WashU - Does it hurt your chances if you don't apply for a merit scholarship?

[fallenchemist]

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@vonlost

In the sense that it doesn’t affect the actions of applicants, and barely affects the chances of admission. But you’re right in terms of the OP’s question, that paying list price might slightly increase that chance of admission at a need-aware school, but that info is not useful.

Frankly that makes no sense. It does affect the actions of some applicants; they either take the action of applying for financial aid or they don’t. That isn’t “slight”, it could be highly significant if it keeps secret the family income which in turn makes WUSTL assume the family has sufficient resources to pay full freight. How do you know that “barely affects the chances of admission”? The information could be exceedingly useful.</p>

<p>rubyred8: If any school is truly need blind then applying for financial aid shouldn’t matter. The question is, and unfortunately it turns out to be a tough one to answer based on actions of several schools like George Washington, if the school in question is being honest in their claim. So I guess it depends on how much of a cynic you choose to be.</p>

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@texaspg

People have been to presentations where they don’t come out openly claim to be need aware. I have attended at least 4.

But the issue is, did they actually deny it if/when it was asked directly? As I said earlier, I wouldn’t expect any school to make it a focal point of their marketing. That is a different thing than lying about it.</p>