<p>Mini rarely has anything remotely positive to say about the Ivies. </p>
<p>My kid (at another Ivy, not Yale) is not a full-freighter, legacy, minority, football player, squash player, Pell Grant recipient, international, or from a feeder private school (let alone any private school.) She's a regular kid who was not deferred.</p>
<p>She didn't expect to get in, but I don't think her hopes were ever squalid.</p>
<p>twinmom, you forgot to explain that she cured 6 rare diseases and won the Intel science competition and sang at La Scala. How could you forget that, your own daughter....;)</p>
<p>Sorry, you-all's kids' hopes weren't squalid. Success is never squalid. It's MY kid mini was mocking.</p>
<p>Silly me. Much to her chagrin, she can't carry a tune. Never entered Intel ... didn't even win the DARE essay contest in fifth grade. Diseases? She did have the chicken pox.</p>
<p>Moths to the flame . . .</p>
<p>ah yes, a level of erudition appropriate to the topic...</p>
<p>(for the purposes of discussion here, I've broadened the definition to include all media...)</p>
<p>I'm seeing a term on here that is new to me -- full freight - what does that mean? Is it a good thing, bad thing?</p>
<p>Full freight usually means no financial aid -- the family pays full tuition plus room and board.</p>
<p>^right.</p>
<p>So whether "full freight" is good or bad depends on your outlook. </p>
<p>You could argue that it is good, since it confirms what you no doubt already knew, that you make enough to be in the top few % of households. </p>
<p>Most of us think it is bad, though, as it means someone is stuck borrowing huge sums of money to pay costs that are, as a practical matter, way beyond what one can afford. (Of course there are no doubt the "full freight" folks who find a $50,000 annual bill to be noise in the budget. )</p>
<p>IMHO, the worst place to be is where we are, right at the edge of full freight - just at the point where need based aid diminishes to inconsequence, and well before the point of budget "noise".</p>
<p>Well expressed, newmassdad. I've seen some rhetoric lately that private schools with enormous endowments should make tuition free for all to make it more equitable. We are technically in the "full freight" category but certainly not going to navigate college costs with the ease of a hedge fund manager. Mini's references to "full freight" being potentially an advantage to the applicant caught my interest. It would be nice if there was something good to come of this monetary situation. It hadn't really occurred to me that it could improve chances of acceptance.</p>
<p>Any word yet on the numbers of SCEA applicants to Stanford and Yale?</p>
<p>Since Yale extends the EA deadline to Nov. 9th to stuents from south california, the numbers should be available next week.</p>
<p>Why the extension for SoCal kids?</p>
<p>probably because of the recent fires.</p>
<p>Since most of the top colleges are need blind, why would being "full freight" matter at all in the admission decision?</p>
<p>
[quote]
Since most of the top colleges are need blind, why would being "full freight" matter at all in the admission decision?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Because right in the first part of the common application the question is asked: Will you be applying for financial aid? Y/N
The family who checks no apparently will already know where the money is coming from and is not looking to the school for any aid from them (they will have no financial need)</p>
<p>sybbie719 - That's a pretty cynical view. The schools insist all over the place that they are need blind. What is your evidence? I also noticed the explicit question on the main common app. I've also wondered about this. And believe it or not, as a parent with too much income to get financial aid for my kids' college, I worry that not needing aid makes my kids less likely to get accepted. The colleges with huge endowments don't really need the tuition money. They need the pr of admitting low-income kids. At least that's what my sense has been. Could be totally wrong. Who really knows?</p>
<p>mammall --
As I have learned from reading these boards, the concept of "need-blindness" in admissions is somewhat misleading. The statistics tell the story: The percentage of full-freight-paying students admitted to a particular institution does not vary from year to year by more than 1%. So institutions know exactly how many full-freight students they need to admit each year, and each year the institutional mission is accomplished. That could not happen without taking the blinders off to a given applicant's need for financial aid. </p>
<p>For a much better explanation, look for posts by mini.</p>
<p>mammall,</p>
<p>They need the PR for admitting low income kids. True, but not too many lest the institution begin to lose some of its attractiveness. </p>
<p>Take Princeton as an example. With what they have in endowment income per student, they could admit an entire class of full need kids and still spend FAR more than most other institutions do. That would be a great social mission, IMHO. But then, Princeton would stop being Princeton with all sorts of dastardly consequences.</p>
<p>Of course they'd need to use different admissions criteria than currently. But who is to say that using SAT scores, HS rank and such is the best way to select future leaders/stars anyway?</p>
<p>So does anyone have any admissions statistics for full freighters? The fact that the same % are admitted each year doesn't necessarily mean its an advantage, it could be that the colleges have to limit the number of full freighters to make room for lower income students. And its also likely that the full freight pool is much stronger than the financial need pool, and so they are admitted at a higher %.</p>