<p>With some need-blind colleges receiving in excess of 30,000 apps, wouldnt be a lot more efficient for them to review FA info of only the admits? If so, why do all of them require FA forms in early Feb or March? Do they actually review all FA apps in parallel with admissions review? Do they review FA forms of all applicants? Finally, is it really need-blind?</p>
<p>PCP - if you have a set budget each year for FA, how would you make sure you get the most bang for your bucks?</p>
<p>No school is need-blind.</p>
<p>Need blind colleges need to let students know their financial aid package at the same time as they receive acceptances so that the students can compare packages as part of their decision of where to go to college. The only way to meet that deadline is to require finaid form completion before admission decision.</p>
<p>Well, if you are filling out the FAFSA form, those deadlines are set by the Fed. gov’mt. IE it’s best to file before Feb. 1 for the best chance at aid. Many colleges may simply follow those dates to keep in step w/ when people are filing their FAFSA.</p>
<p>I have a friend who worked in the FA office of a need blind college. (keep in mind this was 25 years ago). She said they made their decision on whether to accept or decline an application totally need blind. But…then they had to take the stack of kids they wanted to accept and fine tune the potential acceptances based on how many funds they had available for FA.</p>
<p>I have no way to verify this or to even know if this is still the case, but it does make some sense.</p>
<p>I agree with Paperchaserpop…so I was considering how could a college do this. Firstly, their deadlines would have to work such that they could then make admit decisions fairly early. But this might impact how many students would apply. This could create a problem in that sense. So, they make their decisions and contact the students who then submit their financial paperwork by Feb. 1. This sounds a lot like “Early Action”. And does favor saving the college time and money. But EA is difficult for a lot of students. My son barely made his EA deadline and he started the process before September…obtaining references, etc. I think it’s a problem for sure.</p>
<p>They need the forms at that time partially because of the federal government deadline, and partially because they want the financial aid packages to be ready at the same time as the admissions package. Just because they are need-blind doesn’t mean that all of the applicants are equally able to pay. Applicants need to know what kind of aid they’re getting when they get accepted so taht they can decide whether or not they can attend. And in order for schools to get all of those aid decisions ready in time, they need the forms early.</p>
<p>I agree with all of the above. Even schools with deep pockets have financial aid budgets. Remember the process still goes on whether or not you submit your financial aid paperwork. Late submissions could result in your getting less grant/scholarship/“free money” or more loans than you would have gotten if you had applied on time.</p>
<p>Need blind simply means your having a financial need, whether it is $1 or the entire cost of attendance will not be a factor in determining whether or not to admit a student. The financial aid portion is a whole different animal.</p>
<p>A school that is need blind in admissions does not necessarily meet 100% of demonstrated need.</p>
<p>Even when it comes to filling out the FAFSA, the FAFSA only determines ones eligibility for federal aid (Pell, SEOG, academic achievement grants, smart grants, federal work study, perkins loans, sub/unsub stafford loans). Schools that give need based institutional aid will also ask for the CSS profile or their own institutional financial aid forms.</p>
<p>At many need blind schools, admissions and financial aid function in 2 separate places, not interacting with each other. Schools receiving federal aid are also required to audit/verify at random a certain percent of applications. In this process, the school with gather information from both admitted and non-admitted students (at the time, they do not know).</p>
<p>First off, every school I know of that claims to be need blind IS need blind. </p>
<p>Here’s how/why they need those forms before decisions are released:</p>
<p>-Most of the need blind schools out there are highly competitive/selective and operate on a fixed deadline schedule (i.e. regular decision apps due January 1st, notification March 30th, or whatever calendar the school decides). </p>
<p>-May 1st is generally accepted (by universities/colleges) as a universal deadline for accepting or declining an admissions offer. Many institutions have unspoken agreements with each other to respect this deadline. </p>
<p>-If institutions notify students of their admission on approximately April 1st (each school is different, these are just generals), students have roughly ONE MONTH to determine which school they would like to attend.</p>
<p>-Students and their families need financial aid awards to determine which school(s) they can afford. Increasing numbers of students/families are comparing financial aid awards as part of the decision making process. It is unwise to deposit (“agree to enroll”) in any institution without understanding how much one may have to pay - unless cost is not a factor (i.e. family has very high savings/salary/financial settlement/outside scholarship/whatever).</p>
<p>-It is physically impossible for financial aid staffs to process, calculate, and prepare financial aid awards for the however-many (let’s use an imaginary need-blind Top National University) admits in a short time AND allow enough time for students/families to compare packages. Let’s imagine that TNU, our fictitious top-ranked university, admits 2500 students during regular decision, aiming for a class of 1600. If TNU doesn’t request financial aid documents for students until they are admitted, it would have less than 30 days to calculate financial aid awards for those students (let’s pretend that 1750 of our 2500 fictitious admits end up qualifying for some sort of institutional aid). Contrary to what many might believe, calculating financial aid awards at most need-blind, full-need schools is not simply a matter of spitting out a calculation from a computer; there is institutional adjustment involved. On top of that, it would leave those 1750 admitted students with less than 30 days to compare their own packages. </p>
<p>-Most highly selective, need-blind institutions (or at least every one I am familiar with and/or have worked at!) admit students in committees that run for several weeks. Contrary to the idea that all 2500 students (or however many) are admitted in five marathon days, most offices hold committees throughout February and March on various days, interspersing reading with these committees. After students are admitted during this process, their information (name) is then given to the financial aid office/side, where that staff begins processing their financial aid award if that student applied for financial aid. Of course some students aren’t admitted until the very last committee shortly before decisions are released - and those students’ files are being worked on last-minute by financial aid.</p>
<p>Some of you may wonder then why schools don’t ask for financial aid information until a student has been admitted, even if it is just internally. It would be in poor taste for an institution to individually ask for particular students’ financial aid documentation (FAFSA, CSS Profile, what have you) before the admissions decision notification date (if this were the system in lieu of the present system) because it would strongly indicate a likelihood of admission that may ultimately prove inaccurate. Because of the nature of committee-based decision making an institution would need to ask for a significant number of students for their data even if only a fraction of them would be admitted (as much as A/Os hope the committee goes for their recommendation, in my experience, one never knows until the final vote how things will turn out in some cases). </p>
<p>Institutions want - and NEED - to be able to provide financial aid packages at the time of admission. Waiting is not feasible nor is it fair emotionally to students and their families.</p>
<p>Hope this is helpful.</p>
<p>
Exactly. I think many students and their families don’t recognize the distinction. </p>
<p>Need-blind, full-need institutions make up a very, very, very small proportion of higher education. There are only seven colleges/universities in the US that are need-blind and meet full-need for ALL applicants, including international students/citizens (Amherst, Dartmouth, Harvard, MIT, Stanford, Princeton, Williams, and Yale - Dartmouth and/or Williams may have changed its policies in recent weeks due to economic issues, I am not sure).</p>
<p>I haven’t double checked this list, though it looks somewhat accurate, but it lists the schools that are need-blind and pledge to meet full-need for US Citizens:
* Amherst College
* Beloit College
* Boston College
* Bowdoin College
* Brandeis University
* Brown University
* California Institute of Technology
* Claremont McKenna College
* College of the Holy Cross
* Columbia University
* Cornell University
* Cooper Union
* Dartmouth College
* Davidson College
* Denison University
* Duke University
* Emory University
* Georgetown University
* Grinnell College
* Harvard University
* Haverford College
* Knox College
* Massachusetts Institute of Technology
* Middlebury College
* Northwestern University
* Pomona College
* Princeton University
* Rice University
* Stanford University
* Swarthmore College
* University of Chicago
* University of Miami
* University of Notre Dame
* University of Pennsylvania
* University of Richmond
* University of Rochester
* University of Southern California
* University of Virginia
* Vassar College
* Vanderbilt University
* Wake Forest University
* Wellesley College
* Wesleyan University
* Williams College
* Yale University</p>
<p>As you can see, it is a very small number of schools if you think about how many thousands of institutions there are in this country!</p>
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<p>I really do think it is just data entry to a finaid calculator, with some manual/subjective adjustments. This should not take more than couple weeks to process 2000+ finaid apps, particularly if the forms are submitted electronically. If MIT can render all RD admissions decisions by 3/14, presumably most decisions are internally ready up to a week before that. This give colleges 3 weeks to work out the finaid packages and still make the 4/1 timeline. I still think admissions-before-finaid plan can still give students a month to compare different offers.</p>