Purposefully & strategically leaving blanks in the Common App

[Anonymous]

so if you're unemployed or underemployed, you should leave it blank?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:so if you're unemployed or underemployed, you should leave it blank?

Depends on your goal. If you want to appear full pay, they will typically glean that from a number of factors, one of which is parent employment. Others include zip code, high school, parent education, etc. So in that case, you wouldn't list being unemployed. If you want to appear lower SES, then list being unemployed or a low-income job.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:so if you're unemployed or underemployed, you should leave it blank?

Depends on your goal. If you want to appear full pay, they will typically glean that from a number of factors, one of which is parent employment. Others include zip code, high school, parent education, etc. So in that case, you wouldn't list being unemployed. If you want to appear lower SES, then list being unemployed or a low-income job.

Honest question, how does it help to appear full pay? Won’t colleges be aware of families filing FAFSA?

DC is a junior so we’re just starting to really dig into all this. We will need aid, but the actual titles of our jobs sound “more expensive” than they are, and we’re hampered (in asset calculations) by owning a home that has gone up in value by nearly 50% since we bought it 20 years ago - we couldn’t afford it if we were buying now. Does listing our job titles and zip code give us some kind of help because it appears like we can afford more than we can, so kid is less likely to be rejected for appearing to need aid?

So confusing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:so if you're unemployed or underemployed, you should leave it blank?

Depends on your goal. If you want to appear full pay, they will typically glean that from a number of factors, one of which is parent employment. Others include zip code, high school, parent education, etc. So in that case, you wouldn't list being unemployed. If you want to appear lower SES, then list being unemployed or a low-income job.

Honest question, how does it help to appear full pay? Won’t colleges be aware of families filing FAFSA?

DC is a junior so we’re just starting to really dig into all this. We will need aid, but the actual titles of our jobs sound “more expensive” than they are, and we’re hampered (in asset calculations) by owning a home that has gone up in value by nearly 50% since we bought it 20 years ago - we couldn’t afford it if we were buying now. Does listing our job titles and zip code give us some kind of help because it appears like we can afford more than we can, so kid is less likely to be rejected for appearing to need aid?

So confusing.

What school?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My husband works at a controversial non profit so we are leaving it blank. Not going to let a 24 year old application reader take out his/her resentment of my husband’s job over my son who has nothing to do with it.

Heritage?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:this SSN thing is a myth according to Yale FA department. they say it's used if two kids have same or easily mixed up names, which happens more than you'd think. and only in double checking stage.

Its a myth at Ivies and T10.
But its real at other T25 privates (you can guess which ones).
And its irrelevant at publics.

For T50, its best to omit SSN and not complete FAFASA for these schools if you are full pay - it doesn't matter anywhere else in the T50:

UChicago
Rice
Vandy
ND
Georgetown
Emory
WashU

USC
NYU
BC
Tufts
BU
Lehigh
Wake

For those looking…

[Anonymous]

Race
FA

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have heard on various podcasts not to put SS# or parent occupation. But parent’s education IS required, so not hard to figure out you have two lawyers for parents when you both have a JD. Some of this advice is just silly.

+1

Why parent occupation? If you are full pay, I’d think it would help

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have heard on various podcasts not to put SS# or parent occupation. But parent’s education IS required, so not hard to figure out you have two lawyers for parents when you both have a JD. Some of this advice is just silly.

+1

Why parent occupation? If you are full pay, I’d think it would help

And I say that because my kid listed our occupations and got into 2 Ivies, 2 other T10s, several T20s last year.

He left the race box blank and didn’t apply for FA so checked “no” to that question, but I think he included his ssn

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Race box!

Kid left it blank last year. In common app and school app

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:this SSN thing is a myth according to Yale FA department. they say it's used if two kids have same or easily mixed up names, which happens more than you'd think. and only in double checking stage.

Its a myth at Ivies and T10.
But its real at other T25 privates (you can guess which ones).
And its irrelevant at publics.

For T50, its best to omit SSN and not complete FAFASA for these schools if you are full pay - it doesn't matter anywhere else in the T50:

UChicago
Rice
Vandy
ND
Georgetown
Emory
WashU

USC
NYU
BC
Tufts
BU
Lehigh
Wake

For those looking…

Based on...?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yeah, I listened to that podcast bc it was recommended here. It was a waste of an hour. I laughed out loud when he said 2 spaces after a period will give away that a parent edited the essay.

Yes! Hilarious. As if admissions officers are parsing things down to that level of detail 😂

Huh? They do notice that. It’s pretty obvious.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/03/well/family/how-i-know-you-wrote-your-kids-college-essay.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

This is information warfare BS from an idiot who work in admissions and can't accept the fact that the students they are admitting are smarter than the "officers" working their $12/hr workfare jobs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:if you don't apply for financial aid when applying, most t50 will NEVER allow you to apply for financial aid. Not when you lose your job or when a sibling goes off to college. Don't be foolish.

Need blind colleges are need blind. Need aware are need aware.

if you're mom or dad has been in CS for an entire career, believe me .. all schools are totally okay with that. even if you do want to go into CS. It may show "lack of creativity" but it also shows a depth of understanding. Colleges can also wonder if you come from a artsy family or finance family and want to go into engineering, do you really know what an engineer day to day life looks like? And where pay tops out?

Don't over think this stuff.

If you really don't need aid, there's absolutely no reason to complete the SSN. That's a personal family decision, dictated by finances. No one can answer that one for you.

I think your reasoning on occupation works for state flagships. Its naive for top tier schools. This is not how AO at selective privates think when they are looking for a "compelling" (not just a competitive) candidate. Your kid is not compelling if he's following in your footsteps and will be a hard story to sell at the AO table. At the end of the day, its about creating an interesting unique overarching compelling story.
Yes, the kid has a depth of understanding. Yes, kid is a smart kid who knows what day to day engineering life looks like and where pay tops out. But that is not what gets you in to a selective college. At all.

Again - this is only relevant at private T20/T30 for the most part. Everyone should get educated about how this REALLY works. And then make your own personal educated decisions. There's a ton of information out there if you are willing to read up and learn.

What kind of nonsense is this? Do you even have a kid at a T20 private college? I do, and his class is packed with affluent, non-legacy kids who aren't atypically "compelling" in any way. Unless they all lied on their apps, and this seems unlikely. They're the usual kids of doctors, lawyers, and finance types from Bergen, Evanston, Fairfield, Bethesda, Mill Valley and Brookline. Accomplished in all the usual ways, affluent, mostly white or Asian. The Black students are usually from Ghana or Nigeria, not Flint, and they're also the children of doctors.

There is a sprinkling of FGLI kids, who often overlap with ROTC admits. Maybe this is who you mean when you imagine "compelling," but they're a statistically much smaller group.

Why are you discounting the obvious reality that they lie (or greatly exaggerated little nothings into grand commitments) on their apps, with fake hobbies / non profits / research / pay to publish ?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Race
FA

Race box is irrelevant. It's no longer a data field viewable by admissions. It is included only for data collection of the enrolled class on the back end.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:this SSN thing is a myth according to Yale FA department. they say it's used if two kids have same or easily mixed up names, which happens more than you'd think. and only in double checking stage.

Its a myth at Ivies and T10.
But its real at other T25 privates (you can guess which ones).
And its irrelevant at publics.

For T50, its best to omit SSN and not complete FAFASA for these schools if you are full pay - it doesn't matter anywhere else in the T50:

UChicago
Rice
Vandy
ND
Georgetown
Emory
WashU

USC
NYU
BC
Tufts
BU
Lehigh
Wake

For those looking…

Based on...?

+1. The person who posted that list has not returned to provide any source of data whatsoever. Those are all need-blind except for Wake.