Schools

Wesleyan Shines Light on Need-Blind Admissions: 46% of Students Get Aid [VIDEO]

After the Board of Trustees voted to consider a potential student's ability to pay before offering an acceptance, two student filmmakers — on financial aid — created a video that shows how many Wes students wouldn't be on campus otherwise.

Editor's Note: For a full understanding of the need-blind issue, see links below.

Two Wesleyan University students — matriculated to the "little Ivy" through the good graces of financial aid — are using a class project to spotlight the hottest topic on campus today: whether Wes should consider an applicant's financial situation when deciding a student's admission.

"Who Would be Here?" is a video created by two financial aid students, Samantha Maldonado ’13 and Katya Botwinick ’13, as a viral video assignment for their class, Media & Society. The short film begins with the stark fact: In 2011-12, 46 percent of Wesleyan students received need-based scholarship awards.

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A series of articles in the Wesleyan Argus student newspaper and the Wesleyan student-run blog chronicle student reaction to Wesleyan University's decision to scale back on aid.

Last spring, Board of Trustees voted to scale back need-blind admissions beginning with the class of 2017. The Office of Admissions will now take into account an applicant’s ability to pay once a financial aid cap is reached, according to the Argus.

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"A need-aware admissions policy sends an inherently unfriendly message to applicants: you may be a great applicant, but we won’t accept you into our community because your family can’t pay enough. Or, you may be great applicant, but the deciding factor in accepting you is your money," says Benny Doctor and Leonid Liu in Wespeak: “Need-Blind Admissions: The Price Tag of Equality,” published Sept. 3.

Read more on this topic from Wesleyan:

Campus Editors for Need-Blind

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