I’m not making excuses for EW, but I think the context of the sources matters a lot.
The EW doc is basically a prospectus for their next head of school. So I can see why they’d want to highlight the increase in full pay students and decrease in FA students. And note that the % of FA students is still quite high/generous in comparison to other schools. Andover, considered to be among the MOST generous of schools with regard to FA, cites a 47% stat. So EW’s 46% puts it in good company.
The Groton doc is a public-facing webpage. If we were to have visibility into their head search materials, I’m confident we’d find a similar spin.