<p>Did applying for financial aid hamper your admission chances. Colleges say - no, but after yesterday i have a different opinion.</p>
<p>Almost all the top students from my school have been rejected by all the good colleges, and those who weren't top students and had less EC have still got into the schools of their choice. </p>
<p>One observation i made was that people who applied for financial aid didn't get in anywhere and i mean anywhere. And most of these are colleges claim they are need blind. very strange.
Whereas those of equal and in some cases less caliber got in to most of the these schools but didnt apply for financial aid.</p>
<p>I must also add that we are all international students so that reduces our chances for fin. aid but the why do colleges, specially some ivy leagues, claim they are need blind?</p>
<p>Are you a top student, amazing EC's but didnt get in any top school because you applied for Financial aid, or are you wondering how you got in but your friend who had better grades didnt? tell us about it.</p>
<p>Mind you i dont intend to blatantly accuse colleges,they must have made their decisions with great though, i just want an opinion.</p>
<p>Which "good colleges" are you talking about in particular?
There are only VERY FEW colleges and universities that are need-blind towards internationals. HYPM, Williams and Middlebury, I cannot think of any others.</p>
<p>Having less money has some other consequences which impact your chances of admission as well:
You may not be able to afford professional essay editing services or SAT tutoring and stuff like that, which wealthier students can and often do. You may only take the SAT once instead of three times, and you may apply to less schools because of the application fees and fees for sending score reports.</p>
<p>Something to remember, especially at this time of the year, is that no one, with the exception of the admissions office, truly knows whether an applicant applied for FA, got a certain SAT score, or had (fill in the stat here). In other words, the anecdotal evidence of what people SAY is in their file, means a lot less than what actually IS in their file. Unless we can take a look at their applications & FA forms, we will never know whether the schools are really discriminating against FA applicants or not.</p>