I was wait listed at Penn, Princeton, and UChicago. After talking to my guidance counselor, she told me that my chances of being admitted is incredibly slim (in addition to how nearly impossible it already is) because my EFC is 0. She basically told me that colleges that are generally need-blind is not when evaluating wait lists.
Is this true? And will it adversely affect my chances?
Thanks so much.
I believe there is some aspect of truth to this. After providing aid to thousands of other admitted students from the ED/EA and RD rounds, colleges only have so much to provide for those who are admitted off the waitlist.
However I would bet that tier-one colleges (HYPSM) are need-blind even to this point simply based on their huge endowments.
- I believe it is not true, since need blind schools normally -- and intentionally -- create stout firewalls between the FA and the Admissions departments.
- @AnEpicIndian: Your statement regarding large endowments may be generally correct for a few first-tier institutions; however, only a comparatively small amount of a university's total endowed funds are "unrestricted" and therefore available for discretionary use. Most endowed funds can ONLY be employed for the specific purpose(s) agreed to by the charitable donor(s) and the school. That means that an endowment created to support (for example) FA for graduates of high school X cannot be used for ANY other purpose. This is frequently misunderstood -- people erroneously believe that endowed university funds, for a few elite schools exceeding $5B, are available for use as the institutional leadership see fit, however this is plainly untrue.
I can’t speak to those specific schools but many schools definitely are need blind for early/regular decisions but not waitlisters.