If a student or parent can’t figure out whether a school is “need-aware” or “need-blind” from google then one can probably figure it out by checking the school’s economic diversity.
Raj Chetty in the New York Times identified 38 schools that have more students from the top 1% of parental income than in the bottom 60% of parental income.
Most of these wealthy colleges were need-aware.
Looking at SES diversity is not a reliable indicator since SES diversity is often primarily determined by applicant pool and admission criteria that is correlated with SES, rather than need blind/aware policies. Need blind highly selective (on academic criteria) private colleges almost always have very poor SES diversity. SES diversity also can have significant changes over time.
For example, Amherst is one of the only colleges in the US that is need blind for international students, as well as domestic students. However, it has extremely poor SES distribution, so bad that it had a similar portion of top 1% students and bottom 60% students in Chetty’s report. 5 of other the 38 colleges with more in top 1% than bottom 60% are Ivys, all of which are are also need blind. Chetty’s report lists the following SES distribution for Amherst:
Amherst SES Distribution (Need Blind)
Top 1% – 21% of students
Top 5% – 41% of students
Bottom 60% – ~20% of students
Re #53:
The one demographic is not on there, is the top 1%, or even more so the top 0.1%, as well as the kids of powerful politicians, and other public figures. These kids are not disadvantaged compared to any group at all. They have the highest acceptance rate of all other groups by a large margin.
However, regarding the topic of the thread, most families which are full pay are not as wealthy as that. To be full pay, depending on the college and on other factors, a family is usually within the top 15%-10%.
Good point @Data10. Less than 50% of the Amherst entering class is full-pay so I believe them when they say they are “need-blind”.
It would be nice if the Common Data Set (CDS) had a question on it where schools could indicate whether they were need-aware or need-blind in their admissions.
CDS Question C7 has a grid of admissions criteria but “ability to pay” is not listed as a admissions factor there.
On the need aware topic, this article is an excellent read. Here’s a snippet. Kudos to Lafayette for being honest and upfront whereas other colleges obfuscate.
"Lafayette College in Pennsylvania was one of the few schools willing to show me how they make financial aid trade-offs in shaping a class. “We have to craft a class with talent and diversity,” Matt Hyde, Lafayette’s dean of admissions, told me, “but I also need to deliver a solvent one.”
In the middle of February, a student’s ability to pay begins to enter the admissions equation. From that moment until decisions are delivered near the end of March, Lafayette takes a much closer look at students with high financial need, a line that is recalibrated every year. In 2019, the line was drawn at $35,000, around half of the total cost of attending Lafayette for a year. To give you a sense of the task facing Lafayette’s admissions officers, consider this: Of Lafayette’s 8,500 U.S. applicants in 2018-19, about 2,200 needed more than $35,000 a year in financial aid. That was roughly the level of need for a family with two children and an annual income of up to $175,000.
As he eliminates students from the admit pool, Mr. Hyde is careful to choose applicants with varying levels of financial need. His models tell him that students who get huge financial-aid packages end up enrolling more often than those with smaller awards or no aid at all. It’s a balancing act in meeting enrollment and budget targets."
Unfortunately, IMO, it’s because so many people would be offended by
Seems like colleges which are need-aware for individual applicants have not yet figured out how to adjust the weighting of SES-correlated admissions factors to deliver an admissions class with the desired level of FA need that does not exceed the FA budget, the way that colleges which are need blind for individual applicants manage to do.
I.e. Lafayette (reply #64) can probably learn something from Amherst (reply #61).
Well, yeah. Like admit fewer engineering students (a traditional conduit to the middle-class) and more kids who play squash and field hockey (traditional prep school sports.)
Lafayette is need aware. Amherst is need blind. Ability to pay has very different degrees admission influences at need aware and need blind colleges.
It’s a lot easier to be need blind when you have a big endowment per student. Amherst has a much higher endowment per student than 5 of the 8 Ivies – all except HYP. Lafayette’s $300k is still high, but on a different level than Amherst. Specific numbers are below. I have not verified for accuracy.
Endowment per Student
Harvard – $1.5 million
Amherst – $1.2 million
Dartmouth – $900k
Penn – $600k
Columbia – $400k
Brown – $400k
Lafayette – $300k
Cornell – $300k
Lafayette’s endowment per student is on par with Cornell and not far from some of the Ivies, yet Lafayette is need aware, and Ivies are need blind. In addition to endowment and other non-tuition revenue sources, another key component is naturally getting a disproportionately large number of applications from wealthy families. I expect Ivies naturally get a far larger portion of applications from wealthy families than Lafayette. Part of this relates to the Ivies long history and societal perception. Being more selective also impacts provides a bias towards wealthier families, as do admission policies like a large portion athletes (Amherst) and preference for legacies.
Ivies and Amherst are need blind and have amazing FA, in some cases to the point of having ~$0 expected parental cost for ~half of families in the United States (near $0 cost to parents for below ~median income), and many give a significant admissions boost to lower income kids, yet they still have few lower income kids and a large portion high income kids.
A comparison of portion from higher/lower income families, as listed in the NYT linked Chetty study are below. All of these colleges had more wealthy students from top 5% income (over $250k) than middle+lower income students in the bottom 80% (under $135k). All had few truly lower income students, in the bottom 20%. Looking at the portion from different income levels, it would not be easy to guess which colleges are need aware and have top FA for not high income students, and which ones are need blind.
Top 5% Income Families
Brown – 47%
Penn – 46%
Dartmouth – 45%
Lafayette – 45%
Amherst – 41%
Harvard – 39%
Cornell – 39%
Bottom 80% Income Families
Amherst – 40%
Cornell – 36%
Harvard – 33%
Dartmouth – 31%
Brown – 30%
Penn – 29%
Lafayette – 26%
Bottom 20% Income Families
Amherst – 5%
Harvard – 4%
Cornell – 4%
Brown – 4%
Penn – 3%
Dartmouth – 3%
Lafayette – 2%
@Data10 There are exceptions to this rule.
Middlebury is need blind and full need met, but it has an income distribution among students which is more similar to Lafayette’s than to Amherst. Same for Bowdoin, Tufts, Hamilton, Wesleyan, and a bunch of other colleges and universities which are need blind.
In order to make their budget each year, colleges still have to have a certain percentage of full-pay students vs scholarship students. They can’t give out more scholarships than they have funding for.
But, neither Tufts nor Wesleyan pretend to be need-blind.
@MWolf I’m unclear about how an institution can have income distribution and be need blind. Two of the schools you mentioned, Tufts and Wesleyan, are need aware.
Tufts is full need met, but is “need sensitive.” Here’s a recent opinion piece by a Tufts student https://tuftsdaily.com/opinion/2020/02/05/funding-future-need-blind-admissions/
Wesleyan is also full needs met and need aware. You can find an explanation from Wes’s president on his FAQ page https://www.wesleyan.edu/president/faq.html
"Lafayette is need aware, and Ivies are need blind. "
Just because a college says they’re need blind does not de facto mean they are. Admission may not know the answer to the financial aid question, but they know the markers of wealth- private school, zip code, sports, played, legacy, parent’s jobs.
It SHOULD NOT MATTER to an applicant whether a school is need-blind or need-aware. That’s just a distraction. The more important factor is whether the school meets 100% of need or close to it. If you need FA, why would you care if admissions are need-blind? There is no point in the admissions committee being “blind” to your need, admitting you, but then the FA dept does not give you enough aid to make it possible for you to attend.
According to the Harvard lawsuit data, Harvard is need blind in the sense that admission offers do not have access to information from the FA application, and they do not apply a direct penalty to applicants for being lower income or requesting FA.
However, Harvard is able e to apply an admissions boost for lower income, by doing something similar to what you described. If the parents’ jobs, neighborhood wealth, and other information make the AO believe that the students is likely to come from a lower income family (Harvard considers anyone below ~median US income as lower income), then Harvard admissions readers are instructed to give the application a SES “disadvantaged” flag. Receiving this SES disadvantaged flag was associated with getting a notable admissions boost over similar applicants who did not receive the flag (unless the applicant is Black). I’ve seen admissions officers from 2 other Ivies describe a similar system.
In any case, the point was it’s a very different system from Lafayette. One should not assume that the Lafayette quotes in the article apply to all college admission systems, particularly admissions systems at colleges that are need blind.
There are 2 separate relevant and important factors – being admitted and paying for the college. Whether a college applies a penalty/boost for being lower/higher income as part of their admission system is absolutely relevant for being admitted. However, one also needs to consider ability to pay for the college.
My error on some of those colleges.
However, Middlebury is need blind for domestic students, as are Wellesley College, Boston College, Bowdoin, UChicago, Northwestern, etc:
Top 5% Income Families
Middlebury – 53%
Davidson – 49%
Hamilton – 48%
Brown – 47%
Vanderbilt – 47%
Bowdoin – 46%
Penn – 46%
Dartmouth – 45%
Lafayette – 45%
Notre Dame – 44%
Boston College – 44%
Amherst – 41%
Northwestern – 41%
Swarthmore – 41%
Pomona – 40%
Harvard – 39%
Cornell – 39%
Wellesley College – 33%
UChicago – 32%
Bottom 80% Income Families
UChicago – 42%
Wellesley College – 41%
Bottom 20% Income Families
Wellesley College – 6.5%
UChicago – 5.5%
My point was that, while what @Data10 wrote may be true in general, there are a number of exceptions to this rule.
Many common admission criteria have known correlations to SES and therefore FA need. A college can adjust the weighting of admissions criteria so that its admissions class and expected matriculating class hits a target SES distribution and FA need without admissions actually having to look at individual applicants’ FA applications (exceptions cancel out over the thousands of admits).
For example, increasing or decreasing legacy preference is one knob that can be turned to adjust the class’ SES distribution and FA need. Legacy preference is not the only knob that can have this effect.
Interesting how two of the highly selective private schools that do not require non-custodial parent information from divorced parents fare here.
One might expect that using only custodial parent information would skew the SES distribution downward relative to other colleges, since a non-cooperative parental divorce shuts many students out of most highly selective private schools’ FA.
So it looks like Chicago’s SES being skewed downward relative to other highly selective private schools (though still upward compared to the general population and college students overall) aligns with expectations, but Vanderbilt’s SES still being skewed high relative to other high selective private schools does not.