17 is dead on - that's one aspect of the "need blind doesn't mean what you think it does" argument. Almost all the admissions criteria used implicitly give a leg up to more affluent applicants. Honestly, I don't think anyone who thinks about for a while can really deny it.
The other aspect of the argument is the fact that except for the very richest schools (and I’m talking about maybe as few as 15-20 schools), they absolutely HAVE to hit a certain target in terms of the amount of tuition revenue they need to operate in the black. The less selective ones will just gap the applicants that they don’t really want, but the more selective don’t want to let in people who aren’t going to come (and make their admission rates look bad.) Some of those schools are honest about it, and call themselves “need aware” - think WUSTL.
Some of them aren’t really honest about it, claim to be “need blind” and then favor obviously affluent applicants. It’s not really the case that you are directly “hurt” by needing financial aid, it’s more indirect than that - full pay applicants are just viewed more favorably (part of that is the effect of the implicit advantages of having a high SES, part of it is explicitly favoring obviously high income applicants.) I think most schools do a lot of the former, and some of the latter.
Do they? I thought they were separate. I thought waitlist wasn’t factored into admit rate. If waitlist admits are part of the admit rate then you’re right.
EDIT: oh, I think I get what you were saying - they admit based on the yield rate, but I thought I remember yield being a factor on USNWR or some other prominent ranking a decade ago, but maybe I’m mistaken.
“In my experience” is a qualifier. I have a lot of experience, but I’m still just one person, so by writing “in my experience” I’m making as clear as possible that there are limits to my knowledge. Qualification and honest lack of absolute certainty is not the same as equivocation. That said, I stand by my analysis of the linked opinion piece; it’s lazy and unconvincing.
That will never happen. It would result in the poster being fired. This issue will never be “put […] to rest” barring a major investigation and expose.
Lots of them do not care about those things, like the less selective universities that practice stats-only admission. Of course, you can say that the usual stats (GPA, rank, test scores) do correlate with income (test scores more than others), resulting in an application and admission pool tipped toward wealth (relative to the pool of high school students who would be interested in the university), but that is far different from claiming that such a university cares about any individual student’s financial need when making the admission decision.
Yeah, I think some list-makers do look at it, or at least used to, but the main thing the schools care about is keeping the admit rate down - a low yield directly causes them to have to admit more applicants.
Unpredictability of yield is also a problem for a college that may otherwise not care too much about having a high yield rate. If yield is higher than expected, then the college has to deal with overcrowded classes, majors, dorms, etc. If the yield is lower than expected, then the college has wasted capacity and lost revenue, and may not be able to attract enough waitlist admits to attend (if it has a waitlist).
Re #30, good one. But since this won’t happen, then you can rest assured that threads like this one will always be nothing but speculative and that “needs blind” very well may be a complete and utter farce.
If some such person does do so and says the same thing that the school publicly states (i.e. that it is need-blind in admissions), would you believe him/her and put the issue to rest?
@ucbalumnus Yes, if done as part of a lie detector test.
Joking aside, if an AO left one of these “needs blind” universities and wrote a book, then I’d be inclined to believe the claims that support the university. As long as they work directly for the university, then probably not.
To get back to OP, the short answer is “What choice do you have?”
The longer (and more important question) is “Am I going to able to afford to attend this school if I get in?” There is plenty of information out there to help you decide that, but about the least important part of it is whether or not the college claims to be “need blind” in admissions.
@NickFlynn For me, the more relevant question is: “Can the perceptions of the admissions committee about the parents’ ability to pay affect its decision about whether to admit the applicant?” You don’t have to worry about paying, if you don’t get accepted. Cart before the horse.
@whatisyourquest You can’t do anything about it - if you need financial aid, you can’t pretend that you don’t.
And, ultimately, if any college is going to reject on the basis of your need, it’s far more likely to happen at a college that doesn’t have a solid record of providing generous aid to admitted students. So, pursue that angle first, and hopefully you cover yourself for the “admissions” questions as well.
@NickFlynn Thanks, but the universities that I have in mind don’t ask if you need financial aid (and they don’t seem to want you to provide this info, consistent with the “need blind” claim). The only things disclosed are parent names, occupation, employer, etc. So, it is conceivable that the ad comm infers need for financial aid, when no such need exists, and makes a decision not to admit.
My contention is that for borderline, untagged students the inference that financial aid will be needed (even if it is not explicitly requested) can put the applicant in the reject pile.