Wall Street Journal, Buying Your Way Into College, by Jane J. Kim:

Forget the standard advice that everyone should apply for financial aid. This year, forgoing aid applications may actually boost the chances of getting accepted.

Thanks to the recent recession, more colleges are giving seats to wealthier students—especially international or wait-listed applicants—who are willing to pay full freight. …  Middlebury College and Wake Forest University began looking at wait-listed students’ financial status as a factor in admissions last year. And Tufts University, which was able to admit all students on a “need-blind” basis—where they pledge to admit students regardless of their ability to pay—in 2007 and 2008, has reverted to being “need-aware” for some applicants—meaning that it takes an applicant’s financial status into account.

At the same time, some elite schools, including Stanford University, Yale University and Dartmouth College, that still have need-blind admissions policies in place for all U.S. students, are adjusting their aid formulas in ways that are raising costs for families with higher incomes. …

Yale said in December that it will pare back the aid given to families who make more than $130,000 starting this fall. Dartmouth will replace some grants with loans ranging from $2,500 to $5,500 annually for financial-aid recipients with families who make over $75,000 beginning this fall. Grinnell College, meanwhile, raised the maximum annual loan limits in aid packages by $250 to $2,250 last year. …

Mark Kantrowitz, founder of FinAid.org, a financial-aid Web site, estimates that about 5% of the application pool may increase their chances of being admitted by not applying for aid