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Want to know a stat that you won’t see colleges put on their Class Profile web pages or in their viewbooks? It’s the acceptance rate of students who are full-pay vs. those that need heavy financial aid. Most highly selective colleges side-step this stat by declaring themselves “need-blind”, meaning that they don’t consider a student’s ability to pay during the admissions process. But of all of the whoppers that college admissions officers like to tell, the statement that they don’t consider student need in the admissions process is the most egregious (even worse than “test scores don’t really matter”).
In our experience, even “need-blind” colleges very much take a student’s need into consideration when making admissions decisions. This may not occur as often in the first round of reading (although in our opinion, it still occurs there too), when colleges are just considering merit. But it absolutely happens when a college is “shaping” its class near the end of the admissions process, considering the revenue target the school has and whether its financial aid budget will allow them to hit that target. It also happens when students are plucked from the waitlist. If waitlisted kids that need full financial aid are anywhere near the top of the waitlist, it is only because they fulfill some other diversity initiative that the college has not yet met.
It might be obvious, but your level of need is fairly transparent during the “need-blind” reading process.
The reason that the ability to pay figures so much in the admissions decision, even at need-blind colleges, is because a) most schools need tuition revenue and b) there are many ways to assess your level of financial need even before a school sees your FAFSA. It might be obvious, but your level of need is fairly transparent during the “need-blind” reading process. The first indicator of your ability to pay is where you went to high school. Private school that costs $40K per year? They know that just about everyone from a high-priced private high school can, and will pay full tuition for college. If you’ve ever wondered why private schools are so disproportionately represented at the nation’s top colleges, now you know why. Another is your zip code. College admissions officers know where the pricey zip codes are in America. In fact, their enrollment management offices (the marketing folks) are busy targeting those zip codes with viewbooks and in-high school visits. Colleges are extremely familiar with the nation’s public high schools and how that affects your chances of being able to pay full freight. Another way is your SAT or ACT score. As it has been pointed out many times, standardized test scores are directly correlated to family income. Yet another way they know is by looking at what your parents do professionally and where they went to college, information that is readily available in the Common App and not just in the FAFSA. If your parents are doctors or lawyers or financial advisors, it’s a good bet you can pay full price for college. Finally, college admissions officers know what certain extracurricular activities cost to advance within. Figure shaking? Equestrian? Fencing? The list of high-cost sports and camps and travel on your application is a great indicator of your family’s income. Together all of this information, gleaned through the reading process, gives a largely accurate picture of how much aid you’ll need to attend their college. The admissions committee may not know with certainty until they see the financial aid application (after the decision process), but they have a pretty good idea, and, in our view, this directly affects their admissions decisions.
