<p>^ emilybee, I assumed since you were talking about using money to attract a certain kind of student, you meant merit aid. If not merit aid, and presumably you don’t mean need-based either for a family making $300K+, then what kind of grant are you talking about? A special endowed scholarship only for Jewish applicants? Do you know about how many of these are available and in what average amounts?</p>
<p>Nope, Vanderbilt considers what he got need based aid. Private colleges can pretty much do anything they want and they do just that when they want certain students to attend. </p>
<p>My kid is at a small top 25 LAC which gives no merit aid at all and he got way more FA then our EFC would have suggested. I believe he got what he did because he is a URM at that school and they wanted him badly enough to throw lots of money at him. </p>
<p>In both my son’s case and my stepson’s case all the money is coming from the respective schools, no federal $$$ (although my son was also offered work study.)</p>
<p>This is why I always recommend to put down on the apps that they need FA regardless of what one’s income/assets are.</p>