the top 25 schools really met 100% of the need. The lowest one I could find that met 100% of need and without PLUS, unsubsidized, and private loans was UVa, and they aren't "easy" to get into.</p>
<p>Nwestmom - "claims" are not the same as facts. Some college p.r. is carefully worded, but the reported stats will show the reality. </p>
<p>You are correct about Lawrence, St. Olaf & Beloit, and I will add them to the list, along with Pitzer which also is a lower-ranked college meeting full need. You may be right that the abandonment of need-blind admissions may be the key to their more generous aid policies. The practical problem is that the higher-ranked, more selective colleges end up with a more affluent pool of admitted students, simply because affluent students are more likely to have the pre-college education and experiences that lead to admission, and because of the known income-level bias in SAT scores. When schools are less selective, the percentage of potentially needy students that meet their admission criteria goes up -- hence the financial barriers to the college in meeting the need of admitted students. </p>
<p>As to Knox & Reed; the US News 2004-2005 stats show that they do not meet full need of all students. So unless things changed with the 2005 entering class, or for the class entering next fall, it is possible that information in their promotional material is misleading.</p>
<p>Here are the Knox figures:
"Students whose need was fully met (excluding PLUS or other private loans) 44% 47%
% need met (of those awarded need-based aid) 95% 95%"</p>
<p>And here are Reed figures:</p>
<p>"Students whose need was fully met (excluding PLUS or other private loans) 95% 89%
Avg. need-based loan (excluding PLUS or other private loans) $2,450 $3,928
% need met (of those awarded need-based aid) 100% 100%"</p>
<p>I happen to be familiar with Reed's practice -- they guarantee to meet 100% need of students who get aid, but they don't give aid to all qualifying students. </p>
<p>My son was accepted to Reed in 2001 with a letter saying that he qualified for aid but they didn't have money and were giving him nothing other than a Stafford loan-- he was a NM Scholar admitted easily to many other colleges, definitely not a borderline candidate. I sent them a copy of the Macalester award with a $15K grant - they said they would put my son on a "waitlist" for aid and confirmed that his grant would be that amount if they decided to give him aid - so they clearly recognized that they were gapping him by at least $15K. </p>
<p>I'm a little suprised by Reed's 89% figure for all students, as Reed claims that even though they may deny aid to first years, that they will guaranteed to meet full need to continuing students in subsquent years -- yet the figures show that the upperclassmen are even less likely to have need met.</p>
<p>Obviously, there is a strong motivation for colleges to paint a rosy picture in their promotional literature. That's why it is valuable to have a list based on the real reported stats. I do think it would help if our list could also indicate which colleges are or claim to be need-blind, but I find it harder to get good info on that.</p>
<p>Updated list (adding 4 more LACs to the bottom):</p>
<p>Schools that meet 100% of need + (average first year loan amount - average yearly loan for all undergrads)</p>
<p>US News top 50 National Universities:</p>
<p>Harvard University (MA) ($2489 $2,377)
Princeton University (NJ) ($0 $0)
Yale University (CT) ($1,447 $2,410)
University of Pennsylvania ($3,143 $4,049)
Duke University (NC) ($3,700 $5,009)
Stanford University (CA) ($2,675 $2,860)
California Tech ($1,798 $1,318)
Mass Inst. of Technology ($3,321 $3,897)
Columbia (NY) ($3,465 $4930)
Dartmouth College (NH) ($3,168 $4,318)
Northwestern University (IL) ($2,424 $4,148)
Cornell University (NY) ($10,400 $8,157)
U. of Chicago (IL) ($4,474 $5,484)
Rice University (TX) ($2,532 $3,069)
Univ of Notre Dame (IN) ($3,603 $5,278)
Emory University (GA) ($3,129 $4,890)
Georgetown University (DC) ($2,010 $3,634)
University of Virginia* ($3,771 $4,395)
Tufts University (MA) ($2,911 $4,219)
Boston College (MA) ($3,707 $4,721)</p>
<p>US News Top 50 LACs:</p>
<p>Williams (MA) ($2,187 $2,860)
Amherst (MA) ($1,839 $2,263)
Swarthmore (PA) ($2,047 $3,061)
Wellesley (MA) ($2,488 $3,097)
Carleton (MN) ($3,140 $4,307)
Bowdoin (ME) ($3,253 $3,595)
Pomona (CA) ($2,500 $2,825)
Haverford (PA) ($2,674 $3,872)
Middlebury (VT) ($2,971 $3,690)
Claremont-McKenna (CA) ($2,728 $3,441)
Davidson (NC) ($3,090 $3,903)
Wesleyan (CT) ($2,466 $4,427)
Vasser (NY) ($2,165 $2,846)
Colgate (NY) ($2,296 $4,200)
Grinnell (IA) ($4,355 $5,150)
Hamilton (NY) ($3,352 $3,921)
Harvey Mudd (CA) ($3,554 $3,472)
Smith (MA) ($2,109 $3,730)
Colby (ME) ($2,984 $3,343)
Mt Holyoke (MA) ($3,321 $4,925)
Oberlin (OH) ($3,612 $4,187)
Macalester (MN) ($2,503 $3,302)
Trinity (CT) ($2,901 $4,237)
Barnard (NY) ($2,625 $4,107)
Bucknell (PA) ($4,000 $5,200)
Scripps (CA) ($3,166 $3,647)
Sewanee (TN) ($3,629 $3,338)
Connecticut College ($2,861 $4,229)
Lawrence (WI) ($4,609 $5,505)
Pitzer (CA) ($3,148 $5,101)
St. Olaf (MN) ($3,747 $4,507)
Beloit (WI) ($2,642 $3,364)</p>
<p>Calmom, I think understand the concept of averages and statistics. The whole point is that there is no meaningful distinction between 100% and 99%, unless one just likes making lists of pointless distinctions. For all we know a 100% on the list is really 99.5% rounded up, and a 99% is 99.4% rounded down.</p>
<p>I still don't get how USC says it meets 100% but the premium USNews site says not?</p>
<p>Calmom-- I have heard that Reed's policies changed since 2001. I believe they changed in 2004, but I could be off by a year. I should not have used the word "gapping" in describing their previous policy, as you are right--they offered no aid to a portion of the students (a very big gap for some, I'm sure). These were informally known as "come anyway" admits. As in, "We can't afford to give you any money, but feel free to come anyway." My understanding is that "come anyway" admits were eliminated a couple of years ago, and the funding gap was made up by dropping their need-blind policy.</p>
<p>I am surprised by the Knox figures, as they tout "100% of need met" prominately in their literature and financial aid webpage. My son did receive comparable aid from Knox and his other full-need schools.</p>
<p>Loan amounts and average discounts can be deceptive. The discounts are deceptive simply because by raising the list price, the discount becomes greater, but the position of someone receiving financial aid hasn't improved one iota. Average loan amounts can also be deceptive - if you admit lots of "needy" students with incomes between $120-$160k, chances are their need amounts will be lower. So lower loan totals can reflect wealthier student bodies rather than more generous aid. (And of course it is pretty simple to screen out high-need students, or screen in low-need ones at the admissions office. It makes the college look much better to admit 8 students and meet their $5,000 need each, rather than one needing $40k. All of a sudden, the percentage receiving need-based aid goes up, the average loan total goes down, and the student body, unbeknownst to anyone on the outside reading the data, has gotten richer.)</p>
<p>Interpreting the numbers is an art rather than a science. ;)</p>
<p>Nwestmom -- Reed's 2005-2006 common data set is available on line here:
<a href="http://web.reed.edu/ir/cds/cdssech200506.html%5B/url%5D">http://web.reed.edu/ir/cds/cdssech200506.html</a></p>
<p>It shows that in 2005, there were 12 "come anyway" freshman, as only 165 out of 177 who were determined to have need were given any aid (93%). Among the total student body, there apparently were an additional 23 needy but unaided students still coming- 661 students receiving aid out of 696 determined to have need (95%). </p>
<p>Moreover, Reed reports that of the 165 students who received aid, it only met full need of 158; the same discrepency exists for the overall student body - only 620 of the 661 students qualifying for aid had their need fully met. </p>
<p>And yet Reed still claims that on average, it meets 100% of need. By my math, it met the full need of only 89% of incoming freshman this past year.</p>
<p>I don't think its unfair to assume that there are a fair number of students who turn down Reed's offer to come without financial assistance -- Reed's yield on students who have been denied aid is probably significantly less than its yield on those who are receiving money. Reed had a 29% yield for last year's class - it's not unreasonable to assume that a significant number of applicants who turned them down did so for financial reasons. So if it is meeting full need of 89% of students who actually enrolled, one can extrapolate that aid was initially offered to an even smaller percentage of accepted students. </p>
<p>dt123 -- regarding percentages: if one student qualifies for need based aid and doesn't get it, then the college is not meeting full need of all its students. That doesn't mean that most students aren't getting full aid, but the problem is with the wiggle room in the 99%. For one thing, since the numbers come only from enrolled students, we don't know how many admitted students were denied aid -- the less popular and less prestigious the school, the less likely that a student denied aid will elect to come, so it is probably not unfair to assume that for every admitted student who doesn't get aid and enrolls anyway, there were several others in the same situation who elected not to attend. </p>
<p>There simply is a qualitative difference between "all" and "almost" -- and it is something that parents and students should be aware of before they apply, to avoid potential disappointment in the spring. Since our family cast a wider net than 100% need schools, I can tell you that each of my kids opened fat envelopes from their first-choice colleges that left them with a $30K shortfall when it came to finances, and it is not a happy event. I would hate to see it happen to someone who mistakenly believes that their dream college provides 100% need to all students.</p>
<p>
[QUOTE]
the higher-ranked, more selective colleges end up with a more affluent pool of admitted students, simply because affluent students are more likely to have the pre-college education and experiences that lead to admission, and because of the known income-level bias in SAT scores. When schools are less selective, the percentage of potentially needy students that meet their admission criteria goes up
[/QUOTE]
Interesting observation. What this implies is that the top schools that meet all need are not necessarily more generous than their lower ranking brethren. Rather, they have a more affluent applicant pool.</p>
<p>Yet the elites get a lot of mileage out of this "meet all need" stuff, especially when you realize it is the school's definition of need, not ours.</p>
<p>calmom, so these schools guarantee to meet 100% of need without PLUS, unsubsidized, and private loans for all 4 years of study? Can I get a confirmation?</p>
<p>Harvard University (MA) ($2489 $2,377)
Princeton University (NJ) ($0 $0)
Yale University (CT) ($1,447 $2,410)
University of Pennsylvania ($3,143 $4,049)
Duke University (NC) ($3,700 $5,009)
Stanford University (CA) ($2,675 $2,860)
California Tech ($1,798 $1,318)
Mass Inst. of Technology ($3,321 $3,897)
Columbia (NY) ($3,465 $4930)
Dartmouth College (NH) ($3,168 $4,318)
Northwestern University (IL) ($2,424 $4,148)
Cornell University (NY) ($10,400 $8,157)
U. of Chicago (IL) ($4,474 $5,484)
Rice University (TX) ($2,532 $3,069)
Univ of Notre Dame (IN) ($3,603 $5,278)
Emory University (GA) ($3,129 $4,890)
Georgetown University (DC) ($2,010 $3,634)
University of Virginia* ($3,771 $4,395)
Tufts University (MA) ($2,911 $4,219)
Boston College (MA) ($3,707 $4,721)</p>
<p>I don't know what they "guarantee" -- the numbers that those schools report via the common data set simply indicate that they meet 100% need (as determined by them) of all applicants that are found to have financial need. The data is available from multiple sources -- I have been using info from the US News premium site, but it can be found from other sites as well.</p>
<p>Vanderbilt is 99%.
All this can be very, very, misleading. Washington University, for example, only gives financial aid to 55% of the people who apply for it, but for those people who get it, Wash U. meets 100% of their EFC that THEY (wash u) calculated. Johns Hopkins is like this too, as well as some other schools. This is a concious manipulation of statistics to encourage people to apply. Some of these schools will give you all of nothing just so they can keep their '100% of need' met label; and that label alone is meaningless. Not to mention that Wash U is NOT need blind and will reject you if you cost them or their rankings too much...</p>
<p>sorry about all the Wash U bashing; but the facts come straight from Wash U representitives. I wanted to apply there, but since i read more about their financial aid process, i have become discouraged from applying.</p>
<p>"I don't know what they "guarantee" -- the numbers that those schools report via the common data set simply indicate that they meet 100% need (as determined by them) of all applicants that are found to have financial need."</p>
<p>Careful here - applicants who were ACCEPTED and "needed" aid. If you don't accept those who require much aid to begin with, and accept a majority of students who don't even apply for any, it really doesn't amount to much of a guarantee, does it?</p>
<p>If you want to get a better picture of what is going on, take the "need-based" aid budget (total) and divide by the total number of students attending. When you do that, you find some very interesting stuff (for example, 7 of the top 10 LACs in aid per student are "need aware" rather than claiming to be "need blind".)</p>
<p>"more selective colleges end up with a more affluent pool of admitted students, simply because affluent students are more likely to have the pre-college education and experiences that lead to admission, and because of the known income-level bias in SAT scores."</p>
<p>This makes it sound so passive. The selective colleges don't "end up with a more affluent pool of admitted students" - they actively seek out and CHOOSE such a pool. It is not because the students "are more likely to have the pre-college education/expeirences that lead to admission" but because the colleges actively CHOOSE those with a particular kind of experience." It is not because of the "known income-level bias of SAT scores", but because colleges CHOOSE to reinforce that bias.</p>
<p>I have no problem with private colleges making such choices. Hey, it's their money, and they can do with it what they choose. Transparency would be nice, so people know what they can expect.</p>
<p>Both Princeton and Harvard are very generous. I have two brothers in Harvard '07 and Princeton '09, and both got some amazing offers.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Careful here - applicants who were ACCEPTED and "needed" aid. If you don't accept those who require much aid to begin with, and accept a majority of students who don't even apply for any, it really doesn't amount to much of a guarantee, does it
[/quote]
Mini, the data is also readily available as to: percentage of students applying for aid; percentage of students determined to need aid; average amount of total package; average amount of grant aid. </p>
<p>I'm not inclined to do the work of pulling that info for every college, in part because it is not very useful for purposes of comparing one college to another or for purposes of making an application decision. From the standpoint of the appiclicant who is needy, it doesn't matter if 35% of the students receive aid or if 75% of the students receive aid: the point is, the applicant knows that at, say, Amherst, once accepted if there is need, there will be financial aid that will purportedly meet 100% of need -- as opposed to say, Boston U., where the applicant understand that the college may or may not provide aid, and may elect to provide aid that is far short of demonstrated need.</p>
<p>While it is true that "need" ends up being whatever the college says it is, if the college claims to meet 100% of need, then an applicant has a reasonable chance of negotiating or appealing an award by providing additional factors bearing on need.</p>
<p>Where it really starts to count is when the student (or parent) is looking at the prospects of aid over 4 years. The 100% need school can be expected to hold steady: the $30K aid package given the first year will be there the next, if the family economic circumstances remain constant. The student that elects to go to a college like Univ. of Rochester, which apparently front loads its aid, may be in for a big surprise sophomore year -- that's the whole point of looking at the stats. If my kid is going to qualify for need-based aid only, I sure want to know if I can expect the same level of support for all 4 years.</p>
<p>"Mini, the data is also readily available as to: percentage of students applying for aid; percentage of students determined to need aid; average amount of total package; average amount of grant aid."</p>
<p>Right, and smaller packages, and small average amounts of grant aid may simply mean wealthier students rather than stingier packages. </p>
<p>My d., as you know, only applied to 100% of need schools. The offers varied by a total of $47k over four years from lowest to highest (more than a full year of school costs), with loan amounts from $0 to $17.9k. Our FASFA, etc. was very simple - no outside businesses, farm lands, big loans, illnesses, big mortgages, etc. - a very simple one. Several of the schools claim to be part of the same consortium, figuring out aid using the same formula (yeah, get real.)</p>
<p>Frankly, I think the 100% of need crap is pure advertising spin, making rich alums feel good about themselves, and masking the "merit aid" policies that exist in the admissions, rather than financial aid, offices.</p>
<p>Also be aware that depending on who you are and what you bring to the school, you may end up with a great offer from a school that does not meet "100%." That is the catch in this process. I have seen students make good connections via email early in the process and have interested admissions people writing to them with good awards in May. Interest in a school can trump all.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Right, and smaller packages, and small average amounts of grant aid may simply mean wealthier students rather than stingier packages.
[/quote]
In theory, yes -- but the reality is that the elite 100% need colleges tend to offer more generous aid and to have more lower-income bracket students than the colleges a few notches down the ranking ladder that don't meet 100% need. If you look at Harvard or Yale demographics, you will see that the lowest representation comes from the mid-to-upper middle class level, the families that will not qualify for enough need based aid to equalize costs between public & private -- it is the kids of the $80K income earners who end up turning down the elites to go to their state flagship colleges, because their parents can't afford to pay $30K a year. </p>
<p>Overall, they have more rich students than poor, but the point of setting up a list like this is not to reward colleges for their beneficence. It is to give prospective applicants a picture as to where aid will likely be most generous. My own experience has been that those loan figures are telling, which is why I include them. If I were new to the process and had a superstar kid but no money who was looking at Harvard & Yale, I'd sure encourage the kid to look seriously at Princeton as well. I'd also reconsider the value of an "Ivy" label if I had a kid looking at Cornell over Northwestern -- those Cornell loan figures are pretty scary. </p>
<p>FWIW, demographic information is also available for many colleges from other sources - it certainly isn't impossible to also find out the income distribution of kids at various colleges. But keep in mind that richer students overall might translate into more financial aid dollars available to share among the smaller number of poor students.</p>