I think it would be great if kids could self-select out if it didn’t look like they’d get past the initial screen. Of course, in practical terms I can’t see it working because - as we all know - there are different thresholds for students depending on whether or not they are hooked.
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So I think recruited athletes could continue to just do individual pre-reads and not use this tool, although I guess they could also develop a separate athletic pre-read version.
With something like legacy–if it is part of the initial screen a college could in theory include it. They may be reluctant, though, if say they do not want people playing with that feature.
If they don’t include it even though it is considered at the screening stage, then presumably legacies would be getting an overly conservative estimate. Which is not really the worst thing anyway–and if they want to take their chances as a legacy who would not normally pass the initial screen if not a legacy, OK.
Generally ANY sort of special case could work like that, formal hook or otherwise. I am gathering these colleges might think they can get, say, 98% accurate results before a human looks, and then a human can just look quickly to see if anything stands out to make them think it might be a 2% case. So if you are told by the bot you are not going to pass, but you believe you are in the 2% where the bot is wrong, OK, take your shot. But you would know you need a real reason to believe that.
Long story short, it could be presented as a baseline tool for unhooked candidates without any other similarly special circumstances. Since that would be conservative, it wouldn’t be a dangerously misleading tool for hooked applicants or people with good reason to believe they are truly a special case.
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To be honest, I am thinking mostly of FGLI students whose stats alone might cause them to self-select out. The schools don’t want that - they want to evaluate in context. At the same time, there are some applicants who find that “unfair” and I don’t think schools want to bring that to the forefront of their attention which is one possible outcome of such a system.
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To clarify, and simplify, it is common sense to understand that colleges must stick within their financial aid budget.
Therefore, colleges without huge endowments per student do not have unlimited aid budgets. Therefore, they will be considering need on some level.
Therefore, if you are full pay you are at a slight advantage at all but the 12 schools who are need blind/full aid. And if you need aid, you are at a slight disadvantage at all but those 12. The amount of advantage/disadvantage will vary by school.
Therefore, to generalize, if you need aid it is better to be at the stronger end of the applicant pool if you want to maximize your admissions chances. Just like if you want to maximize your chances of admission looking only at academics it is better to be at the stronger end of the pool. (This is not to say one shouldn’t apply where the odds of admission are lower).
Of course, they can also manage their financial aid cost by adjusting their definition of “need”.
Yes, I have been saying that for a while, but it seems that most posters here still assume that “meet full need” means “enough financial aid for me/you/student-in-question”.
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Actually, there are lots of colleges that are need blind for admission. Public universities that do stats-only admission are examples. Of course, they do not necessarily “meet need”, for whatever definition of “need”.
Open admission community colleges are also trivially need blind.
Those aid packages that include loans and work study would be more accurately described as “college financing packages”. Getting a loan for college is not “aid” - it is no different than getting a car loan which no one would qualify as “aid”.
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My posts were only talking about schools that meet full financial need. There are many schools (as you know) that do not meet need, and are need blind wrt admissions. On CC we are mostly talking about the former category, though . . .
What college offers a maximum need based financial aid package that does not include either a student work earnings expectation or a federal direct loan?
Some of the most generous colleges are no-loan packages, but I think they still offer work-study and/or summer work expectations.
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These colleges offer aid packages that don’t include loans. https://www.lendingtree.com/student/colleges-no-student-loans-policy/
I just think referring to a policy that requires kids to take on debt as “financial aid” is a misnomer. It isn’t that I’m against college loans - they can be a helpful took in financing your education - but I see them as a financing tool, not as “aid” in the way that I think about it.
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I was on the board of a non-profit which offered college scholarships which were “last dollar only”. We awarded based on need, but a kid needed to show that they had exhausted every other source of funds- Pell, government loans, and work-study. The goal was to fill the gap to make it possible for a kid who had no other way to go to college, not to “save” a kid from the horrors of a work-study job. I think it’s reasonable for a college which is awarding its own funds to make sure that a family has been diligent in applying for the government-sponsored funds first.
Why would a college give its own financial aid to a kid who is eligible but couldn’t be bothered to apply to an entitlement program?
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IMO it’s fair to call the direct student loans aid because some are subsidized, and all are relatively low interest rates.
If a college packages loans beyond that and calls themselves meet full need, well, I beg to differ.
Separately, I don’t know any meet full need schools that don’t require self help contribution in some form…student loans, work study and/or summer earnings.
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Great link!
That site says there are only 21 schools that offer no loan aid packages.
I am surprised Williams (very wealthy) isn’t on the list. That makes me think the list isn’t 100% complete. In any case, very few schools can afford to be this generous.
ETA my hunch was correct: Williams not only has no loans, it has no work study, and all textbooks and course materials are free if you get aid.
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I shouldn’t have lumped work study in with loans (and for the record I was once a student on a significant amount of aid myself - aid that included both work study/loans) but I just don’t see how giving out loans is “aid”. Loaning a student money for college is no different than loaning them money to buy a house or car (complete with interest payments) - and unlike those, student loans cannot be discharged in bankruptcy.
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who is getting the settlement money?
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A government subsidized loan is a loan- but as someone who financed grad school when interest rates were 12%, believe me, those 5% government subsidized loans (not for the full loan amount but it made a huge dent when it was time to repay) is a gift from the taxpayers. I would not have been able to continue paying my loans during my maternity leaves (my company did not have parental leave so I was on short-term disability which was a fraction of my salary), one period of unemployment, etc.
So giving out market rate loans- not aid. Subsidizing those loans at below market rates to make it easier for new grads to pay back what they owe- that’s aid in my book.
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I am not sure if there are any colleges that have no work expectations for all students, but there are some that have very limited work expectations. Maybe it varies by income level. For example D22 does not have any summer work expectation (but does have an academic year expectation), and at least two of the colleges that D24 is currently applying to don’t appear to have any student work expectation at all in their net price calculator results. I only double-checked two just now (one is an LAC, the other is an ivy, and neither expect student work just a parent contribution) so there may even be more than two out there.
Some students will qualify for cash payments, this says average of $750 with all the usual caveats.
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