Which US Universities follow a Needs Blind and Full Need Admissions Policy for International Students? Harvard, MIT, Dartmouth, Princeton, Yale and Amherst

Now that this years admissions season is coming up, students and parents are trying to understand what the opportunities are for financial aid and scholarships.

So which US Universities follow a Needs Blind and Full Need Admissions Policy for International Students? Before we answer that, let’s first examine what exactly this means.

• Well ‘Needs Blind’ means that your financial needs are not taken into account as part of the admissions process. Not every university is ‘Needs Blind’, so it is important to understand the policy of the university that you are applying to. For example there are universities that at ‘Needs Blind’ for U.S. citizens but ‘Needs Sensitive’ for international students.
• So what does ‘Needs Sensitive’ mean? It means that your financial need will be taken into account in the decision- making process. You may be able to accepted and get financial aid, however you may get rejected if, for example, the university has run out of funding at that stage.
• ‘Full Need’ is different to ‘Needs Blind’: Full Need means that university agrees to meet the full demonstrated financial need of all its’ admitted students. Full demonstrated need is as per the university’s calculations – most universities have a calculator on their website so that you can start estimating what type of financial aid you can qualify for.

There are only six colleges that are needs-blind and full-need for all applicants, including international students, these are Harvard, MIT, Dartmouth, Princeton, Yale and Amherst.

Now, all of this is different to a merit based scholarship which is where you get a scholarship based on your individual merit. Most universities that are needs-blind and full-need do not offer merit based scholarships.

Look out for our next post, which will discuss how merit based scholarships work.