Does the endowment size directly correlate with generosity of financial assistance?

[ucbalumnus]

@lookingforward

There are some CC posters who believe the better your match, the better FA might be, even at a Meet Full Need only college. Might. I had seen those comments just before my first applied. We focused intently on real “match.” Except for merit opps, that’s more than stats. It’s the holistic match with their philosophy, offerings, the nature of empowerment you show, challenges taken on, and successes they look for, in the kid’s record and writing.

This type of thing is sometimes called “preferential packaging”. Another way of thinking about it is that it is like a hidden or unannounced competitive embedded merit scholarship. Note: “holistic match” is just another way of describing merit in relation to the college’s preferences, where the college determines desirability of applicants and admits holistically.