<p>Does anybody know of particular schools that give preference if your student is not applying for any financial aid?</p>
<p>There aren’t that many. A few schools are “need-blind” in admissions and promise to meet full need for all who are admitted. Most schools make no such promises; they dole out whatever funds they have in their FA budget, and once it’s gone, it’s gone, with many or most students with need getting “gapped” (awarded less in FA than their demonstrated financial need). But this latter group also tend to be “need-blind”; they just make admissions decisions on the merits, and let the financial chips fall where they may.</p>
<p>A smaller group of schools are “need-aware” or “partially need-aware,” limiting the number of students with financial need they’ll admit. I’m not sure the following list is definitive or complete, but here’s one list:</p>
<p>[Colleges</a> Where Need for Aid Can Hurt Admission Odds - US News and World Report](<a href=“http://www.usnews.com/education/articles/2010/03/23/colleges-where-need-for-aid-can-hurt-admission-odds]Colleges”>http://www.usnews.com/education/articles/2010/03/23/colleges-where-need-for-aid-can-hurt-admission-odds)</p>
<p>Note that this list includes some very good schools. Most of these are only partially need-aware, e.g., they’ll fill 90% or 95% of their class on a need-blind basis until they’ve exhausted their FA budget, then they give a preference to full-pays to fill the remaining 5% or 10% of the seats. So being a full-pay gives you some admissions advantage at these schools, but a limited one.</p>
<p>Being a full-pay is an advantage in other ways, however. For one, it makes it much easier to apply ED since you don’t need to worry about what the FA package will look like. Also, you won’t be precluded from attending any school that does admit you by a poor FA package. Third, schools that “gap” many or all of their students tend to have somewhat lower yields (because many applicants end up deciding they can’t afford to attend) and correspondingly higher admit rates, which works to the advantage of full-pays who then are admitted at higher rates and can attend if admitted.</p>
<p>I also think that many schools are happy to have full-pays, even if they profess to be need-blind. Schools that give a legacy preference and/or fill a large percentage of their class in the ED round have got to know these policies would tend to skew the student body more affluent. As does placing a heavy weight on SAT scores (which correlate positively with income) and recruiting heavily at elite private and high-end suburban schools.</p>
<p>I think many more schools do, but they’ll never ever admit it. It’s no accident that the Pell numbers at most schools stay approximately the same year after year after year. Admissions committees have a pretty good feel for who they need to admit to make the financial aid office happy.</p>
<p>I agree with Mathmom. I think more schools would be interested in a full pay student (if qualified).</p>
<p>Many schools are also need-aware for international applicants. Most don’t promise to meet full need for internationals, so they want to make sure the international they do admit have the financial resources to attend.</p>
<p>Most schools, unwritten though, would prefer full pay students.</p>
<p>Didn’t George Washington University admit to this a year or so ago (after having denied it?)</p>
<p>Yes well as a business strategy better to have B+ students that are full pay than A students that cost a ton of money to educate to the exact same outcome. Not difficult to believe private colleges are on the lookout for qualified students that don’t need institutional aid. It is a checkbox on the application so not hard to spot.</p>
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<p>Not only private colleges. Public universities also benefit from full-pays, especially OOS full-pays who pay a higher rate of tuition. This is a direction a number of publics are taking now, or at least exploring.</p>
<p>We heard some schools explain that they need-blind and cover full need for the earlier applicants. But when the money is gone, it’s gone.</p>
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<p>In the public universities, it may be happening by default. The school may see that, with a given amount of state subsidy on tuition and financial aid for in-state students, it can only admit R state resident students with subsidized tuition and good financial aid. But if its total capacity C is greater than R, then shrinking R in response to reduced state subsidies results in a higher C-R number of non-resident students. Of course, another means to deal with shrinking state subsidies is to raise resident tuition and/or decrease resident financial aid, but that tends to get a bigger negative reaction from state residents.</p>
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<p>Sure, I suppose it could happen that way, but I don’t believe for a minute that the schools where OOS enrollment is rising the fastest are just backing into it. They’re more sophisticated than that. They know exactly what they’re doing, and it’s part of a conscious strategy to boost OOS tuition revenue.</p>
<p>[University</a> of California: University of California enrolls more out-of-state freshmen - Los Angeles Times](<a href=“http://articles.latimes.com/2011/jul/01/local/la-me-uc-admit-20110630]University”>University of California enrolls more out-of-state freshmen)</p>
<p>How is that really any different? They realize that they can enroll only 88% of their capacity with subsidized state resident students (down from 92% due to declining state subsidies), so they have to find non-subsidized non-resident students to fill in the rest.</p>
<p>The difference is if you go out and aggressively recruit OOS applicants, then it’s not happening “by default.”</p>
<p>I highly doubt much happens “by default.” These are first and foremost businesses…in the business of education the population. The individual recruiting strategies are going to match whatever happen to be the business strategies for the next five years or so. In my opinion the entire process gets far, far too romanticized.</p>
<p>D’s college is need-aware and they intentionally admit ~50% full pay.</p>
<p>I think all non-need blind schools give admissions advantages to full pay students, by definition, since if they didn’t give such admissions advantages they would be need blind. </p>
<p>Perhaps schools that are trying to become need blind would give less of an advantage.</p>
<p>Abilene Christian University
Agnes Scott College
American University
Auburn University
Bates Collee
Berklee College of Music
Berry College
Bradley University
Brandeis University
Bryn Mawr College
Carlton College
Case Western Reserve University
Catholic University of America
Centre College
Clemson University
Colby College
Colgate University
College of the Ozarks
College of Wooster
Colorado College
Creighton University
DePaul University
DePauw University
Dickinson College
Drexel University
Earlham College
Fairfield University
Franklin & Marshall
Furman University
George Washington University
Gettysburg College
Hampton University
Hofstra University
Howard University
Johnson and Wales University
Lafayette College
Loma Linda University
Loyola Marymount University
Loyola University New Orleans
Loyola University of Chicago
Macalester
Mount Holyoke
Marquette University
National University
New School
Northeastern University
Oberlin
Occidental
Pepperdine University
Quinnipiac University
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Rhode Island School of Design
Rhodes College
Rochester Institute of Technology
Rollins College
Scripps
Seton Hall University
Skidmore College
Smith
Southwestern University
Spelman College
St. Olaf College
Trinity University
Tufts
University of Dayton
University of Denver
University of Puget Sound
University of Rochester
University of San Francisco
University of St. Thomas[disambiguation needed]
University of the South
University of Tulsa
Villanova University
Wabash College
Washington University in St. Louis
Wesleyan
Wheaton College
Whitman College
Willamette University
Worcester Polytechnic Institute</p>
<p>All of these schools are need aware to some degree. How, we don’t know for sure. Some I suspect that are not on that list, as well.</p>
<p>Pell numbers often stay the same each year at the most selective schools because they do take into account socio econ disadvantage for admissions to a certain, consistent degree. There would be even fewer Pell eligible students at those school otherwise. A reverse discrimination exists there, so techically those top schools like HPY are not need blind in that they do look for students who are disadvantaged economically and give this group a boost.</p>