<p>So I’m not understanding what Financial Aid is.
Well, i do, but what does it look for?
Good grades? Good SSAT scores? Good interview?
I don’t know what those schools want in financial aid</p>
<p>Merit Scholarships can be offered to kids who have hooks (academic, artistic, athletic), but only by some schools. Many (most) of the top schools do not offer Merit Scholarships at all…they only offer Financial Aid based on demonstrated need. </p>
<p>In order to be considered for FA, you send your financial information to SSS (School and Student Services). Based on the info you give them, they determine what your family should be able to reasonably afford. SSS sends this information directly to schools on your behalf. If you want to see their report, be sure to check the appropriate box and pay the extra fee. If your family might be able to swing tuition without FA, but you want to see if you qualify then send in the info to SSS, only list one school (where you are not applying) and check the box to receive your own copy of the report. You can then decide later that you either want it sent to the schools you are interested in, or not.</p>
<p>When a school determines whether or not to award financial aid to you, they will use the information provided by SSS to determine the amount. Just because SSS shows that your family could use the help does not mean it will be offered. Let’s say that you are an excellent candidate and you are very attractive to many schools. Let’s also say that tuition everywhere is 40K and the SSS determines that your expected family contribution should be $25K. In other words, they think you would qualify for 15K in FA. All these scenarios are possible…</p>
<p>School A admits you and offers 20K to make it a little easier for your family.
School B admits you and offers 15K which is exactly what SSS says you need.
School C admits you and offers 10K, hoping your family will stretch a bit more.
School D admits you but offers no aid, or tells you that you are on a waiting list for aid.
School E wait lists you but not for aid reasons. You have no idea if you’ll ever get off the waitlist and if they’ll offer aid if you do get off the waitlist.
Schools F would have admitted you but wait lists you instead because you need aid.
Schools G would have admitted you but rejects you instead because you need aid.</p>
<p>If you are admitted to a school you love under scenario A, B, or even C then congratulations are in order! Do not count on FA coming through from any school that wait listed you…that is rare. If you can swing it financially and really want to go to BS, do not apply for aid.</p>
<p>The thing about this that confuses me is that many schools specifically state that financial aid DOES NOT affect a student’s chances of admission. If you’ve applied to a school that makes this claim, what harm does applying for financial aid do? Presumably, the school decides if they want to admit you ignoring whether or not you are applying for aid. Then, once you are admitted, the financial aid committee decides on an amount. You are sent a letter of admission along with a financial aid offer (as in A through D above). Situation E could also occur. However, if admissions are truly need-blind, situations F and G can not occur.</p>
<p>My conclusion is if a **school states that financial aid is need blind <a href=“and%20you%20believe%20it”>/B</a>, then you should always apply for financial aid if you think there’s a chance you might receive some. You can never be worse off than if you didn’t apply for it. The risk, of course, is that the school isn’t telling the truth. But I’m willing to take what a school posts on its website at face value and believe it.</p>
<p>If a school does not say that admission is need blind, then you reduce your chances of being admitted by applying for financial aid. In that case, you have some fancy estimating to do. You need to compare how much you reduce your chances of admission with how much aid you may receive and how likely it is you’ll receive it. That’s not easy to estimate. In this case, situations F and G might occur. On the other hand, if you can’t afford to go without the aid, you really haven’t lost anything anyway, have you?</p>
<p>Many schools will not admit you if they can not (or will not) meet your need. That is the risk. I don’t know if ANY of the schools to which my son is applying would admit him but not offer him aid. I think they would either waitlist him or outright reject him rather than admit without aid.</p>
<p>^^NMH will admit without aid. It happened to us…they called me first to ask if they still wanted me to send the packet to my son. I think ours was kind of a special situation; they told us to reapply the following year and that he should be fine. In fact, the following year he received a named scholarship which covered most of the costs.</p>
<p>*Many schools will not admit you if they can not (or will not) meet your need. That is the risk. I don’t know if ANY of the schools to which my son is applying would admit him but not offer him aid. I think they would either waitlist him or outright reject him rather than admit without aid. *</p>
<p>But that contradicts the definition of “need-blind” admissions. You’re describing situations in which need is taken into account. Quoting from the Lawrenceville website (other schools have similar statements):</p>
<p>It is important to know that applying for financial aid has no bearing on admission to Lawrenceville.</p>
<p>That statement seems very clear.</p>
<p>So, a student gets admitted. Then a financial aid award is determined. Then the student gets to decide if that package works for him/her.</p>
<p>It’s important to know if a school to which you are applying has “need blind” admissions or not.</p>
<p>I hope you are right. I know that my son would rather know that he could have been admitted without FA than not know what the reason is. It is very thoughtful of NMH to ask the parent if acceptance should still be offered even without FA. </p>
<p>I think that every school tries its hardest to not consider FA but budgets are a reality. To my (admittedly limited) knowledge, St Andrews and Andover are the only schools that are truly need blind. That is, where a FP candidate does not have an advantage over a FA candidate.</p>
<p>My understanding is still that a FA candidate goes through more rounds than a FP candidate. They only have so much money to spend. </p>
<p>Don’t get me wrong, it would be heartbreaking for my son to gain acceptance at say, Lawrenceville, but not have the means to pay tuition - but he would still be proud of himself.</p>
<p>I would much rather be admitted without Financial Aid and have to turn it down than be waitlisted and always wonder if it was me or the FA that stopped me being admited.</p>
<p>Same here. Although either way my parents probs wouldn’t let me go without some FA, so being accepted without might be more disappointing personally.</p>
<p>I would like to think that rejection means there is some major “unfit” the school can find in an applicant, but waitlisting usually shows the applicant would be accepted if not for certain “extraneous” reasons which could include unmeetable financial need. Sometimes it becomes so obvious when you are accepted by a same-tier school with similar acceptance rate with generous FA while waitlisted in another. Then again if that’s the case, many wouldn’t care whether another school has accepted him/her any more. The point is: don’t wait for schools to make you “feel good”. Do it yourself. After comparing notes on CC, you just know if you are as a qualified candidate as the next one.</p>
<p>I think that need-blind financial aid favors students (and their parents!) for the following reason. When one fills out the FA forms and tries to estimate what your family can pay, it is very difficult to make reasonable estimates. Also, when SSS comes up with a determination as to what you can pay, it’s a bit silly to think that it is the number. Under need-blind FA, the school makes you an offer and you decide if you can afford to come based on that number. As a result, the school’s “yield ratio” (percentage of accepted students who actually attend the school) will suffer. There will certainly be some accepted students who would come but the FA award is simply not enough to make attendence viable.</p>
<p>But under non-need-blind financial aid, the school makes it’s estimate as to whether it’s going to be giving you enough money to attend. If the school decides that you can’t afford to come based on what it’s willing to provide in FA for you, the school takes the decision to come away from you by waitlisting or rejecting you due to financial considerations. You never get the chance to decide if you want to “dig deeper” and spend a higher percentage of income on school, take out a 2nd mortgage (probably not advisable), spend down some retirement savings, hit up that rich uncle with a plea for some cash, or whatever. On the other hand, the school’s yield ratio will be stronger. </p>
<p>Let me add a minor tangent about yield ratio. Schools care about two aspects of yield ratio. They care about the absolute size of yield ratio. Boards of trustess and school adminstrations are generally happier to say that 70% of acccepted students enroll at the school than 50% of students enroll, for example. It helps support a better school image and attract better candidates in the future. Schools also care about the volatility and predictability of the yield ratio so that they can manage the size of the student body. If the yield ratio suddenly jumps up unexpectedly, the school might not have a place to put all the incoming students! If the yield ratio suddenly drops, the school might not have enough students on the wait list to provide enough incoming students. Having a wait list helps handle this volatility, but a school doesn’t want to have too large a wait list (creates too much false hope amongst students - a bad public relations image). And a school wants to make as many offers as it can on March 10th so that it can get the students that it wants.</p>
<p>Sorry about the long diatribe. I’m new to this forum so these issues might have been covered in detail before. If so, sorry for the repetition.</p>
<p>“yield management” is complex. You would think that “need-blind” could hurt yield, but last year as one of the few “need-blind” schools Phillips Academy had the highest yield (78%). The thing is students/families that need FA usually apply to multiple schools. Eventually they will choose the best offer they get, which is not always the offer with the best FA package (some may choose to pay more for a “better” school). From the school’s perspective, they may want to estimate the chances an admitted student will acutally attend. If they believe you may very likely receive and acceept an offer from another school, they may waitlist or even reject you to protec their “yield”.</p>
<p>*“yield management” is complex. You would think that “need-blind” could hurt yield, but last year as one of the few “need-blind” schools Phillips Academy had the highest yield (78%). The thing is students/families that need FA usually apply to multiple schools. Eventually they will choose the best offer they get, which is not always the offer with the best FA package (some may choose to pay more for a “better” school). From the school’s perspective, they may want to estimate the chances an admitted student will acutally attend. If they believe you may very likely receive and acceept an offer from another school, they may waitlist or even reject you to protec their “yield”. *</p>
<p>First, did PA have the highest yield because it was need-blind or in spite of it?</p>
<p>Second, I certainly agree with you that “yield management” is very complex. Irrespective of the financial aid situation, schools may reject a qualified candidate because that candidate is overqualifed and they don’t expect that candidate to actually to come. For example, a highly qualified candidate has applied to fictional third tier school X as a safety. School X knows full well that this candidate is almost certainly going to be accepted at one or more HADES schools (they’re an admissions committee, they should know!). So, why should they bother admitting this candidate when they know he/she is incredibly unlikely going to be attending their school? Here in NYC, I’ve been hearing about how some schools have been handling this situation. The candidate would be waitlisted. At the same time, the candidate would be contacted either directly or through his current school’s placement counselor informing them that if the candidate does have serious interest in the school, the candidate should let them know. Once in a while there are circumstances which lead to the candidate attending that school. Yield ratio is artificially propped up without shutting the door on an excellent candidate.</p>
<p>Third, I certainly agree with you that students/families don’t always take the FA award with the most money. Would you take that Exeter award of 50% of costs or an award of 60% fictional third tier school X? I think most here would go with Exeter.</p>