Need-Blind Admissions
from the Macalester Public Knowledge Base
Need-Blind admissions is an admissions policy ensuring that applicants to a college or university are considered on the basis of merit, and never on the basis of financial resources.
Under a need-blind admissions policy, applicants who wish to apply for financial aid submit their FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) and other financial aid documentation to be considered for a financial aid award, made by the college's financial aid department. However, this information is not considered by the admissions department during the selection process.
Logistically, emphasis is put on the practice of sending the two documents (college application and financial aid application) to two different offices, each of which promise to not share information with each other.
Need-Blind generally refers to the philosophy and practice of such standard, but it also refers to the colleges and universities represented in the 568 President's Working Group, an informal group of college presidents who began meeting in 1992 after congress passed a law that happened to allow private colleges to collaborate on financial aid policies. [1]
Institutional Methodology by the College Scholarship Service
[edit] Variants
[edit] Need-Aware Admissions
Under a need-aware admissions policy, a college may use information on a student's financial status (or "need") when determining who to admit.
At Macalester, need-blind admissions applied to all domestic, first-year applicants, until January 2005. Under the new system, a financial aid budget will be set just like any other budget at the college. The extent to which need-blind is applied to incoming students will be determined by that financial aid budget.
