In fact there is a lawsuit alleging nominally need blind colleges were in fact doing some of that as part of their budget management process. And a lot of colleges have settled, which is not exactly an admission of guilt but is certainly interesting.
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Yes, the whole 568 President’s club was interesting, and ill advised (as the financial settlements suggest.)
Many of the member schools, during the time the organization existed, were never need blind for international students. Many of these schools also often know the need level of some applicants, such as recruited athletes and Questbridge applicants. So, right there they were technically in violation of the anti-trust deal (Section 568 of America’s School Act of 1994.)
Outside those examples, the issue boils down to this:
Is a school “need blind” if admissions uses some/all of the various factors that can be a proxy for financial need as part of the application review process and admission decision, even if the admissions peeps don’t know exactly the level of need for a given applicant as worked up by the FA dept?
Like I’ve said on some other threads…IMO it’s no coincidence that 50% or so of each class at some of the highly rejective schools that are need blind/meet full need for all is consistently comprised of full pay students.
ETA: to keep this on topic for OP, all they can do is apply widely, and have some affordable choices with highly likely admission chances in their home country and/or ex-US countries.
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