<p>The schools with high four year graduation rates have them partially because the students they admit are high achievers who don’t have to take time off to work (goes with the whole great financial aid thing) or take care of families. I guarantee that if Georgetown and University of the District of Columbia (a terrible local commuter school in DC) switched student bodies and financial aid policies, UDC’s four year graduation rate would skyrocket, while Georgetown’s would plummet. </p>
<p>Also aid policies vary among 100% need blind institutions, full need institutions. Both Emory and Princeton are in that rarefied category of schools, but Emory’s average grant will likely include loans, whereas Princeton’s will not. Schools claiming to be need blind don’t care about how desirable an admitted student is. If admissions accepted you, well then they’ll give you a (hopefully) nice aid package no matter if you were at the bottom 1% of admitted students or in the 99%. </p>
<p>Some non 100% need blind full need schools come pretty darn close to meeting full need for the overwhelming majority of accepted students. Tufts and the aforementioned Georgetown are two examples of this. Also many privates offer the best aid to their most qualified students. To give one random example, Boston University often tailors financial aid packages to how high an applicant’s stats are. 2250 SAT, 34 ACT, 3.9 UW GPA? It’ll probably give you a ton of money. 1750 SAT, 3.3 UW? Well, hope you can afford the full cost of attendance because BU just significantly gapped the accepted student.</p>
<p>To find out about need and merit based aid, you can google a school’s common data set and go to section H2 which breaks down the various aid policies.</p>