My child will be applying early decision to a need blind college. However, I wonder how “blind” the process is as our address, zip code, occupations and colleges attended are on the common app.
Are you at an advantage if you are full pay even at a need blind school? Thanks in advance for any insight!
I would assume a school that is need blind is that - admissions and financial aid is kept separate.
But colleges like the wealthy - so if there were going to be a bias, it would be in your favor.
But most colleges are need blind - and I would take them at their word.
That said, many market to wealthier areas because they want full pay students, etc. but again, your admission decision should be based on the student and nothing else - in a need blind situation.
Your FAFSA/CSS, etc. will not enter into the admissions discussion.
So will it help at some high end Need Aware colleges that you are full pay.
But at the Need Blind - nope.
But in most cases, ED will help!!
Good luck
These is an active lawsuit about this (which a lot of famous colleges have settled). One of the issues is just what you are discussing.
Need blind at least means that Admissions does not know what any individual applicant’s need calculation might be. But suppose Admissions uses a complex yield model that factors in demographics, and higher income students statistically do better in that yield model. Is that still need blind? What if the yield model is used not just to predict enrollment, but also things like net tuition? Is this still truly need blind if it has an intended budgetary effect in the aggregate which statistically helps out higher income applicants?
Anyway, that is part of what the plaintiffs in the lawsuit alleged various nominally need blind colleges were doing.
In the sense of making your kid’s application stronger relative to others, probably not. If we are talking a holistic school, your kid’s application will be judged in the context of any advantages/disadvantages.
On the other hand, being able to apply ED (with its advantages) without any concern for affordability is an advantage.
IMO, where full pay at even need blind schools makes a difference is probably when we are down to the waitlist.
I note that was another allegation in the lawsuit (that schools need blind for original admissions became need aware for waitlist offers).
Maybe that’s new on the school’s part but many note they are need aware.
In this case I think OP is hoping they are advantaged. Assuming they come from a wealthy area, they certainly aren’t disadvantaged !!!
Thanks all, this is very helpful! As the beneficiary of need blind admissions (I was first gen, in the old days before the Internet, haha) I was genuinely curious as to how need blind works in today’s application process.
Even in wealthy towns, there are those who aren’t wealthy. Our town has a hefty share of high income people and multimillion dollar homes, but when my H was on the school board he learned that there were many families in town struggling and whose kids needed assistance with getting food, school supplies, and clothing. Even in wealthy zip codes, medical costs can wipe out savings and job loss and divorce can result in poverty. While it is more likely that someone in a wealthy zip code is full pay, the school has no way of knowing if any individual applicant is without looking at their financial aid application. If they say they are need blind, I’d assume they are need blind.
Nobody knows except the admissions office. Colleges have all the info they need to infer income. They know the zip code, they can look at ECs since wealthier kids may have more time for them instead of having to work or watch sibings and they can take part in costly summer programs, they can look to see if they played sports such as lacrosse, they know if they attended a public or private school, the student may write an essay describing what they learned traveling abroad, and so on. These aren’t perfect measures of income but given thousands of applicants they do a decent job of stratifying by income should a school care to do so.
But IMO more important than second-guessing admission procedures is understanding the implications of ED. If accepted your child will get a FA offer but you’ll need to accept or reject the admission offer without seeing the FA packages from any other schools, then withdraw all other applications if he accepts. It may be worthwhile to spend time with the FA estimators of schools he is considering to be ready to make the decision if he gets into the ED school.
Yes, there are many proxies for wealth in the common app, and schools can use these proxies in their predictive analytic models. This is specifically one way an affluent applicant may be advantaged in the admissions process because the yield model suggests they will attend if admitted.
Many of the relatively selective schools also use CollegeBoard’s Landscape report which details information at the high school level and student’s census tract level (smaller than zip code), including proxies for wealth. Landscape – Higher Ed | College Board
The lawsuit referenced above was an anti-trust lawsuit charging that members of the 568 President’s Group colluded on their financial aid formulas by sharing/using a common calculation which served to limit FA given to students at these schools.
It is true that many need blind schools’ waitlists are need aware. Many of the highly rejective schools also know the financial status of athletic recruits during the various pre-read processes and athletes can be a large proportion of students especially at the LACs.
Outside of these issues, I do believe schools when they say they are need blind…that means they don’t technically know whether the applicant qualifies for need based aid, and if so, how much (minus recruited athletes, development admits of course, and waitlists.) It is no coincidence that 50%+ or so of students at many of the highly selective schools are full pay year in and year out.
This is likely, in part due to self selection. Many people get into these schools and either can’t afford or decide they don’t want to afford the bills.
I note it appears colleges are often using demographic data down to at least the Census tract level, which is a bit more fine-grained than zip codes. They can theoretically combine that locational data with things like parental occupation and educational attainment to further refine their models. (Edit: all this also covered by other prior posters.)
Even so, it is true they could not use that sort of model to perfectly predict need on the individual level. In the aggregate, though, they could plausibly get pretty close, as errors in different directions balanced out for the most part.
The thing is, these schools don’t want to lose a lot of admits that way, as it makes enrollment less predictable which can result in a lot more waitlist use which can be suboptimal for all sorts of institutional goals.
Hence why they use these things called yield models. But as we are discussing, it is a very fine line between using yield models that take into account these issues and just being need aware.
And then at least allegedly there is evidence they were using that same system to track and hit budgetary goals.
So personally, I agree the overall enrollment results consistently meeting their institutional goals, including budgetary goals, are not a coincidence, and necessarily this leaks back into admissions because you have to admit the right mix to predictably enroll the right mix.
Which may not technically ever involve Admissions knowing an individual need number (at least not before the waitlist round). Because it doesn’t have to as long as the system still produces the desired results in the end without Admissions having that specific information.
There are lots of need blind schools and each differs. Very hard to give an answer that fits all of them.
But you can check out common data sets to see what percent of kids admitted have financial need. You can also see what percent of kids get Pell Grants.
For SOME of the schools…the % of kids needing aid is REALLY low and the % of kids getting Pell Grants is also REALLY low.
While some of this may be self selection bias…the number differ enough across the population of need blind schools to suggest that some schools are more need blind than others.
It raises the question…do you need financial aid information to tell how wealthy a student is? Could you use zip code analysis (one example) or high school as a proxy for wealth and still call yourself need blind because you are not looking at financial aid docs?
I would still run the Net Price Calculator for the college where ED is being considered before submitting the ED application. Even with a need-blind/meets full needs college, the school’s idea of the amount of aid required to make the college affordable may be different from what the family is comfortably willing and able to pay.
Need-blind admissions technically only means that your level of financial need won’t disadvantage you for admissions. It does not mean an applicant’s demographics (including presumed wealth or lack thereof) won’t be considered.
For example, many schools prioritize enrolling low income students or students from under resourced school districts, etc.
They also say that ECs will be judged in context (meaning a wealthy student might be presumed to have landed a rare research opportunity via family connections).
Or a low income student’s stellar SAT score might be valued more. Etc.
I think it’s very hard to be completely need blind if you’re looking at the Common App profile of where the parents went to college and their professions.
Are there some schools that choose not to see that info? I have no idea.
AFAIK all public schools are need blind. The elite flagships have institutional priorities to enroll more FGLI students and students from under represented districts so I’m guessing they consider demographic information. But tons of other state schools that admit everyone who’s qualified, likely don’t care about this information.
Most public schools are Need Aware.
Here is a list of all need blind schools. There are not that many of them:
Public schools just don’t factor need as much because of their institutional priorities, as you state, and because many publics are cheap enough (for in state students) that covering need is far less likely to be a factor.
The list of 115 need blind colleges is far from complete. There are about that many open admission community colleges in California, all of which are trivially need blind. Then go to every other state…
Many less selective state universities admit by a stats formula or threshold; such methods are also need blind if no points are given for need or obvious correlates (sometimes in favor of higher need in state applicants).