This is what milton says on their website about need blind admission. During the first phase of the selection process, admission officers read each application in a “need blind” review
that does not consider a candidate’s ability to pay as a factor in their evaluations. However, the final phase of the
selection process is “need aware,” as the admission committee weighs its decisions against available financial aid
funds. Milton Academy strives to meet 100 percent of the demonstrated need of each candidate offered admission. Please see the Financial Aid portion of our Web site for more information.
But this means that they arent need blind right, so it just makes them the same as most top boarding schools. Can someone please clarify and correct me if I am wrong.
We don’t know what happens inside any admissions office. Maybe readers know at the outset if a student needs FA or maybe they don’t. So whether this is how everyone else does it is unknown.
But you are correct in your assessment that the outcome is the same in that they admit the students they want subject to the availability of FA funds.
then they are not totally need blind. The first step is to properly evaulate the students as fair as they can. But ultimately they need to determine how many financial aids they can do and do the calculations for admission decision.