Looking for recent list of "Need-Aware" colleges

[sybbie719]

For US citizens and US Permanent residents, the overwhelming number of colleges in the U.S. Are Ned blind, which means that your ability to pay will not be a factor in the admissions process. I don’t consider this to be a big deal because on the financial aid side, most colleges don’t meet 100% demonstrated need. At some schools the gap can be very small, while at others it can be very big.

As someone previously mentioned , if a school really wants your kid and your kid meets the institutional mission niche they are trying to fill, schools will definitely do preferential packaging to make themselves more attractive to you.

@Muhlenberg College

Enter preferential packaging
Preferential packaging means, simply, that the students a college would most like to enroll will receive the most advantageous financial aid packages. Financial aid packages are made up of:

Grants. These may come from the college, the state, or the national government. They are “gifts,” or “free money” and do not have to be paid back.

Loans. You are entitled to some government loans, and there are others you or your parents must qualify for, but taking loans is always optional. Loans must be repaid, usually beginning six months after graduation from college.

Work. Colleges and the government both fund on-campus work programs. These programs are designed to help a student meet the total cost of attending college—over and above tuition and fees—in exchange for on-campus work.

A preferential financial aid package includes a far greater percentage of grant aid than self-help (loans and work). Because they have discretion over how much grant aid they choose to award a student, a college can award a bigger grant to a student they would really like to enroll. In some cases, the total of grant from the college and the loans the student is entitled to may exceed the student’s financial need. (“Need” is the cost of attendance—tuition, room, board, books, travel and expenses—minus what a family is able to pay.) In addition, students at the top of the applicant pool may receive Merit Scholarships designed to reward their outstanding high school record and further entice them to the college.

http://www.muhlenberg.edu/main/admissions/therealdealonfinancialaid/

The other side of this coin is that there are a number of schools that will admit deny, meaning that they will academically admit you, but will not give you enough money to attend. A few years ago BU straight out stated that while they are need blind, they are not talent blind when it comes to giving out their money and will offer generous packages to the students they want.

@BU

Ms. McGuire, whose office overlooks the Charles River and Harvard beyond (“It’s the only time I get to look down on Harvard,” she quips, on separate occasions), is blunt about the purpose of B.U. aid: “It’s meant to encourage some and do what we can for others. I don’t want to say ‘discourage’ because we want people to enroll. But we are more encouraging to some.”

Translation: The strongest students in a pool of applicants (maybe this is your safety school) will probably get more aid than the weakest applicants (maybe this is your reach school).

“We’re saying, ‘We love you,’ ” to those offered the best packages, says Laurie A. Pohl, vice president for enrollment and student affairs.

Bottom line, Dr. Pohl says, is that “we’re going to meet full need out of the box for our best students who have financial need.” All told, about 200 students in each incoming class receive scholarships for half the tuition, and about 100 for full tuition, whether they need it or not.

Beyond the few getting these coveted scholarships, how does Boston University decide how much “love” to shower?

B.U. may be need-blind in admissions, but like many colleges, it is not talent-blind in financial aid. When the admissions office accepts a student, the file gets a rating before going to the financial aid office. That rating, Dr. Pohl says, is based on a holistic read of the application: factors like leadership, talent, motivation and personal character are weighed as well as grades and test scores.

“They get a number that is not a calculation,” she says. “It is not a tally. It is a label. It could just as easily be colors or letters. What it tells us internally is their relative strength, how competitive they are within our pool.” With that rating and the office’s calculation of “need” — indeed a relative term — a formula is applied to reflect, as Ms. McGuire puts it, how “encouraging” the school will be to an accepted student.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/19/education/edlife/finaid-pappano-t.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

At schools that are need aware/ need sensitive, this process usually does not kick in until toward the end of the process when they are exhausting their budget. A school will decide when it comes to similarly qualified candidates where should they spend the money; should they spend $50k funding one student or give 5 $10k merit scholarships as a way of tuition discounting 5 full pay families.

I think what you need to do as a family is have the money talk now about how much you are willing to pay or borrow for college. Then use a bottoms up approach to find the fattest schools on your list; safety schools. A true safety should meet the following criteria; a school where your child is likely to be afmitted( preferably through rolling admissions/ early action), a school that offers what your child is interested in, a school that is a financially feasible option for your family ( automatic guaranteed merit is a plus) and if it is the last school standing, your child will be happy to attend. If you can get 2/3 of these on your list ( because everyone likes having options) you are halfway there.

Then use the net price calculator but be reminded that the estimate is inky going to be as good as the information you submit. It can have great inaccuracies for divorced families. Single parent households where the school does require information from the no. Custodial parents, business owners, people who own real estate outside of their primary hone.
Most schools don’t care about agreements or court orders stating who should pay what for college. Parents are first in line when it comes to paying for their kid’s college education. When parents say no, they are essentially saying let other people’s parents pay ; full pay parents, taxpayers. Parents who contribute to their schools).