<p>celloguy -- my son was admitted to Reed in 2001. He applied for financial aid and was determined to have financial need. Reed sent a letter and said that despite the need, they did not have funds for him and would offer only Stafford loans. They suggested that he double deposit with Reed and another school and said they would put him on a waitlist for financial aid - which presumeably might become available if enough students who were given aid did not come. They acknowledged that in order to meet full need, my son could expect a grant of around $15K. My son was not a borderline candidate - on the contrary, his SAT scores were very high and above the 75th percentile of students who enrolled that year, and his weighted GPA was above 4.2, with A's in all academic subjects. </p>
<p>I pulled the Reed common data set for 2001-2002, the year my son was accepted and didn't enroll:
<a href="http://web.reed.edu/ir/ReedCDS200102.html%5B/url%5D">http://web.reed.edu/ir/ReedCDS200102.html</a></p>
<p>What I can see is that Reed CLAIMS to have met 100% need that year, too. Now obviously they did not do so - since I know that my son was admitted; had need; and was turned down for aid. Nor is it the case that only students who got aid enrolled - the Reed data for that year is as follows:</p>
<p>*c) Number of students in line b [financial aid applicants] who were determined to have financial need</p>
<p>186 First Year / 743 All Students</p>
<p>d) Number of students in line c who received any financial aid</p>
<p>186 First Year / 672 All Students</p>
<p>e) Number of students in line d who received any need-based gift aid</p>
<p>186 First Year / 648 All Students </p>
<p>f) Number of students in line d who received any need-based self-help aid</p>
<p>186 First Year / 640 All Students</p>
<p>h) Number of students in line d whose need was fully met (exclude PLUS loans, unsubsidized loans, and private alternative loans)</p>
<p>162 First Year / 631 All Students</p>
<p>i) On average, the percentage of need that was met of students who received any need-based aid. Exclude any resources that were awarded to replace EFC (PLUS loans, unsubsidized loans, and private alternative loans)</p>
<p>100% First Year / 100% All Students*</p>
<hr>
<p>So basically the Reed CDS shows the same pattern 5 years ago, when I know for a fact that they did not meet full need of all eligible admitted students. They have numbers showing that only 87% of their first year students who received financial aid had their full need met, and yet claimed to meet 100% need "on average". </p>
<p>If the CDS is properly filled out, then in order to have 100% reflected in section i, the numbers in sections c & h (number of students determined to have need / number whose need was fully met) would also have to match. There is no way to arrive at 100% need met without that. (I can see how mathematically it would be possible if the number whose need was fully met were only slightly less than the number of qualifiers, but that isn't the case with Reed). </p>
<p>The 2005-2006 CDS shows Reed doing a somewhat better job in terms of comparing the numbers who get full need met with the numbers of qualifiers, but it still is far from a match. So I have to take that 100% in section i with a big tablespoon of salt: Reed wasn't meeting 100% need in 2001 but filed paperwork claiming that they did, so why should I believe a similar claim in 2005 when it is again contradicted by the numbers in the other fields? </p>
<p>Here's what I think: like most similarly ranked colleges, Reed uses enrollment management to leverage their aid. My son was turned down in 2001 because he made it clear that Reed was his top choice, and made statements in his application that unfortunately telegraphed the idea that he was one of those "come anyway" students. In 2001, they were far less selective - they admitted more than 71% of applicants that year and had only a 28.5% yield -- so they weren't in the business of turning anyone away. They were simply using enrollment management strategies to target aid dollars at those who were the least likely to attend without the money. </p>
<p>Now the selectivity & yield has changed a lot since then, so you may be right that Reed has now adopted a need-aware strategy of simply rejecting or waitlisting students who cannot be given aid -- but the 2005 CDS doesn't support that conclusion. It still shows by the raw numbers that Reed doesn't meet full need of all students who qualify. So my personal opinion is that Reed is probably still using enrollment management to determine who gets aid. As of 2006 it may be true that they are not admitting anyone whose need they can't meet -- we'll have to wait for next year's CDS to know for sure. But as of 2005, there were 8 first year students on campus who had a different story to tell. (My guess: I'll bet those were waitlisted students who were offered spots later, but told that there were no more funds available for financial aid -- that would be consistent with Reed's newly-stated policy)</p>
<p>The numbers do tell us one thing, though: Reed's enrollment management strategies are achieving the goal of attracting richer students. In 2001 there were 186 incoming needy students -- last year there were only 146 - so that is 40 LESS students they have to worry about. Shows that the need-aware policies are working for them.</p>