Anonymous wrote:The best schools are need blind. Full pay helps with second tier schools and where you are a marginal admit. Sorry, OP, but you can't buy your way into a top school only by being full pay. Full pay plus donating a building, maybe. Full pay alone? No.

College isn't like DC privates schools, where money does all the talking.

+1. The very top schools have huge endowments so they don't care if you need money or not. Post the names of the schools you're interested in.

Your friends can apply for aid, but if they make more than a certain amount (let's say $175K as a couple), they will get not aid (except for loans) and be treated as full pay. The only reason to not apply for aid is that it is a small pain to fill out the paperwork.

As for admissions boost, I think being full pay certainly helped my kid. He was admitted at some schools (like Washington & Lee and Wake Forest) that were higher ranked than some need-blind schools where he was rejected.

Full pay, 35 ACT, 4.6 wgpa, 8 APs with 5s, 4 more APs this senior year, varsity athlete including captain, ECs with leadership, deferred at U of MI

In at some lower tier schools with generous merit aid

I think there are times when full pay helps. In my kids case (which was a few years ago) kid had a high SAT score (1500s) and an average/below average GPA (bottom 25% of the class) from an independent school- decent essays and minimal activities. Got into a bunch of expensive but not "top" private schools including NorthEastern, Tulane, Bucknell, Colgate, Wake Forest and Vassar.

OP, don’t know if this helps, but my Senior used the Common App to apply to colleges Early Action last Fall. There was a question right on the Common Application that asked whether we would be filing the federal financial aid form. We answered no. Our child got into several schools that had much, much higher GPA averages than my kid’s. One gave a $20,000 merit package. These are SLACs in the Top 100-150 (not Harvard or Amherst by any stretch) but good schools for my kid (think CTCLs). My gut tells me ability to pay is a factor. Good luck, and kudos to you for prioritizing education in your family’s budget!

OP, your friends who can pay but still applied for financial aid, that only makes sense if they are borderline for being eligible for need-based aid.

You can use a college's Net Price Calculator to see whether they'd give you aid or not. No need to wonder. And if you're nowhere near the ballpark, no point in checking the box that you're applying for financial aid.

As for whether need-blind schools are truly need-blind, I suspect that yes, they are, though often not for the waitlist.

The honest answer is “it depends”. Depends on a particular school and also your child’s stats and other achievements. Not many schools will accept someone wildly out of range just because they can pay, but all else equal, an ability to pay may be a tiebreaker at some places.

Anonymous wrote:The best schools are need blind. Full pay helps with second tier schools and where you are a marginal admit. Sorry, OP, but you can't buy your way into a top school only by being full pay. Full pay plus donating a building, maybe. Full pay alone? No.

College isn't like DC privates schools, where money does all the talking.

There are about 60 colleges in the country that are need blind and meet full need. It will not help at these 60 (in most cases).

There are plenty of highly competitive schools where it will help. Look for "U.S. institutions that are not need-blind for U.S. applicants and meet full demonstrated need for certain or all students" in the following link:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Need-blind_admission

Depends on where you are applying. If a school is needs-blind, full-pay doesn’t help. However, if the school is needs-aware, then not applying for aid could be helpful. That said, if you have great stats relative to the school’s applicant pool and you apply early, you may get merit money or financial aid. Full-pay is most helpful at somewhat less selective schools when the applicants stats relative to other applicants is somewhat lacking and the school is choosing its final/marginal candidates. For a good read on this situation, google the NYTimes article on Trinity College.

https://www.diycollegerankings.com/potential-colleges-for-students-with-a-full-pay-hook/1715/

No idea how accurate this is.

We are full pay. DC was rejected from one of the schools listed ... but admittedly had a lower GPA than typical admits, based on Naviance data. DC applied RD to another school listed here; guess we will see if full pay helps? (GPA is only slightly below Naviance figure, and test scores are way over.)

Anonymous wrote:The best schools are need blind. Full pay helps with second tier schools and where you are a marginal admit. Sorry, OP, but you can't buy your way into a top school only by being full pay. Full pay plus donating a building, maybe. Full pay alone? No.

College isn't like DC privates schools, where money does all the talking.

This, at somewhere like Harvard it doesn't help at all. There are schools that are conspicuously need aware such as WashU. Where it helps is when you are already in and get a financial aid package that doesn't actually meet need (which isn't uncommon)

The best schools are need blind. Full pay helps with second tier schools and where you are a marginal admit. Sorry, OP, but you can't buy your way into a top school only by being full pay. Full pay plus donating a building, maybe. Full pay alone? No.

College isn't like DC privates schools, where money does all the talking.

Give us some college names your DC is interested.

It is very helpful at need aware schools, in different degrees. Particularly if applying ED.

Be proud of your discipline and values, and enjoy any benefit you get from it. It is not gaming the system in any way.

We have scrimped and saved to be able to be full-pay at the school of choice for our kids assuming they get in. We assumed we would not even fill out the financial aid forms.
We have other friends who DEFINITELY can pay but who decided to apply for financial aid. Are we being foolish? Other friends have told us that being full pay is helpful at certain schools so don't apply for aid.

What is true? We are not trying to game the system. We have saved the money and plan to pay- but are we crazy not to apply? Is being full pay really helpful at some schools? No snark please we are new to the college process. Thanks