Most colleges have need-blind admissions

[ucbalumnus]

@Trixy34

No school is truly need-blind.

@Trixy34

Well, for one, at need-blind schools, AOs can still see whether a student has applied for financial aid or not.

Trivial examples of need-blind schools where there is no question that admissions does not consider whether an applicant applied for financial aid:

• California State Universities, which (except for CPSLO) admit strictly by an eligibility index of recalculated GPA and SAT or ACT scores (or just college GPA for transfer students) within buckets defined by major.
• Open admission community colleges.

@Trixy34

Further, SAT scores are highly correlated with wealth. Even if an admissions office is officially “need blind”, they still have pretty accurate ways to measure the applicants’ resources - parent occupations, expensive extra-curriculars and summer programs, wealthy school districts (or parents with the means to send kids to private schools). Come on, let’s not be naive.

Yes, colleges can emphasize or de-emphasize characteristics that correlate to high or low FA need in their admissions process to tip their admission class toward higher or lower FA need. But that is different from being need aware for any individual applicant.