Anonymous wrote:22:42- I was wondering about that, maybe you have some additional insight. They say FA and admissions operate separately, but your post makes it sound like the school is able to play with FA awards to make it possible for the right girl to attend. If that is true, how does this work? I was under the impression that the financial aid service comes up with an expected family contribution. The school offers up to that number if they have the funds, or if not they may offer a lesser amount or none at all. Are you saying FA could put a package together and admissions could then say "wait, do better, we really want this girl?" Sorry if that's a stupid question, I'm really confused about the "blind" part of this whole process.
I'm 22:42. My reference to finances is that they can be flexible on class size because of a strong financial position. For instance, they can forgo totally filling a class just to get tuition if they don't find the x number of kids they have room for. They can also make the classes bigger than expected if there are an unusually high number of applicants they want. Both have happened in the last five years.
I don't know how they FA process works though, sorry. I do know that when the economy went sour, they made the decision that was the time to invest substantially more in FA... something crazy like 30% more. So that's a good sign.