elephant in the room ...

quickquestion1
Fri, 11 Mar 2011 23:07:35 +0000

The point is that the OP made it sound as if it were a much more significant factor than it is. She writes that: “All else being equal, the main factor in obtaining an acceptance was your answer to one simple question – Did you file for financial aid?”
Considering that all else is equal, the question of financial aid stands as the SINGLE remaining factor, and therefore (admittedly unfairly, but then again WUSTL is not as wealthy as other institutions) puts the wealthier, but otherwise identical, candidate through. This is much different than taking a wealthy 2200 over a poor 2300…
My argument isn’t absolute of course–a rigorous analysis of data that we quite frankly do not have would have to be made, as Somnambulant pointed out.