Contact FA office to explain why not asking for need based aid, but need merit?

[skydivemom]

OP, here is a post from a year ago detailing how one family negotiated more merit aid from Whitman:

Whitman College Class of 2025 — Regular Decision Date: Feb. 25

I wanted to give an update. My son has been leaning towards Whitman for months BUT it was way out of our original budget (like $17k a year more even after his $14k a year initially). We attended their Admitted Student Saturday in person 2 weeks ago and then immediately came home and drafted our appeal (with some tips from Camasite). We qualify for zero need based aid so our only hope was way more merit. My son wrote a letter basically saying what drew him to Whitman (including specifics from attending the Admitted Student Saturday), told them that our budget all along was the price of a UC school (we’re in CA) but that a small liberal arts college is what is the best fit, and that Whitman was his first choice but the most expensive choice out of the 8 schools he had gotten into. We included a comparison spreadsheet of all the current colleges’ net costs and attached the aid letters of each school he’s been accepted to. We just heard back that they gave him an additional $16k a year in …

You may want to contact @Essnce629 for more details.