You’re mistaken. You’re confusing “need blind” admissions with “meets full need financial aid awards” Certainly a school can admit whomever they deem qualified, whether they require finaid or not. But up front, they tell the students “we can’t offer you squat besides this admit letter – hope you find $ to come!” So they can admit kids who require fin aid by the droves. B/c they aren’t gonna spend any money on them anyway – trust me: that became real to us as my kiddo applied last year.
@natajacobson74 Some schools do not balance out the UW GPA, you’re correct and it’s somewhat frustrating. When my kiddo was a sophomore, she was considering UCinncinati for architecture– which does not reward her for her 3.8 at a top 10 US High school – vs. the normal kid at the local school who got a 3.8 taking a mild schedule. But many public schools face that mandate – to equalize admissions. This was a shock to me – but the more I dug, the more I realized that only the 2nd tier public schools practice this due to their mandate to serve their local communities. Higher tier schools CLEARLY take the time to drill down and see if the applicant took the rigorous classes. I think your general fear is unfounded for the most part.
@T26E4 If a university truly selected ALL of their admitted students without ANY regard for the ability to pay (that is, I believe, the intended meaning of “need blind”) – and a large percentage of those admitted students subsequently chose not to attend because the financial aid package was deemed inadequate – then the “need blind” admission process would reduce yield, which of course adversely impacts the university’s rating. (Yield protection is a really big deal.) Doesn’t it make more sense that they, instead, hit a target of full-pay students and then apply the “need blind” philosophy only for the remaining kids in the admit pool, and especially for those that fit their “institutional needs”?
But don’t take my word for it. Here’s an excellent article by Bev Taylor of Ivy Coach entitled “Need Blind Admissions is a Lie”:
A correction to my post #361: USNWR (at least) no longer includes yield rate in their ranking methodology.
Nevertheless, “High yield rates directly correlate with a popular, first-choice school, says Sophia Sherry, communications and public relations coordinator for U.S. News & World Report,” such that universities strive to protect their yield:
It forces kids to structure their entire lives (pack on the ECs etc.) just for a Dean to nod his head and send an acceptance letter. If you ask a kid what his dream is, he/she should say: “help people” or “cure this” or “start that” or something that shows their aspirations, however crazy. But now, if you ask a kid what their dream is, they will probably say: “Get into Harvard.”
Colleges get to know the schools and take this into consideration…But a similar problem that they can’t possibly take into account is individual teachers at a school. Even within a school there can be a big difference in what an “A” means from one teacher vs. another in the same subject.
@claremontmom, this is so true. There is usually the “easy” teacher and a “hard” teacher. No way to explain on the app that you got the hard teacher without sounding defensive. There’s no cure for that. It’s little comfort that you will be better prepared for college because you had the hard teacher if you can’t get into that college in the first place, right?
Sorry but I think that claiming that the admissions process forces kids to do anything “just for a Dean to nod” is rubbish. The vast majority of schools in this country (including many excellent ones) do not require applicants to tailor their high school lives in any way. Many, many kids still dream of helping people, curing diseases, or starting their own enterprises. Only prestige-hounds and the deeply insecure high schoolers structure their high school careers in pursuit of the “dream” of going to Harvard, as if those four years are the pinnacle of their entire existence.
I don’t think that strategy works very well anyway.
Also those people who say “I got an 1850 BUT I didn’t study at all!”
Why the h wouldn’t you study? No, I don’t think you’re super smart because you got a decent score out of laziness. In fact, I think you’re pretty stupid for not applying yourself and wasting time and money. Stop trying to excuse yourself by either feigning laziness because you’re insecure or being just plain stupid. Either way, no one thinks it’s cute.
Actually, the tests were designed to test how college-ready a student is at that given time - and not studying for it is probably the best indicator of that. Back when my generation applied to college (when dinosaurs roamed…), only those who were applying to very selective colleges studied for the ACT/SAT tests. Everyone else just took it - and took it once. We didn’t even have a practice test at school, aside from the PSAT in junior year.
eta: Not that I’m suggesting that students NOT study for the ACT/SAT test - by all means, study, if you think it will help, and it usually does. But I am suggesting that some kids can do well without studying for it. And their test scores are probably truer to the original purpose of the test.
My son gets pretty angry about how the College Board has monetized every aspect of testing, from taking tests, to sending scores, to selling info about test takers. I don’t think he is yet aware that they are developing new PSAT 8/9 and PSAT 10 tests to move testing monetization even lower, but he is aware that they are supposed to be a non-profit and do get the tax benefits from that.
I’m not so angry at the CB specifically, because lots of companies have monetized things in the testing and curriculum area. Look at Pearson, for example.
As already mentioned, every step along the way, you’ve got these money-grubbing bastards.
I hate how everyone does activities solely for the sake of writing them on college apps. Granted, I can’t think of a better approach to evaluate students.
My school will only be sending unweighted GPA, and they dropped that bombshell on us a week ago.
Not-so-wonderful colleges shouldn’t get to demand writing supplements.
I’m not sure when it started, but it seems like just wanting to go to a good school with a good program so you can live a good productive life AND having worked for stellar grades and scores is not a good (enough) applicant. It seems to me you need to want to help the world/change the world…why do schools even care about your philanthropy? What they look for, and the essay prompts given seem to indicate they want global kids who want to serve their societies. Sadly, they charde way too much tuition to allow most kids to do that upon graduation!
Jumping right in to respond to the original OP. Sorry if I am interrupting any conversation stream BUT…
it makes me ridiculously angry that we just came to the realization that our son, who is an honor student (taking post APs-organic chemistry and linear algebra (the latter to go easy-he almost took multivariable), strong gpa, class leader, varsity captain, and continues to earn all sorts of recognitions for awesomeness, just realized his friend who is a pretty good honors student who does not have the level of leadership recognitions or athletic or arts will probably trump our son in college applications simply because friend’s mother is of Spanish descent. His parents are full American citizens and well educated and wealthy doctors. Not at all underprivileged immigrants but simply of Spanish descent, from the country two over from ours (Italy). But because of arbitrary ethnic balancing guidelines leftover from another era, this kid might get the spot my kid is better qualified for. THAT makes me ridiculously angry.
@grandscheme Just an FYI, I’m almost positive that children of Spaniards (as in, people from the country of Spain) are considered Caucasian, not Hispanic, in the admissions process. Hispanic in the eyes of Adcoms, I’m pretty sure, means kids from Latin America, Central America, and parts of the Carribean; parts of the world that are traditionally low income and underprivileged. You have to indicate what country your family is from when you list yourself as Hispanic on the common app, so the likelihood of your scenario actually happening is…zero.
@Qwerty568 , there are some situations where “Hispanic” is defined as from ANY Spanish speaking country. Off the top of my head, I can’t tell you if we have encountered that on CA or on apps of individual universities but it is DEFINITELY inclusive of the European Spaniards in some instances.
@TheAtlantic, that was just an a**hole comment to make.
