I’d love to see stats on overall financials of all applicants at these schools vs. the final numbers. It would be great if that data were released. I’m not saying they don’t have some opportunities to lower income kids. These schools cannot afford to give huge numbers basically free tuition. I think they have to balance their budgets at the end of the day.
Saying they are “need blind and meets need” is good marketing, I don’t think it accurately portrays what happens in admissions as they sort kids into buckets. I suspect there would be much wider fluctuations in their financials year to year if this wasn’t happening. If you have a kid from an east coast boarding school that has done a bunch of expensive traveling and extra curriculars vs. the kid from a high poverty urban public school that has done all school based activities and volunteering and a paid job, you can probably tell a little something about their financial need in admissions and those 2 kids wouldn’t go into the same “bucket”.
I think this is an interesting video about a former Yale student that went back through her admissions file
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQ1ajpiy09E
At the end of the day, I hope most kids don’t feel too bad if they don’t get into one of these schools. Lots of great ways to get a higher education.