<p>International students that got into top need-aware schools (Columbia, Stanford, UChicago, NYU, Northwestern…), how much do you think that paying the full fee influenced your admission success?</p>
<p>There is no way for them to know personally, but for need sensitive schools, it likely played a pretty big role and could have supplemented any deficiencies in their application.</p>
Calicash: there weren’t any deficiencies in their applications to start with. It just removed one extra hurdle - all students who are “admittable” are divided into “need aid” and “don’t need aid”, and those who need aid are then re-examined to decide who will get FA and who won’t and be rejected even though strictly on academics they could get in. No point in admitting someone who can’t come because they can’t pay.