<p>Curmudgeon- I think some posters are skeptical as to the lengths some fin- aid officers are willing to go to get a top flight applicant. I also think you may be unique in that you researched and found a target rich environment. Once found, you exploited it. If you can do it, so can others. I would hate to see people discouraged from doing just what you did. Finding leverage and using it is what my coworker did. He got his daughter into a fine school. If he had simply dismissed this "preferential packaging" as "garbage" or the domain of one in a thousand kids he might now regret it. "texasmom" got her two boys this sort of packaging as noted in one of her previous posts and she readily admits one of her sons did not have stellar stats. Nevertheless, he got a deeply discounted education that other less savvy parents may have paid for completely out of pocket ...owed to thier unwillingness to believe. I believe!</p>