@blue77skidoo my experience is somewhat different than @payn4ward our family has always received the FA award in the same communication as the actual admission.
Personally I think the idea that the schools share FA information in order to manage yield is far fetched. In my experience the schools can set high level expectations early on in the process. By high level I mean - you won’t receive any aid, you would be considered for significant aid, you are eligible for modest aid, you should expect little to no aid. If they were playing games they would not share this information in advance. Don’t forget some schools have published income levels below which FULL AID will be granted. So even if they are playing yield games the ability to make a meaningful impact on yield by targeting the subset of your admits that are partial aid, maybe 30% of overall admits, the impact would be diminished. If they are going to play these kind of games it would be more effective to share actual admissions decisions and not admit the same kids - and I don’t believe they do this either.
There are times the schools absolutely have limited visibility into the FA situation at other schools. I’m only one data point but I restate something I said in post #20 in this thread:
Four years ago DS1 applied to Exeter as FULL PAY. since Exeter FA office told me I would not receive aid. Exeter was well aware that we were applying to Andover and applying for FA. Exeter had no visibility to any FA award Andover might make but these schools know each other well enough that they have an idea. Exeter admitted us, they did not waitlist us to protect yield.
@itcannotbetrue are you specifically talking about twins? DD applied to the school where DS1 was a senior last year so I can share what I know about that situation if that is the type of sibling admission you mean.
Folks, there is no evidence whatsoever that schools “ask” or “confer” or coordinate in any other way regarding individual applicants’ admission and FA status. They may share certain trends of this year’s applicant pool, such as number of applications, higher/lower percentages applying for FA, geographic/racial diversities etc., but not individual applicants. There have been many AOs sharing the admission process on school newspapers and blogs etc. None has mentioned any such “cooperation” among schools. To say otherwise sounds to me a good candidate for “conspiracy theories”.
echoing It cannot be true, I would love some insider info on the sibling story as well…Have one at BS and another applying this cycle to sibiling’s school as well as a few others. FA is big issue for us so just curious as to how this scenario may have played out with others…thanks in advance to anyone who can share!
Yes, there appears to be no evidence of such sharing–other than what gusmom2000 said in post #3 and what itcannotbetrue said in post #49 (above).
But if you’re waiting for a school to “come clean”–well, only a school that kept fifty lawyers in-house would admit to sharing financial aid information. It would open a legal can of worms that even Clarence Darrow couldn’t find his way out of.
Not sure if this hit the sibling effect topic but I’ll share the following. The schools care about how many children you have in tuition paying institutions. So if a sibling is already at a BS or in college your chances for aid are substantially higher. Back 5 years ago I was pretty disappointed when one BS explained we would not be eligible for aid, I specifically referred to the schools financial aid estimator, and was told that the reason others with similar income levels and family sizes received aid and we would not is that those families had more than 1 child in a tuition paying institution. You can also see this isn the PFS - it lists the total amount the family is expected to contribute across all of their children.
Last year DD applied as a sophomore and received ~50% FA offer from the school where her brother was a senior. She also received ~35% FA from a school with no familial relationship.
@RedSoxFan18 --thanks for your response. The sibling effect should assist us this year. I honestly can’t see how schools can expect upper middle class families (even up to $300K a year) to pay two $60K tuition bills in-full. Backing out taxes to net income, this would literally be 2/3 + of one’s take home income at that income level. And significantly more for those on the lower end of UMC. I hope that my reasoning is sound.
I guess the only question now is if DC2 is wanted enough by any of the GLADCHEM/HADES schools that we applied to. . . We shall see March 10. Yeah, less than six weeks away, lol.
I guess my specific question revolves more around applying to the same school where a sibling already attends and receives decent FA…I’m concerned that our younger sibling’s application will be viewed differently b/c the school may not want to give additional significant financial aid to a family already receiving it ? Am i being to pessimistic?