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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]There are very few privates that are need-aware, i.e., not explicitly need-blind, in the Top 50.

[b]Mystery: how a particular college can end up at the same/similar % of students on financial aid year after year.[/b] Maybe via the waitlist, as the WL is almost always need-aware, but those numbers of students are insignificant. I suspect algorithms of some sort are involved.

I suspect, but cannot confirm, that for some schools, being a [i]potential[/i] big donor might be mildly helpful - as in, having publicly-recorded assets that are significant. Georgetown has implied this in the past. However, this [i]is not[/i] the same thing as being full pay. Yet such kids with qualified stats are still rejected routinely, so it's hard to say whether this actually plays any role at all in admission decisions.

Also, about WL being need-aware, the chances of getting off the WL are quite slim even for full pay. It happens, sure, but that's a function of the particular admission season. Many top schools have been using the WL very little lately (with the exception of summer 2020). Accept a spot on a WL if offered, but then forget about that school. Maybe there will be a happy surprise, but probably not.[/quote]

This is an interesting question, isn't it?  It's much too consistent to have been left to chance. I do think it is basically an algorithm -- it's likely that they have a very good idea how many top quartile/top half students are full pay. Then they look at the "hooked" kids (first gen, etc) that didn't make the first cut and are more likely to need financial aid and decide how many of those to admit. Since they're deciding how much of a thumb on the scale to give to those kids, they can effectively decide, based on past experience, what proportion of those kids to admit & roughly what it's going to cost. Obviously if the school isn't also "meets full needs" it's self explanatory, since they'll only actually give a certain number of admitted students the financial aid they can afford to give and the rest who accept their offer will be full pay.

It is also true that George Washington was caught some years back manipulating their admit list, despite claiming to be need blind. Basically the decisions made by the admissions officers were need blind, but then the head of admissions was taking the list and reranking the students to make sure they had a certain number of full pay students. The admissions officers were shocked when it came out. There isn't a black and white definition of what a "need blind" process entails, there's every incentive in the world for the schools to manipulate the process, and no one is policing it, so you can make your own judgment about how many schools (particularly those without massive endowments) are finding subtle ways around it.

https://gwhatchet.com/2013/10/21/gw-misrepresented-admissions-and-financial-aid-policy-for-years/[/quote]

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