The College of the Holy Cross’ admissions office recently got caught doing something not so holy. We might suggest that its director of admissions attend confession. As the loyal readers of Ivy Coach’s college admissions blog know all too well, we believe that need-blind admissions is essentially malarkey. And why? While so many of our nation’s elite colleges are quick to tout that they don’t factor in a student’s ability to pay when weighing their case for admission, if that were true then college applications would not ask about the applicant’s finances, full stop. 

As Ivy Coach Founder Bev Taylor writes for HuffPost, “For students who end up on a highly selective college waitlist, know that your financial need is being taken into account when admissions officers are debating on which waitlisted candidates they’ll be admitting off the list. For international applicants, know that you’ll be severely handicapping yourself if you check that you need financial aid. But the same is true for all applicants — not just these better known cases. The fact is that if highly selective colleges truly were need blind, then why in the ’Profile’ section of the Common Application does it ask students if they require a fee waiver for the application? College admissions officers can see this response and it’s a heck of a clue as to their need for aid.”

Holy Cross Got Caught Sneakily Changing its Need-Blind Admissions Policy to Need-Aware

The truth is that most highly selective colleges are not need-blind; instead, they’re need-aware. Of course, they seek to admit as many low-income, first-generation college students as possible. However, they also rely on tuition dollars to subsidize the education of these students. If these elite colleges were truly need-blind — as so many of them assert — they’d risk admitting too many students who needed aid and having to dip into their endowments, which they’re reluctant to do.

The College of the Holy Cross previously claimed to admit students without regard to financial need. Everything changed several years ago, and now the private Jesuit school in Worcester, Massachusetts, has no qualms about flaunting its need-aware status. Take it from Holy Cross Provost and Dean of the College, Margaret N. Freije, who recently spelled out this new policy in a press release: “Historically, we have been able to meet this commitment with a completely need-blind admission process. This has become increasingly difficult to accomplish. In order to build the diverse community that we seek, and ensure that we are able to fully meet their full demonstrated need, it is possible that a small number of our admission decisions may need to be made with an awareness of financial need going forward.”

Is Holy Cross Really Need-Blind?

Yes, the College of the Holy Cross got caught with its hand in the cookie jar. But Holy Cross isn’t alone. So many schools claim to have need-blind policies when they do not. It’s high time that many of our nation’s elite schools stop trying to claim they admit students on a need-blind basis when they really are aware of financial need. In a sense, there is something refreshing about Holy Cross’ honesty on this subject. Whereas so many schools claim to be need-blind while admitting more students who can afford full tuition, at least Holy Cross has chosen transparency. Maybe their commitment to Jesuit principles made them confront this unethical practice and do better for their applicants. After all, this transparency will save so much time for students who may have applied to Holy Cross thinking it was within financial reach but now know better than to try their hand at admission.

Holy Cross Acceptance Rate

So how has this saga impacted Holy Cross’ acceptance rate? We’ve compiled what The Common Data Sets tell us through the years, so let’s take a look:

Holy Cross Graduating Class	Acceptance Rate
Class of 2028	21.10%
Class of 2027	36.36%
Class of 2026	42.87%
Class of 2025	37.94%
Class of 2024	34.22%
Class of 2023	38.01%
Class of 2022	39.60%
Class of 2021	38.46%
Class of 2020	37.03%
Class of 2019	43.34%

Exempting this most recent admissions cycle, there is hardly much of a trendline at all! Holy Cross’ acceptance rate has hovered around 38% or so since the data started being collected back for the Class of 2019. The Class of 2028 acceptance rate, however, marks a dramatic decrease — from 36.36% in the previous cycle to a slim 21.10%! The moral of the story? Transparency in the admissions process pays off!

If only all the other highly selective institutions would follow Holy Cross’ lead, a new era of financial transparency in higher education could be upon us. Until that lofty ideal becomes a reality, we at Ivy Coach will continue to call out the need-blind myth!