Nacac Fee Waiver Transfer: Fill & Download for Free

Thanks for the A2AIt has been interesting following the trail of this story that you link to for the basis of this question. I am a part of some closed groups for counselors and admission officers and the reaction to this story has been, mixed, and at times rancorous.Let me try to set out a few things that might help to answer the question in ways that won’t get too many people upset but that will try to say why there will always be schools that will charge students money for applying.First of all, for undergraduates applicants who are traditional students (in high school) are already eligible to get fee waivers for all applications they may wish to submit.There is a form published by NACAC, the organization devoted to admission. Students who have need and who fill out the form correctly will get a fee waiver.Here is the information from Nacac’s webpage:Overview:​Students who have limited financial resources and meet the requirements below may use the NACAC Request for Application Fee Waiver Form when applying for college. The form helps ensure that access to college is possible for all students. The form is for traditional high school students applying to postsecondary colleges or universities in the fall immediately following high school graduation.Students are eligible to use the form if:​Student has received or is eligible to receive an ACT or SAT testing fee waiver.Student is enrolled in or eligible to participate in the Federal Free or Reduced Price Lunch program (FRPL).Student's annual family income falls within the Income Eligibility Guidelines set by the USDA Food and Nutrition Service.Student is enrolled in a federal, state or local program that aids student from low-income families (e.g., TRIO programs such as Upward Bound).Student's family receives public assistance.Student lives in federally subsidized public housing, a foster home or is homeless.Student is a ward of the state or an orphan.Gap year students or individuals choosing to defer applying to college rather than immediately transitioning after high school graduation are not eligible to use NACAC's Request for Application Fee Waiver Form. NACAC recommends that prospective students in these categories contact the admission office of the institution(s) to which they are seeking admission regarding an institutional fee waiver. If you are a transfer student, see the Transfer Fee Waiver​.http://www.nacacnet.org/studentinfo/feewaiver/pages/default.aspx******************************************************************************The student who was denied a fee waiver that generated the story applied for a graduate program. Graduate programs come all kinds of sizes and shapes. There is no one size fits all when it comes to decisions about fee waivers.What happened in this particular case, or at least this is the way many in the world of admission see it, but won’t say in public, is that the person who wrote the response back to the student made a big mistake. His mistake was not saying that the NYU would not grant him a fee waiver, however. What his mistake was the less than solicitous tone that he used and the fact he was far more honest than most admissions officers are about this policy.In other words, he told the student the harsh true. The program the student was applying for costs over $50,000 a year and the most aid a student will typically get in the best of circumstances is well under $20,000. A student who does not have enough money to pay the application fee will, except in very rare circumstances, have the money to pay tuition. The admission officer wrote a long email back to the student. He was trying to let the student know that he would not be able to come to the school if money was an issue. As I say there are many in admission who applauded the person for being honest so the student could move on and search for a program that would provide aid.But there were many who condemned the person for writing this letter. NYU did not come out and fire him, but they did contact the student and tell him they would waive his application fee. The story has become a PR. An admission officer had written a less than warm and fuzzy response to a student who has an Ivy degree and who is an under-represented minority. The student then tweeted this out to the world and NYU looked like it did not care about students like this. Therefore they came in and reversed the policy and waived the fee.If this sounds like what should have been done, I am not so sure. The school does not have funding to pay for students who have a lot of need for this particular graduate program. To waive the fee for anyone who requests a waiver does not make sense for the school, which relies on fees to cover costs for admission offices. They may now create a form that students can fill out which will permit them to waive fees on an individual basis. I imagine this is what will happen at NYU and at other schools too.But here’s the thing. The schools will now be on record saying the will waive fees but unless they change the way they fund programs, it simply means that the student can apply but that there is not going to be funding available. The school may even decide to grant the student admission, but then not give the student any aid.Even at the undergraduate level there are many schools who do offer admission to student they have granted fee waivers to but then do not give them any need-based aid. Most schools do not have enough money to cover the costs of all needy studentsThe schools may get many more applicants, but the reality is that virtually none of them can enroll. Is this is the best interest of the students? Many I education do not think so. But the more applications a school gets, the more selective they look to be and for undergraduate schools, selectivity is a big factor in rankings.To sum up, undergraduates can get fee waivers fairly easily. Graduates students, however, will have to examine the admission policies of each individual program. Given the bad PR that came from this story, I would imagine that most graduate programs will not, at least on the surface, grant fee waivers, and some will have forms student can fill out in order to make it formal. But many of the schools will simply be doing PR as the students who cannot pay will either be denied admission or will be offered admission but with little or no aid. Encouraging applications from students who have almost no hope of actually enrolling does not seem helpful for the students but the bad press that resulted from this story will likely mean this what will happen certainly at NYU but also at other schools too.