Chance me liberal arts / women's colleges: CA resident, 4.0 UW, test optional, English or Creative Writing & French

Chance Me / Match Me
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I gave you a pretty extensive list of suggestions because when applying to need-aware schools when one needs a significant amount of aid…it’s even more of a guessing game. Generally, I move schools down one level of likelihood from what I would have guessed if there was not significant need, but that’s really a GUESS on my part. It will depend on how valuable that candidate is to the school (meeting the school’s priorities, perhaps bringing in various forms of diversity whether geographically, areas of interest, background, the strength of the applicant in comparison with the rest of the applicant pool, etc).

For the schools on your original list, only Lewis & Clark doesn’t meet 100% of need, so I suspect it would be the least likely to defer or reject you for financial reasons.

  • Lewis & Clark: 91%

  • Scripps: 100%

  • Smith: 100%

  • Bowdoin: 100%

  • Bryn Mawr: 100%

  • Hamilton: 100%

Of the schools I added, I went ahead and looked up the percentages of need met, intentionally avoiding schools that met 100% of need, as those are the schools that are most likely to reject/waitlist an applicant because of their degree of financial need (unless they claim to be need-blind). For the majority, I used this aggregator. For schools that were not in the aggregator, I looked up their CDS (section H2, line I). I accidentally did Knox both ways, but it does seem to indicate that the numbers shared in the aggregator is the rounded percentage of need met for incoming freshmen.

Additionally, please note that schools will calculate your need differently, so don’t just base your decision on the percentages as a school that meets a lower percentage of need might still give you more aid than a school that meets a higher percentage of need (for more info, you can read this post).

Extremely Likely (80-99+%)

  • Cornell College: 88%

  • Hamline: did not find a CDS

  • Pacific Lutheran: most recent CDS found was from SY20-21; 87.6% for all undergrads, 90.7% for incoming freshmen

  • Sonoma State

  • Susquehanna: most recent CDS found was from SY21-22; 83.0% for all undergrads, 85.9% for incoming freshmen

  • U. of Redlands: most recent CDS found was from SY21-22; 90.0% for all undergrads, 93.0% for incoming freshmen

Likely (60-79%)

  • Agnes Scott: 85%

  • Goucher: 89%

  • Hampshire: 89%

  • Hollins : most recent CDS found was from SY23-24; 87% for all undergrads, 88% for incoming freshmen

  • Knox: 94% in the aggregator (90.1% for undergrads, 93.5% for freshmen per 21-22 CDS that is under the link to the 23-24 CDS)

  • Luther: 92.7% for undergrads 93.8% for incoming freshmen per the SY23-24 CDS

  • Wheaton (MA): From the 20-21 CDS, 83.1% of undergrads and 87.2% of incoming freshmen

Toss-Up (40-59%)

  • Beloit: 97%

  • Gustavus Adolphus: 95%

  • St. Lawrence: 91%

Lower Probability (20-39%)

  • St. Olaf: 100% (didn’t realize this one met full need until after I did this exercise)

Low Probability (less than 20%)

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