This assumption is obviously incorrect for many public colleges and universities.
For example, in California, there are 116 community colleges. They are open admission, so financial aid need (and anything else) is not considered in admission.
There are 23 CSUs, of which 17 admit at the CSU baseline qualifications for most majors. These baseline qualifications are purely based on completion of course requirements and (recalculated) GPA (>=2.5 for CA residents, >=3.0 for non-residents). Financial aid need is not part of these qualifications. Of the competitive (âimpactedâ) campuses and majors, the supplemental criteria are summarized at https://www.calstate.edu/apply/counselor-resources/Documents/First-time-Freshman-Supplemental-Admission-Factors-Summary.pdf ; these do not include financial aid need.
It seems unlikely that the above is that different for other statesâ public colleges and universities.
Of course, any criterion for admission may be considered a correlate of financial aid need to a greater or lesser extent, and colleges want to pay attention to the financial aid need of the entire class. But then that is not likely what is ordinarily meant when referring to a college as need blind or need aware for individual applicants for admission.
I think they were deliberately excluding those colleges that are need-donât-give-a-crap. IOW, those colleges with âHere is the COA. There is no FA.â
Actually, just about every public college is need blind. They donât have the time or resources to coordinate with the financial aid offices on the number of applicants they receive. Plus most donât meet full need anywayâŠso it doesnât really matter.
I had thought that in most cases out of state public schools ignore your need when deciding whether to admit you, and then again ignore your need when deciding whether to give you any financial aid. Some public schools provide some merit aid for out of state students. Some do not.
However, just now I did a Google search for a few public universities up here in the northeast, and for UCLA (since it was mentioned in the other thread). Google AI claimed that these schools were not need blind for out of state students. Thus according to Google AI the school might consider your need when deciding whether to admit you, even if they were not going to meet your need anyway.
I am wondering whether Google AI might be the source of confusion in this case.
Many schools have rolling admission. FAFSA isnât even available to be filed before the admission decision is made. Back in the dark ages (2014) my kids were both accepted long before 1/1/14, the date when you COULD file FAFSA.
For the list of 10 or so states (on other thread) that ârequireâ FAFSA for hs graduation, there have to be a million exceptions. Not all hs grads can file FAFSA (undocumented, exchange student, convicted of drug crimes, etc), are not going to college, entering the military first. I remember there was a big to-do about it in Illinois and Illinois dropped the requirement. It wasnât the low income kids who didnât want to fill it out, it was the upper income parents.
Are the states really not going to issue a hs diploma because Elon Musk refuses to fill out the FAFSA for one of his many kids?
In California, students are supposed to file FAFSA, CADAA, or an opt-out form. The opt-out form is basically that the student (age 18+ or emancipated minor) or parent (for other students) states that they choose not to (does not require any specific reason), or the counselor says that the student is unable to (presumably those not eligible like international students).
Illinois still requires FAFSA for HS graduation. There is, and always has been, a one page waiver available to waive that graduation requirement. I expect it is many affluent families filing waivers. Students not planning to attend college also make use of the waiver.
AFAIK all the states that require FAFSA for HS graduation provide a waiver form.
Google even says that âAI responses may include mistakes.â
Given the unreliability of third party lists of need blind versus need aware colleges (including one popular list the claims that there are only about 100 or so need blind colleges), it seems likely that any AI response has been trained on incorrect information in this respect.
Public colleges must at least be need-blind for instate students, given their mission, and unless they are among the very few who meet need for OOS students, thereâs no point in being need aware, surely?
Not just in the dark ages. S26 had acceptances to rolling admissions publics before we filed FAFSA. Many lesser-known publics accept all applicants meeting a certain academic threshold.
