Wow. I didn't mean to come off bitter or disappointed. Far from it! My D is going to a fabulous place and she had a choice of fabulous places. I know Smith is a terrific place, too. My D will be going to school in a castle. It's very cool. I just jumped into this thread because the original poster is from the same area of the country that we are from and my D was one of those kids who chose another school because of the poor FA at Smith. Another one of her friends chose Wellesley over Smith for FA aid reasons, too, by the way. That friend is also middle/upper middle income.
Smith is not need blind in admissions,I never said they were. What I said was they say they meet 100% of need of the admitted applicants and they clearly don't do that. If they don't use the profile or the fafsa to determine that need, what do they do?
It is very easy to explain how Smith could have a high aid/student rate, but still give most students poor packages. It also explains why they have such a high pell grant percentage. It appears they offer money to very low income students, but not much to middle or upper middle ones. Maybe they don't look at where in the country a person lives. They might even have a cut off of income regardless of the fafsa or profile, only Smith knows. It just seemed weird to accept a student and then not allow them to go, that's all. In many ways it would have been easier to just have a reject.
The fact that the schools my D was accepted to all gave her decent FA (7 of them) is perhaps why Smith's lack of it stuck out so much. That, coupled with the fact that it is one of the most expensive colleges in the country, is going to make it harder for students to go there. It wasn't like their offer was a little lower, you know. They were low enough that it wasn't possible for her to go no matter how much gerryrigging we did with the numbers. Maybe they expected a parental loan? Middle and upper middle income students (100-180K per year) might be able to suck it up where a low income wouldn't qualify for the loan?
It is probably like you said, they didn't want her that much. That's what I told her. But, why accept her in the first place? Bryn Mawr is about the same or slightly higher selectivity then Smith, so that isn't the issue. UC Berkeley is far more selective then Smith. My D is now saying she would have chosen Bryn Mawr over any of her schools and Smith's disappointment is totally gone after visiting Bryn Mawr. I don't know if she would have chosen Smith over Bryn Mawr or the others or not. She never saw Smith, there was no reason to visit.
I would just hate to see Smith become a school for only the wealthy and the low income. They need some middleys in there, too.
Here's a thought: If Smiths yield was lower this year (I think many colleges will be in this position) then maybe they will need to go to their waitlist. People who need no financial aid are usually the first offered a spot off the list.
