Northeastern is need aware for both domestic and international students. Generally, schools will state if they are need blind on their websites, which Northeastern doesn’t do (but they do meet full need). They have always been less than transparent in communications, but admin did confirm to Ron Lieber that NEU is need aware for all students.
So I did what any parent would do and contacted the admissions and financial aid offices myself — and initially got conflicting answers. This compounds Northeastern’s clarity problem: If it’s going to keep vital, basic information off its website, whoever answers its phones ought to be able to find the right answer to the resulting questions.
It wasn’t until I got an email back from a senior member of the admissions office that I was certain: Northeastern is need-aware. (Mr. Armini told me later that they had run the reply by him.) “Different schools will choose to provide different levels of transparency regarding financial aid,” Mr. Armini said in an email.
“The overwhelming demand for a Northeastern education continues because we’re the global leader in experiential learning, a model that leads to superior outcomes for our students.”
Generally it’s best to not use third party aggregator sites like that prep scholar article…many, probably most public colleges/unis are need blind and they are not on that list, just to take one more example where that resource is incorrect.
A good rule of thumb would be to look at the endowment. It has to be pretty darn high for a (private) school to be need blind. Like north of $1 million per student.
They have financial aid budgets they have to keep within, and there’s no way to do that without having some idea of the money they will need to distribute given the kids they want to admit.
(Disclaimer: that $1 million/student is an educated guess)
Again, though, we’re talking about being need-blind and 100% need-met. There are a ton of private colleges that are need-blind at the point of acceptance and then simply run out of money when the time comes to award FA.
That is NOT how the thread started. The OP asked about need blind for admissions, and asked if there were T50 examples AND if publics were required to be need blind (but not meet full need like Mich).
The list of 104 schools contains a lot of top 50 schools, but there are many many many private schools and most public schools that are need blind. Before 2015, the FAFSA wasn’t even completed until Jan 1 and wasn’t finalized until taxes were filed in Feb or Mar. I know my kids were accepted to their schools before I completed FAFSA (both accepted in Oct of 2013).
Most schools have an admissions office separate from the FA office and they don’t share info unless they say they do (need aware schools).
Totally agreed with this “Generally it’s best to not use third party aggregator sites like that prep scholar article”, but if someone has to reply on a third-party aggregator, I find wiki is the most accurate and most updated one: Need-blind admission - Wikipedia
This section, “U.S. institutions that are need-blind for U.S. applicants and don’t guarantee meeting full demonstrated need”, is missing the many public universities that are need-blind/don’t meet full need…which is most of them. All the UCs. All the CSUs. All Illinois publics. All Mass. publics. And hundreds of others.
Not off topic, but changed the question. The OP didn’t limit the question to those schools that are need blind AND meet full need. He just wanted to know which take ability to pay into consideration for admission, and asked for examples from T50, a fluid list in itself as it might include publics, the service academies, LACs or just private universities depending on who is making up the list.
Well, we haven’t heard from the OP in a while. Perhaps she can clarify whether she is interested in a technical definition of need-blind or a practical one which would, of course, include the ability to attend the school after being admitted.
Definitely not, most, if not all, public universities have an in-state bucket and out of state bucket when evaluating applicants, with the OOS applicants having an advantage because they’re full pay. The UCs were actually doing this for a while until public backlash caused them to start favoring in-state again.
“Some publics are required to be need-blind, like the UCs.”
We need to separate what’s said on websites and what’s done in practice. The UCs, when CA budget was tight, favored OOS students, now that CA has a surplus and the backlash I mentioned, are favoring in-state again.
Need blind means the admissions people don’t know the level of financial need the applicant has.
It doesn’t necessarily mean the AOs don’t know whether the applicant has applied for FA (the student may have applied for FA, yet have no financial need in order to get the student loan, or may be on the ‘cusp’ for FA, etc).
At some need blind institutions, the AOs might use CollegeBoard’s Environmental Context dashboard and/or other proxies (such as the OOS example at the UCs) to understand an applicant’s potential resources/situation…but they still don’t know the actual level of need (so technically need blind).
Do some need blind colleges push the definition? For sure…there are only 7 colleges which are need blind for internationals, and AOs may in fact know the financial situation of certain applicants like those from the development office and athletic recruits. As always, there are many different policies and practices out there and YMMV.
But, that’s not an insignificant tool to have at your disposal. Knowing an applicant has not applied for FA is the same as saying that their financial need is -$0-. “Front-loading” the class (through ED and other methods) with full-pay students is the same as being need-aware, IMO.
I agree. But not all AOs know whether someone has applied for FA or not, it varies by school, and schools can and do change their practices (the turnover at all levels in admissions is high…new leadership often means new policies and practices).
My point is there are very few, if any, schools that are need blind, in the strictest sense of the term, for all students.
There are far more than 7 colleges which are need-blind for internationals. It is only when you add the qualifier of promises of certain levels of need-based financial aid for internationals does the number get much smaller.
Any college with open admission is need blind for all applicants. So is any college with purely stats-based admission, unless you consider stats as a correlate for (lack of) need so that it is need aware in the broadest sense of the term.
Agree, maybe another way to look at it is to assume that all schools are need-aware at some level, whether it’s for international students, waitlists, use of ED. These classes don’t magically fill up with lacrosse players from wealthy suburbs in the northeast or science fair participants in wealthy suburbs in California.