Most colleges are financial aid need-blind with respect to individual applicants. However, they can tune their admission criteria and processes to give an expected admissions class with the desired mix of financial aid needs, by increasing or decreasing the weight of factors that correlate to lower or higher financial need. Even if such factors are inaccurate for an individual applicant (e.g. a needy applicant resembles a low/no need applicant on those other factors, or the reverse), the errors wash out when the entire admissions class’ financial aid needs are tallied up.
Sure, whatever, @happy1. Certainly let’s not read “You’ll have to find some lesser schools with less satisfied alumni to find need aware schools” as stating causation or correlation.
@Middleman68 “large amounts of available cash” is not “known”. Without more information the money for college can be held in a 529 or restricted trust and used for educational purposes only. That doesn’t make it “readily available”. Even if for this OP that is true it doesn’t make it true for every single “full pay” family. @WISdad23 is correct that in your case reading “full pay” hit a nerve that causes you to jump to wrong conclusions.
@Oregon2016 - IMO the word “some” which you referenced above does not mean “always” which is the word I used.
But we are veering further and further off the OP’s question.
Is being born so fortunate to have the full-pay advantage really that different than other admissions advantages I have learned about here, such as being from an under-represented geography?
I do admit the OP could have worded things more carefully and modestly without too much effort. Also could be criticized for asking a question that takes 10ms of the google. And financial topics by their very nature are indelicate.
But I see as legitimate point to be considered in a strategy.
^^^^I don’t think anyone denies that being full pay is a legitimate point to be considered in deciding where to apply.
^^^ Fair point, but one easy to miss given the tenor of the replies.
Meanwhile, no one has named colleges. Because first, OP has to qualify.
He’s previously mentioned Penn,(“under middle 50% for GPA and testing,”) Swat, WashU, CMU,and now asks for other “top colleges.” He’s said GPA 3.53, new SAT 1370. He needs to be realistic and informed, be thinking along the right lines. Full pay can’t work miracles.
As was mentioned early on, Carleton is need aware on marginal applicants. Lafayette and Hamilton too I believe. There is a link posted and, as another poster observed, it can be googled. Applying as OOS to prestigious state flagships is another way to leverage full pay.
I don’t think being full pay is going to give you an advantage for admission where you don’t meet their standards. What it will do is open up all of your matches as potential options. Many students have schools they are qualified for but must wait for both an acceptance and financial aid to determine if they can afford to attend or not. You don’t have that issue. There are some tremendous options out there for a student with a 3.53 GPA and an 1370 SAT. It makes sense for you to apply to some schools that you may be in the middle 50% because you aren’t needing scholarships and financial aid. Those without that advantage often just apply to matches that they are in the top 25% with the hope that they will get help. Good luck.
Carleton, Hamilton, Lafayette are not matches. He’s at or under the mid-point for admitted students.
One other advantage that students who can afford full list prices have is that if they have a clear first choice, they can apply ED to that school (if it offers ED) without worrying about whether the financial aid or scholarships will be sufficient. Financially constrained students who want or need to compare financial aid or scholarships between different schools would not want to apply ED, so they would not be able to make use of any advantage that applying ED gives (particularly where “level of applicant’s interest” is used).
“Colleges Worth Every Penny”
- Stanford
- Princeton
- Yale
- MIT
- Brown
Amherst
Bowdoin
Cal-tech
Carleton
Dartmouth
Georgetown
Hamilton
Harvard
Haverford
JHU
Middlebury
Northwestern
Pomona
Swarthmore
Syracuse
Chicago
Notre Dame
Penn
WUStL
Williams
http://www.■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■/lists/list/the-experts-choice-colleges-worth-every-penny/346/
I suspect what the OP was looking for was a school for which willing to pay full price would be a competitive advantage in an admissions process.
Hamilton is need blind and meets 100% of demonstrated need.
The reason many top schools have roughly 50% of students paying full price is simply because wealthy / higher income students have higher SAT scores, attend better high schools with far greater academic and extracurricular opportunities. Their parents are more likely to be college graduates and the students are likely to begin building their college resume at a much earlier age. All of this results in more favorable qualifications for the top schools.
@akin67 According to Mitchell Stevens in his book “Creating Class: College Admissions and the Education of the Elites” Hamilton admissions officers look at financial need. I think many schools say they are need blind but- as has been pointed out by others- their consistency in admitting a certain fixed percentage of full pay students suggests otherwise.
Little off topic, but how would a school know you’re full pay?
Would submitting your FAFSA to WashU with an EFC of over 100k be a way? I feel like without that, they may think you just lost interest in the school and aren’t going to apply for financial aid. WashU is a great example due to the lack of supplement essays, so it is pretty easy to apply
Re #35, Stevens wrote his account prior to Hamilton’s adoption of their current policies.
Yeah but who believes the policy and the practice are entirely consistent? Not just for Hamilton but most privates.
@Jpgranier during the 2014/2015 admissions cycle there was a box on the Common App an applicant checks- will you be applying for financial Aid? Yes/No? Or something like that. Seems like it would have been easy to see if an AO wanted to look for it. Not sure if that box exists on the current Common App.