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.