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Thoughts and Prayers Aren’t Enough in College Admissions Either

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Earlier this month, I was trying to figure out what day it was.  Rather than look at the calendar, I simply looked at the College Admissions Facebook page on my computer screen.  There was one story about the record low admit rates at Ivy League colleges, four stories about how most colleges admit a vast majority of their applicants, and two or three reminders that it’s all about what you do in college, not where you do it.

“So” I said to myself, “it must be April 10th.” And I was right.

There is something equally comforting and disturbing about the college admissions grieving cycle. It begins in late March, when we all bemoan it’s easier to get struck by lightning than to get admitted to a selective school.  Even the recent admissions scandal, replete with movie stars and lots of cash, played right into the timing of the “ain’t it awful” phase.

Early April gives way to requests for help with aid packages and muffled cries for some kind of reform from the madness of the application process.  Mid-April begins the search for schools willing to accept great kids who somehow ended up with “nowhere” to go, and late April finds us back in the trenches, asking about colleges for really bright juniors who want to study Hungarian and elephants.

This is our version of thoughts and prayers.  Like legislators tackling school safety, we look at the misshapen blob college admissions has become long enough to be horrified, only to get swept away by the need to make the broken system work just one more time, if only for the benefit of next year’s hardworking seniors. Major changes are just too far out of reach, and minor changes make no palpable difference, so we sigh and carry on, hoping a thoughtful social media post or two will somehow turn the tide. Real change, it seems, is beyond our grasp.

It isn’t.  Like anything else that’s out of shape, moving in a new direction requires a little bit of time, and a ton of vision.  No one in this profession is short on vision; they’re stymied by how to bring that vision to life. Here are some starter ideas.

College Admission Personnel who want to open up college access have all kinds of small projects that, when regularly tended to, can take on lives of their own.

  • Buy lunch for someone on your student success team, and get an overview of their work.  What students are doing well once they’re on campus, and which ones aren’t? Is there anything your institution can learn from the success of Georgia State, understanding that student success is far more than a cut and copy endeavor? What does any of this mean about who you’re recruiting—and, more important, if they have no idea who’s succeeding and why, why not?
  • If you have two counselor fly-in programs, cut it to one.  Use the new-found money to hold a three-day College Counselor Workshop for any school counselor in your area with less than five years’ experience.  As a rule, counselor graduate programs teach nothing meaningful about college counseling.  You know the counselors who know their stuff, and you have a NACAC affiliate at your disposal.  Bring them in, and let them train your local rookies.
  • As long as you’re at it, have coffee with the director of your graduate counseling program, and ask them if you can have a three-hour class period to talk about college admission.  Most counselor educators will have the humility to admit they’ve been out of the college admissions game too long, so they’ll give you the time.  Bring along two of your favorite counselors, and the grad students will be begging for more.  If you don’t know what you’d do with those three hours, I have a program that’s in the box and ready to present, and you can have it.
  • Call a test-optional college that looks like yours and ask how it’s going. The argument that test optional is a ruse to raise average test scores means nothing to the bright kid heading to University of Chicago this fall who can’t even spell SAT.  If colleges that look like yours have figured out test scores mean nothing in the application of a straight A student– and they have– maybe your school could open things up, too.

High School Counselors  have eight bajillion kids on their caseloads and duties that have nothing to do with counseling.  That said, find a way to get to work twenty minutes early once a week, and pick one of these projects to work on:

  • Shoot an email to the professional development chair of your NACAC affiliate and volunteer to be a mentor.  Less than thirty graduate programs in the country devote a course to college counseling, and it’s showing.  What you know about this profession will be an oasis to a new counselor, and most of the mentoring can occur through email and phone calls.
  • Look at your messaging about college options.  Do you tell students and parents about test optional colleges, community colleges, or state colleges with amazing residential programs?  Use this time to bring yourself up to speed on the paths your students aren’t taking, then put together a plan for spreading the word to parents and students.
  • When’s the last time you talked college with your middle school and elementary mental health partners?  Opening up postsecondary options is as much a matter of changing the mindset of parents as it is presenting options to students—and if that’s starting in ninth grade, forget it.  Ask your NACAC affiliate for grant opportunities to strengthen your K-8 postsecondary curriculum, and build the partnerships needed to make it work.

No one in this business was surprised last month to discover the wealthy have an advantage applying to college. What may come as a surprise is how much we can change that dynamic by throwing our hearts behind that change with twenty minutes a week, giving tangible shape to our thoughts, prayers, and deepest hopes for this profession.

UVA now offers an alternative route to Charlottesville

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While not exactly a “side door,” a new gate has opened to some Virginia students deferred from University of Virginia’s Class of 2023 – as long as they are willing to spend a year in rural Wise, Virginia.

Joining the ranks of colleges offering “alternative” routes to admission, the University of Virginia is proposing that a select group of students postpone starting in Charlottesville and spend a year at UVa-Wise, a small liberal arts college located not far from the Kentucky border.

“We are offering Virginians who were placed on the wait list for the College of Arts and Sciences the opportunity to enroll at the UVA College at Wise located in Southwest Virginia for one year before automatically enrolling at UVA in Charlottesville. Students in this program must complete 30 hours of transferrable credit post high school graduation at UVA-Wise with a 3.0 cumulative GPA or better to transfer into the College of Arts and Sciences at UVA.”

UVa has always had a great relationship with Virginia’s community college system and annually admits students earning two-year associates degrees through a guaranteed admission program. The UVa-Wise transfer offer is something new and wasn’t announced until notices went out to students wait listed for fall 2019 admission to UVa.

But not everyone was excited by the prospect of spending a year in rural Virginia, even if it meant an automatic transfer to the University of Virginia. Students posting on College Confidential had mixed reactions. One noted that UVa-Wise is “very much in the middle of nowhere,” while another pointed out that “it also seems to be a very small school, but maybe that would just mean more a more personalized education for the first year?”

One Fairfax County Public School student didn’t know much about UVa-Wise, but thought his offers at William and Mary and Virginia Tech made better sense for him. While he’s opting to stay on the UVa wait list, he has no intention of beginning his college career in Wise, Virginia. He added, “I don’t know anyone considering the offer.”

A member of the UVa-Wise Class of ’90 was quick to respond, “Is it small? Yes. Is the Town of Wise small? Yes. However, that isn’t necessarily a bad thing for a freshman. The classes are much less overcrowded, but the professors have very high standards and the academic rigor is there. The education is top notch.”

And the underlying message was clear, “If a year in Wise got you a ticket into Charlottesville and that’s your dream school, why not take it?”

Founded in 1954 as the Clinch Valley College of the University of Virginia, UVa-Wise first offered four-year degrees in 1966 and officially changed its name to the University of Virginia’s College at Wise, in 1999.

Since reaching a peak enrollment of 2,420 in 2012, UVa-Wise has steadily decreased in size to the point that the website reports a current enrollment of 2,021.

But having made a significant investment in new facilities, the Commonwealth is not about to let the university fail. Last week, UVa-Wise announced a rollback of the three-percent tuition increased planned for 2019-20, to $11,154—a bit less than the $14,094 in-state tuition (not including UVa’s substantial fees) planned for Charlottesville next year. In return for eliminating the tuition increase, UVa-Wise will receive an addit­­ional $235,000 from the Virginia General Assembly.

In addition, the General Assembly recently approved legislation allowing the college to offer reduced tuition to students who live within the Appalachian Regional Commission territory, which stretches from rural New York to Mississippi.

According to a press release, “The law is seen as one way for the liberal arts college, a division of the University of Virginia, to counter the same enrollment drop that is affecting most higher education institutions across the nation.”

But aside from some possible enrollment benefits for UVa-Wise, the University of Virginia is experimenting with a growing trend in higher education, which has created an underground network of alternative admissions offers. And these unexpected options contribute significantly to the confusion and stress faced by college applicants at this time of year.

For example, without apparent regard for harm done to freshman retention rates at other institutions, Cornell University admits students as sophomores, as long as they spend freshman year at another college or university and meet certain academic requirements. Northeastern University admits some freshman provided they study abroad for the first semester, while the University of Maryland admits students for the spring semester and encourages those students to take part in a fall program on campus where they could only take classes late in the afternoon or evening.

At Hamilton College, second semester admits may participate in a “gap” semester or enroll in courses at Arcadia University, at their London campus. The University of Southern California offers the “Trojan Transfer Plan,” through which students are provided with “a clear and predictable path to enrolling at USC for sophomore year” by attending a community college or one of four colleges in Europe. The University of Vermont, Middlebury College, Brandeis University, Rochester University, Michigan State, as well as the University of Tampa all offer second semester admission. And the list goes on.

On the plus side, these alternative admission plans offer students the possibility of attending their dream schools, even though they may not have been admissible as freshmen for the fall semester. On the other hand, these plans provide ways for colleges to dodge reporting lower scores or GPAs for the incoming class and to fill vacancies left by students traveling abroad or transferring out.

But the UVa-Wise offer seems to have a broader objective and could potentially benefit both schools. According to Kathy Still, UVa-Wise communications director, “Accepting students from the deferred list would further strengthen the relationship between Campus and Grounds,” which administratively share UVa President Jim Ryan and the UVa Board of Visitors.

While the College at Wise is unsure how many prospective UVa students will opt to take advantage of the new program, Ms. Still advises that “…interest is high and calls to our admissions office are brisk.” She goes on to add, “The students who enter the program would find an engaging faculty, rigorous academic classes, and they would leave after one year with 30 credit hours under their belts. It’s a win-win situation.”

In no rush, Case Western and Tulane keep some Early applicants in suspense

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Slow and steady wins the race?

Once upon a time, refined Early Decision and Early Action etiquette dictated that by December 15 colleges would inform such applicants of their admission, deferral, or rejection. My how times have changed!

While the likes of Penn, Johns Hopkins, Northwestern, Wash U., and Yale got on with it last week, some big names are keeping their powder dry to seemingly the last moment. University of Michigan and Boston College are notorious in recent years for December 18 or later admissions notifications to their Early Action applicants; yet, this year, two more colleges seem to believe the maxim that they should, “save the best for last.”

The two notable stragglers this December are Case Western Reserve University and Tulane University.

In Case’s case, Robert R. McCullough, the university’s Dean of Undergraduate Admissions, announced Monday, “We expect to send applicants an email providing a link to the secure webpage with their admission status on Wednesday, Dec. 19. We will begin sending these email notifications around 8 p.m. EST. Students who have applied for financial aid will also be able to see their financial aid package online at that time.” Just two years ago Case’s Early Action notifications came out a whole week earlier in December. That was before Case Western introduced Early Decision I and II into the mix and with it gone are the days of earlier Early notifications.

UPDATE 12/19/18 @ 7:20 EST: McCullough needs more time! On December 19 in the evening he announced, “Unfortunately, we find that we need a little more time to be absolutely sure applicants’ decisions, scholarships and financial aid packages are correct. We are therefore rescheduling decision release for Early Action and Early Decision admission until 8 p.m. Eastern Thursday, December 20.” He also expressed “regret” for holding students in suspense for another day but wanted to ensure the decisions they receive are accurate.”

Tulane will let Early Action applicants to the New Orleans university know of their admissions decisions on Thursday, December 20, 2018 at 4:30 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. Jeff Schiffman, Tulane’s Director of Admission shared, “I think it is also worth mentioning that Tulane saw a 14% increase in applications this year. Bottom line, we could fill up multiple freshman classes with students who are academically qualified to attend Tulane. We could fill up multiple freshman classes just with students who would be great fits here and genuinely want to be at Tulane. The problem is we can’t admit all of them.”

To Shiffman’s credit – and Tulane’s – the university notified its Early Decision applicants regarding their admissions decisions refreshingly fast. Tulane’s ED admission letters left Tulane’s Office of Admission on November 16 and were made available online at 5:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time on November 19. Talk about a nice Thanksgiving present! More universities should try to turn around admissions decisions in fewer than three weeks (Tulane’s Early Decision application deadline was November 1)!

Tulane, back in the day, released its Early Action notifications in November, but that was before they got into the ED I and ED II business recently.

So, seniors dreaming of a Case Western or Tulane acceptance letter this Christmas, hold on just a bit longer.

University of Texas at Austin Releases First Class of 2023 Acceptances

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UT at Austin’s Office of Admissions began admitting students to its Class of 2023 on Friday evening December 7 when a few thousand fall 2019 freshman applicants received an email asking them to visit their MyStatus page for an update.

According to Miguel V. Wasielewski, University of Texas at Austin Executive Director of Admissions, the institution is “delivering about a third of our fall 2019 admission offers to majors this week.”

Wasielewski went on to explain that Fall 2019 applicants not admitted on December 7 will still be considered for the thousands of spots that remain to be filled in the first-year class UT at Austin’s admissions team is assembling, and that all students who applied this fall to be Longhorns will receive their final decisions “no later than – and perhaps well before – March 1.”

Good luck to all UT at Austin applicants.

Northeastern University wants to remain a safe space to send your $75 application fee

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Trick or treat? How about both? Late on Friday, October 12 (news dump time), Boston’s Northeastern University, in the person of Elizabeth Cheron, Dean of Admissions, sent high school counselors the following note:

Dear Colleague,

I am reaching out today with an update on Northeastern’s application. In setting up our application for Fall 2019, we added a common format short answer question asking a student to explain more about their most important extracurricular activity; our hope was to give applicants an opportunity to expand beyond the activities section and give our admissions committee a bit more information. Many of you probably recognized this question as being very similar to the old “short answer” question from the Common Application.

It was not our intent for this to be a writing supplement or involve the level of preparation that a writing supplement would require of an applicant. In the past few weeks, we have seen that it was causing unnecessary stress in the application process—as such we have chosen to remove the question from Northeastern‘s member-specific questions. As always, applicants to Northeastern can share more information by utilizing the upload feature in the Application Status Check once they have submitted an application. Please be in touch if you or your students have any questions. You can find the counselor who works with students from your school here.

Sincerely,

Elizabeth Cheron
Dean of Admissions
The Office of Undergraduate Admissions
Northeastern University
northeastern.edu/admissions

First, heaven forbid students applying to a university with an all-in retail price of $70,000/year be asked to put forth, “the level of preparation that a writing supplement would require of an applicant” when applying to Northeastern!

Second, putting on our essay editing/detective hat for a moment, we have to ask, who exactly was suffering from “unnecessary stress in the application process” Dean Cheron?

Does the reaction to answering such a prosaic little question as that which was removed from Northeastern’s application last week say a lot about the typical Northeastern applicant and his or her pain tolerance…or is the current Northeastern applicant being used as a scapegoat in this story?

Maybe the “stress” referred to in the email above refers to the stress of individuals in the Northeastern University admissions office who either didn’t want to read more than they have to or who were seeing such a decline (or diminished growth) in application numbers compared to this time last year that the assembled powers that be stooped so low as to change an application mid season? Come on! We’ve seen a lot of application shenanigans in recent years, but a supplemental short answer question disappearing is just ridiculous!

If only we could call Northeastern a cheap date, which it certainly is acting like by making this 11th hour move, but a $75 application fee is hardly cheap. And, again, have you seen Northeastern’s cost of attendance? This is Northeastern we are talking about.

The university, which has become ever more “selective” in recent years, certainly wants to do nothing to scare away international $tudent$, who make up nearly twenty percent of its entering first-year classes, and other typical Northeastern applicants who are accustomed to having to do nothing other than the bare minimum on the Common App to get in – at least to Northeastern. Many of those same students are more than willing to write 500-word essays to other colleges. But apparently not to Northeastern. Planning carefully ahead is clearly not the strong suit of employees at the top of the Northeastern University admissions office.

Either the best of the rest apply to Northeastern, or someone on the inside at Northeastern is trying to pull a fast one on us. Or both!

Meanwhile, Boston University has had supplemental essay/short answer questions for years. BU is also a wonderful school from which to earn an undergraduate degree. That is all.

Z-Lists, Legacies, Race-Based Admissions, and the Fall of Communism

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With the news media uncovering Harvard’s Z-list admissions practices, many professionals in today’s world of high school counseling, college admission, and education in general sense it’s time to pounce on Harvard for rewarding unearned “privilege.” If only some combination of Harvard and/or the “privilege” bogeyman could be blamed; but, alas, college admissions in the United States today is only a serious symptom of a far larger, more complex, and more serious problem: the thus far extremely successful decades-long attempt by the powers that be to destroy meritocracy in the United States and turn the USA into a modern and high-tech caste-system state in which an individual’s demographic information at birth dictates everything about what preferences and opportunities are and are not bestowed upon that individual until death.

You can be sure that the vast majority of students who get into college because they are put on a Z-List or because they are legacies at the colleges that are admitting them have little personal experience contending with the grim reality faced by the vast majority of American high school students, as illustrated by the chart below.

It is a national scandal that most American high school students have little to no time with any knowledgable college/career counselor before they are thrust out of high school and into the big bad world of reality, which all too often includes going to a college that is not worth the money and joining the debt slave class for decades thereafter. That colleges, almost all of which like to consider themselves progressive and equity-focused, compound the problem by having Z-Lists and admissions preferences for children of alumni who have donated a pretty penny over the years is the definition of adding insult to injury to the vast majority of America’s youth.

Add to this the fact that these days, colleges that employ race-based admissions and Affirmative Action are rewarding many wealthy average students at the expense of exceptionally smart and talented wealthy, middle-class, and poor students and you have the perfect cocktail for the downfall of higher education in the United States. We already see it in our society writ large: the masses are no longer obligingly deferring to the views and opinions of the “higher educated.” Instead, more and more people immediately discount any words out of the mouths of those who teach in or have graduated from those colleges most often associated with ivory, not to mention, Ivy towers.

When education becomes so politicized and so focused on socially engineered preferred outcomes such skepticism is not only natural – it’s fully warranted; yet, for society to function well and advance, there does need to be a go-to group of people who have more knowledge, act more rationally, and do what’s right for not only themselves, but also their communities and their country. Such individuals are now part of an endangered species.

Does all of this anti-meritocracy mishegas sound familiar? Learned people have read this story before when they either independently or in the education world of yore absorbed all of the depressing details of the fall of Communism everywhere it has been tried. We are living in a world where too many want all of the stuff without all of the work! In other words, if you don’t work, nothing will, especially when managed by an unimpressive cabal at the top.

Those who attend and graduate from American colleges and universities today likely have no idea where all this ridiculousness ends because none of this sounds familiar because such individuals never learned the most important lessons of history. But you can be sure such current students and recent graduates – or more likely their parents – know all about how to get ahead in 21st Century America. It’s left to those who know their history to either try to foster change or simply throw up their hands, watch, and wait for the inevitable collapse.

Washington University Adds Essay and Early Decision II

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Julie Shimabukuro, Director of Admissions at Washington University in St. Louis has announced some major changes to the first-year application process for admission to the selective Gateway City university.

Washington University in St. Louis “will be implementing a supplemental essay in addition to the Common Application or Coalition Application essay. This will allow students to further express their interest in their academic area of choice.” wrote Shimabukuro in an email to high school counselors.

While that sounds all well and good, this news is clearly aimed at separating serious applicants (those who will surely claim to bleed Wash U. red and green) to the university from those just using the school as a great school that requires no extra work, which many high-achieving students have been doing for years because Washington University in St. Louis had no supplemental essay writing requirement beyond what many high-acheving students were already completing for other Common App and Coalition App colleges to which they were applying.

Shimabukuro went on to add that the new essay will also be used as the merit-based scholarship essay for scholarships offered by Washington University’s undergrad divisions.

It’s worth noting that applications for the John B. Ervin, Annika Rodriguez, and Danforth Scholars programs will continue to be awarded through a separate processes, which include more essay writing.

On top of this big news, Shimabukuro added the more curious news that Washington University in St. Louis will also add an Early Decision II application deadline for the first time this upcoming admissions cycle.

This means that Wash U.’s new deadline schedule is as follows for those students hoping to matriculate in Fall 2019:

Application Deadlines Scholarship & Financial Assistance Deadlines
Early Decision I – Nov. 1, 2018 Need-based Financial Assistance (ED) – Nov. 15, 2018
Early Decision II – Jan. 2, 2019 Need-based Financial Assistance (EDII) – Jan. 15, 2019
Regular Decision – Jan. 2, 2019 Need-based Financial Assistance (RD) – Feb. 1, 2019
Merit Scholarships – Jan. 2, 2019

Washington University in St. Louis is clearly trying to shake things up, but no reason was given for why EDII is being implemented. It will be interesting to see if Wash U. proactively communicates the acceptance rates for both of their ED rounds this time next year. The university has been one of the most successful users of ED as a means of loading up its classes early each admissions cycle.

Villanova’s Acceptance Rate Falls to 29%

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Villanova University will release its Regular Decision admissions notifications on Thursday, March 22, 2018. Yet, before it does, the suburban Philadelphia university has shared with high school counselors important bits of information about its Class of 2022 applicant pool.

According to Michael M. Gaynor, Villanova’s director of undergraduate admission, Villanova received 22,727 applications for the 1,670 spots the university has allotted for first-year students entering this fall. 22,727 first-year applications represents a 7.65% increase in first-year applications from last year’s previous high.

In addition, Villanova began offering an Early Decision application option to students who applied this past fall. In its inaugural year, 24% of Villanova’s entering class will be admitted through the university’s new Early Decision program.

Villanova also still offers non-binding Early Action, and 12,677 Early Action applications were submitted this past fall.

As a result of its new differentiated admission options, Villanova’s overall acceptance rate has fallen to 28.8%. Last year, when the university only offered Early Action and Regular Decision, Villanova’s overall acceptance rate was 34.9%, and during the previous admission cycle, it was 43.2%. Long story short, Villanova has now joined many other colleges in using Early Decision to reduce its overall acceptance rate.

Of those students accepted, the middle 50% earned weighted high school GPAs on a traditional 4.00 scale between 4.10 and 4.48. Note that such GPAs are not final GPAs, but rather cumulative GPAs students’ earned at the time of their application submissions. Also, of those students accepted, the middle 50% SAT score range fell between 1380 and 1490 and the middle 50% score range on the ACT was between 32 and 34.

Finally, Gaynor notes that some Villanova majors are harder to get into than others. In particular, the most competitive programs were Biology, Business, Cognitive and Behavioral Neuroscience, and Nursing.

Penn State Creates Early Action Deadline for Fall 2019 Applicants

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Big news for students in the high school Class of 2019. Pennsylvania State University, which for many years has had a Priority Application deadline of November 30 for first-year applicants applying for fall admission, has just announced that starting this summer (for students applying for admission for Fall 2019 and later) the popular university is instituting a new Early Action deadline.

Students applying by Penn State’s new November 1 Early Action deadline will receive an admissions decision – admit, deny, or defer – by no later than December 24. Penn State will still offer a November 30 Priority Application deadline for those students choosing not to applying by the university’s new Early Action deadline, and students choosing this later Priority Application will still hear of their decisions by January 31, 2019. In the past, students have heard back from Penn State in a rolling manner if they applied in the weeks leading up to its November 30 Priority deadline.

In addition to announcing the new Early Action option, Penn State has made additional changes to its application timeline that are important to note:

  • Penn State’s application for undergraduate admission will become available on August 1, 2018
  • Schreyer Honors College’s priority filing date will now be on November 1, 2018
  • The FAFSA recommended filing date is now December 1, 2018 (FAFSA goes live on October 1)
  • Early awarding of student aid begins for Early Action applicants in Mid-February, 2019

The big take-away is that Penn State is telling high school counselors to encourage their students to apply using the new Early Action deadline, which sounds to us like getting into Penn State using the priority deadline is about to get harder than ever. Students need to get their applications together quicker than ever for PSU; yet, their Early Action deadline is still later than early birds University of North Carolina Chapel Hill and University of Georgia, which both have EA deadlines of October 15.

It should also be noted that students hoping to apply to Penn State’s accelerated pre-medical/medical program or to its music, theater, musical theater, acting, dance, and golf management programs, will need to submit supplemental information to complete their applications – such as interviews or auditions – that will preclude Penn State from offering December 24 decisions for such applicants. Such niche program applicants, along with World Campus applicants, are not invited to participate in Penn State’s new Early Action program.

Penn State accepts its own institutional application and the Coalition application for domestic freshmen applicants. International students, U.S. citizens or permanent residents living abroad, and all transfer students must apply to Penn State via its institutional applicantion, which is available at MyPennState.

To learn more, visit Penn State’s admissions office here for additional information on the application review process and take a look at Penn State’s Early Action FAQs here.

 

 

 

Analysis: Ivies’ Inconsistent Need-Blind Review Policies

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For years, the eight institutions that make up the Ivy League have loudly touted how they review undergraduate applications in a need-blind manner, which gives many families the impression that a family’s financial circumstances will play no role in its student’s chances of admission into one of these very selective institutions.

Yet, the Ivies have need-blind policies that are not so black and white. In fact, if families read the fine print, they will find that many members of the Ivy League engage in a hybrid of review policies depending on students’ citizenship or U.S. residency status. Five out of the eight members of the Ivy League review first-year applicants in either a need-blind manner or need-aware manner depending on an applicant’s citizenship or U.S. residency status. The other three are need-blind for each and every first-year applicant.

Below, Admissions Intel provides a breakdown of the distinct review policies for the eight members of the Ivy League.

University of Pennsylvania
Penn offers probably the most interesting need-blind review policy. An applicant to Penn will be reviewed in a need-blind manner if the student is a citizen or legal permanent resident of the U.S., Canada, or Mexico. Why Canadians or Mexicans are reviewed on a need-blind basis is not explained, though of course these countries share borders with the U.S. Canadian and Mexican taxpayers certainly don’t fund the millions of dollars worth of research that Penn engages in each year; American taxpayers do. Students living in the U.S. illegally (if they are honest about their status and not from Mexico or Canada) are reviewed in a need-aware manner. As are students from all other countries so far unmentioned. One could make the argument that Russia (close to Alaska) and the Bahamas (close to Florida) have reason to complain to Penn that Canada and Mexico get special treatment but they don’t.

Cornell University
Cornell is one of four Ivy League colleges that actively reward illegality with its need-blind admissions policies. Cornell is need-blind for all U.S. citizens and permanent residents and for those with DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) status. That last group includes many teenage children of parents who entered the U.S. illegally when their children were younger. While the children are also officially illegal residents of the U.S. the Obama administration created DACA to “bring out of the shadows” individuals brought to the U.S. illegally by their older family members. All other international applicants to Cornell are reviewed on a need-aware basis.

Brown University
Brown takes Cornell’s policy one step further by reviewing not only all U.S. citizens, permanent residents, and DACA recipients in need-blind manner; Brown also reviews all undocumented students in a need-blind manner. This raises the question, why would a student who wants to go to Brown but who doesn’t have the financial means just cross into the U.S. illegally through the Canadian or Mexican border before applying to Brown? Brown’s admissions committee rewards law-abiding international students with the gift of being reviewed in a need-aware manner.

Columbia University & Dartmouth College
Both Dartmouth and Columbia are need-blind for U.S. citizens, undocumented students, and eligible non-citizens residing in the U.S. This latter group includes:

-U.S. nationals (includes natives of American Samoa or Swains Island).

-U.S. permanent resident with a Form I-551, I-151, or I-551C (Permanent Resident Card, Resident Alien Card, or Alien Registration Receipt Card), also known as a “green card.”

-Individuals who have an Arrival-Departure Record (I-94) from U.S. Citizen and Immigration Services (USCIS) showing:

>“Refugee,”

>“Asylum Granted,”

>“Cuban-Haitian Entrant,”

>“Conditional Entrant” (valid only if issued before April 1, 1980), or

>“Parolee” (you must be paroled for at least one year, and you must be able to provide evidence from the USCIS that you are in the United States for other than a temporary purpose with the intention of becoming a U.S. citizen or permanent resident).

-Individuals who hold a T nonimmigrant status (“T-visa”) (for victims of human trafficking) or your parent holds a T-1 nonimmigrant status. Your college or career school’s financial aid office will ask to see your visa and/or certification letter from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

-Individuals who are a “battered immigrant-qualified alien” who is a victim of abuse by your citizen or permanent resident spouse, or you are the child of a person designated as such under the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA).

-An individual who is a citizen of the Federated States of Micronesia, the Republic of the Marshall Islands, or the Republic of Palau. If this is the case, you may be eligible for only certain types of federal student aid:

>Citizens of the Republic of Palau are eligible for Federal Pell Grants, Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grants, and Federal Work-Study.

>Citizens of the Federal States of Micronesia and the Republic of the Marshall Islands are eligible for Federal Pell Grants only.

-To qualify for federal student aid, certain eligible noncitizens must be able to provide evidence from the USCIS that they are in the United States for other than a temporary purpose with the intention of becoming a U.S. citizen or permanent resident.

-Certain Native American students born in Canada with a status under the Jay Treaty of 1789 may also be eligible for federal student aid.

All other applicants to Columbia and Dartmouth are reviewed in a need-aware manner.

Harvard, Princeton, & Yale
This Holy Trinity is need-blind for everyone! That’s right, Harvard, Princeton, and Yale don’t care if you are Brazilian, Burmese, Byelorussian, or Baltimorean. You’re all going to be reviewed on a need-blind basis. Congrats for keeping it consistent Big Three.

Important Final Note
The above discussion only applies to how these eight schools determine whom to review on a need-blind or need-aware basis. Once a student is accepted, the Ivies make every effort to meet 100% of demonstrated need. The trick, of course, is getting in first, thus the discussion above.

Good luck!