Late last summer, Cornell announced a financial aid program whereby it would match any competing offer from the other Ivies, Duke, Stanford, and MIT. As MetaEzra commented at the time, it was essentially a ploy to land more hotly contested recruited athletes. Eighteen months later, we now know that roughly 1 in every 100 students in the Class of 2015 took advantage of the financial aid match program. As reported in a meeting of the University faculty, 12 non-athletes, and slightly more than 30 recruited athletes are benefiting from this quasi-merit based financial aid scheme. And anecdotal reports from various varsity coaches indicate that the money has been integral to cementing strong recruiting classes. Of course, that doesn't mean that only 40 some-odd Cornell students chose Cornell over other Ivies. There are certainly some students that did not receive financial aid that were accepted at those schools as well. And then there are those students who, for whatever reason, may not have taken advantage of the program. Although perhaps their candidacy to Cornell should be reconsidered based on that fact.
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