In my experience with Amherst College, they don’t care about middle class students. Welcome if your parents can pay, get out if you can’t make them pay. It doesn’t matter how bright a student is or how well he would fit at Amherst. They only go by the numbers not life circumstances, no compassion for the students who have no control over money and no way to borrow this much money.
On other side, if numbers support your case, they are very generous even if student isn’t even interested in coming or has other free rides to schools he prefers.
I don’t hold it against them, they are pretty much accountants doing math and following institutional policies not making case by case decisions for individual student’s circumstances. Imho its a computational process but take it with a grain of salt as my kid’s case is just an anecdote my opinion has limited value and you may see a favorable outcome for your case.