Unless someone has specific knowledge of FA affecting admissions I would take second hand information with a large grain of salt. The real question is whether your family needs financial aid in order to make it a viable option for you. Getting accepted into a situation that your family can’t afford is not a good solution IMO. Our DS applied for FA to 3 BS and was accepted into 2 of them and was given financial aid to both. We will never know whether the 3rd school rejected him because of FA but we could care less because acceptance without FA was never going to be an option for us. The school he chose was terrific and he was accepted to T20 schools.