<p>While being need blind is an admission policy, meeting 100% demonstrated need is a financial aid policy. At least as far as the past decade GW has never stated that they meet 100% demonstrated need.
IN addition, it is not unusual for schools to be need aware when it comes to the wait list as most of the funding budget has already been exhausted.</p>
<p>The question on the CA simply states are you applying for financial aid. What need blind means is that your having a financial need for some students it could be a couple of G’s while for others it can be the full cost of attendance, for US citizens and permanent residents, it will not be a factor in admissions. When one is applying for financial aid they are simply checking the box, not necessarily stating how mush money they need. </p>
<p>Yes, there are things on the application that may tip a family’s SES status (although there can and are outliers in each category), parent’s education, jobs, zip codes, the school profile, ECs, sports (equestrians, ice skating gymnastics, lacrosse, and other sports where training can be costly), the big College board, NACAC fee waivers, Questbridge vs fee waivers given to students who apply on line/visit, are recruited or are marketed to for test scores, NMF, etc.</p>
<p>For the Ivies and other elite schools, the admission and financial aid departments operate as 2 separate function in 2 separate locations.</p>
<p>At schools that are need aware/need sensitive this usually does not kick in until close to the end of the admission cycle. When it comes down to similarly qualified candidates, the tip will go to the student(s) that require less of the school’s resources. This may mean that it could be more beneficial for a school to accept five students who only “need” 10k vs accepting one student who needs 50k.</p>