Two schools with a similar sticker price can hand you wildly different aid offers, and the gap often has less to do with how much a family can afford and more to do with how badly each school needs you to enroll.
Enrollment math drives generosity
Less selective schools competing harder for every admitted student often offer larger merit awards simply to improve their odds you'll say yes. Highly selective schools, relying on overwhelming demand, tend to offer less merit aid and lean almost entirely on need-based calculations instead.
Merit aid as leverage
Appealing an aid offer by citing a competing offer sometimes works, especially at less selective private schools actively trying to win you over. It rarely moves the needle at the most selective institutions, where the applicant pool doesn't need convincing.
"A generous offer isn't always generosity — sometimes it's just a school telling you how badly it needs you to say yes."
What this means for your list
Applying to a range of schools — including a couple where you're clearly a strong applicant relative to their typical admit — meaningfully increases your odds of landing at least one genuinely affordable offer to compare against the rest.
When the offers arrive, compare them using net price rather than the headline scholarship number. A smaller award at a cheaper school can easily beat a bigger-sounding one at an expensive one.
