Need blind schools are not looking at the impact of an individual applicant’s FA situation.
But, when deciding at the policy level what characteristics to increase or decrease importance to, or what processes to require applicants to do for the next admissions class, the impact on the FA need of the class is estimated and accounted for in decisions. For example, an adjustment to legacy preference will affect the class’ FA need, since legacies tend to be less FA-needy than non-legacies (individual examples notwithstanding). Similarly, whether to require CSS Noncustodial Profile can significantly alter how many FA-needy applicants will apply or be given FA (about half of children will see parental divorce, most of which are nasty and non-cooperative, so requiring CSS Noncustodial Profile will probably eliminate nearly half of potential FA-needy applicants from the pool).