That's exactly right. The admissions process at the NESCACs is different at each school. Yes, they must follow certain guidelines set forth by the NESCAC but the difference is in how willing the admissions office is to help. Each school has different guidelines...it's based on the student body as a whole. So Williams, Amherst, Middlebury, Bowdoin all have higher guidelines to meet than Conn. College, Trinity, Hamilton, etc. Some of these schools are SAT optional which is a huge advantage (Bowdoin, Conn). At Trinity, I've heard that they do not have to use one of their "tips" on a player, if that player is a full-pay student. So if Trinity is given one spot for a hockey player who needs a lot of support with admissions, they can bring in 4 players that are all at that academic level, as long as three of them are full pay. I'm not 100% sure on this but have heard it from multiple sources so believe it to be accurate.
The other difference is how much support you have from the admission directors and athletic directors. If you do have it, you're able to get some players in that are borderline. If you look at the list of players that was presented earlier in this thread...Brewer, Cole, Hawkrigg, Murden, etc., they are mostly players that I know for a fact were told "No" by the Middlebury admissions. There are also a handful of players on the Williams team this year, that were told no. Some schools have admissions directors and athletics directors that will support some players that are lower than the guidelines state they should, and some don't.
Learning about this process over the past 10 years really has helped shed some light on the trends in the NESCAC. It is not surprising that Trinity is doing what they are doing. They have a young coach who seems to be a good recruiter, an admissions that supports them, and a school policy that allows them to bring in multiple low (relative to the NESCAC) academic players every year. Bowdoin is an SAT optional school...they can find players that have good grades, but not great SAT scores, and be able to get them in. Amherst has done a great job. I believe that they have done some great recruiting and that Jack Arena must be a good coach. Williams has a great team on paper and their admissions has been willing to help them. Will Kangas ever be able to get the team to come together and actually win? Conn College recently went SAT optional and are starting to have some success. Hamilton is a lower tier NESCAC school that can accept players that are academically lower than other NESCACs. They also seems to be taking advantage of their location to Ontario. I wouldn't be surprised to see them in the top-half of the NESCAC more consistently. Middlebury has a great history and tradition but does not have the support of the administration. Look at their history across the entire athletic department...dozens of National Championships and they never went more than 1 year between National Championships from 1995-2010. They have now gone 5 years without one. Sad time to be a Panther fan.
): Percentage of students determined to have financial need: Amhurst College 62%; Williams College 53%; Bowdoin College 46 %; Hamilton College 45%; Middlebury College, 42% Colgate University 36% (!). If you consider those values to be x then 100-x = %Daddy wrote a check for full tuition and room & board.