Schools claim FA doesn't affect admission - how sway?

[Anonymous]

I think "Need Blind", from the school's point of view, is to admit students they want regardless of financial situation. Then they offer you FA they can allocate to your DC. After that, they let the family self select themselves in or out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A need-blind approach seem like a formula for chaos at acceptance time.

There's only so much money in the FA budget. The FA offered will not meet the full need.of many.

Why admit someone who will need a significant amount of FA when you know that it's highly unlikely that they'll be able to come up with the difference between the cost and their likely FA offer?

That forces someone who can afford the cost onto the WL.

It's not their first time at the rodeo--they factor all of this into the yield numbers. Plenty of parents do opt to take out loans, too--that's what mine did to send me to an independent high school. Not sure this is always worth it, but it's certainly an option, and for the more competitive schools, may be one that many families take. The idea behind need-blind admissions is that if a child is on the WL, it's because they were not as compelling a candidate as a child admitted for whatever reason, not because their families could or couldn't afford to pay.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It depends on the school. School's will do it 2 different ways.

1. You will receive an offer of admission and an amount of FA, you can either accept it and make up any difference or you can walk away.

2. The school will ask you what you really think you can afford to pay and if the school can't offer that they won't accept your kid.

We received a letter with an acceptance and a
FA offer that was too low, so we called the school and they asked us to be patient for a few more weeks. We then got an email saying they found some extra money for us, so we were able to accept.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It depends on the school. School's will do it 2 different ways.

1. You will receive an offer of admission and an amount of FA, you can either accept it and make up any difference or you can walk away.

2. The school will ask you what you really think you can afford to pay and if the school can't offer that they won't accept your kid.

Not our experience. We got accepted with no aid. The following year we got in with some aid 40%.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It depends on the school. School's will do it 2 different ways.

1. You will receive an offer of admission and an amount of FA, you can either accept it and make up any difference or you can walk away.

2. The school will ask you what you really think you can afford to pay and if the school can't offer that they won't accept your kid.

Not our experience. We got accepted with no aid. The following year we got in with some aid 40%.

Forgot to mention, we declined the first year as we obviously couldn't afford it.