Applying for Financial Aid: Hurt Odds of Acceptance?
Hello my College Planning Amigo,
During College Application Season, it’s unusual for a month to go by without a parent asking me whether they should check the “yes” box on the Common App, to indicate that they want to be considered for financial aid.
What do you think? Will it hurt your odds of getting in? Or…
Is that the right question? Here are my thoughts.
Most colleges are “need aware.” Meaning, they consider whether you need financial aid as ONE of the 25 ish factors that go into a college application.
So whether you need aid or not isn’t a make or break question across the board. However, it definitely is one of the considerations that could get you in or keep you out when it comes down to the wire, when admissions committees are making their final cuts.
On the other hand, a relatively small number of colleges, typically Ivy and other elite private colleges, purport to be “need blind.” Meaning that they do NOT consider whether you need aid as one of the factors in your college application.
I don’t know whether I’m overly cynical, superstitious or some kind of conspiracy theorist, but I just don’t believe it, deep down. I’m too suspicious of a person to believe colleges' rhetoric and marketing copy on their websites and brochures.
If your child has their sights set on one of these elite colleges, the question that comes up frequently, is..
Are you willing to do WHATEVER it takes to send her there?
Personally, I think it’s dumb to adopt that position, especially since there’s literally ZERO correlation between where you go to college and how successful you’ll be in LIFE, after college.
But don’t watch me in my personal life too closely. When two of my kids applied to Ivies, we checked the “don’t want aid” box on the Common Application each time, two years apart. They each got in.
The only thing this proves is that I’m a hypocrite and lizard-brained. There, I said it.
Pearl decided that we were willing to do anything, even get second and third jobs bagging groceries, to help them get into the colleges that they had worked so hard to get into. Of course I agreed with her, like always.
My professional advice, however, if you absolutely need aid, then you SHOULD apply for it. Because if you can’t send your child to that college without it, what’s the point of even letting them apply in the first place?
But if you’re cut from the same cloth as we are, and willing to do practically anything to send your kids to a top, expensive school, then you may want to think twice about applying for aid, in case that becomes the ONE THING that somehow keeps them from being accepted.
I just reread that last paragraph. I’m slightly embarrassed and know that some of my readers will be critical of our choices, but I’d rather be truthful and open with you in case you feel the same way. We try not to judge our clients behind the scenes here at Lockwood College Prep Global Headquarters. Every family makes the decision that’s right for them, not other people.
Please pass this note along to anyone who you think could use it! And…
Carpe college :)
Speak soon,
Andy “Confessions of a College Advisor” Lockwood
P.S. If you’re feeling like you need to get some help with this crazy college admissions and financial aid process, here’s the page that describes every way we help: