Across a 45-acre campus on Palos Verdes land, Chadwick School stands as a living reflection of what’s possible when a deep commitment to life, learning, and humanity intersect. Since 1935, Chadwick has balanced academic rigor with a deep commitment to character and diversity. With over 50 neighbourhoods represented in their student body, Chadwick has earned its reputation as “a dipper full of humanity.” 

“One of the founding principles of Chadwick School was to provide children with an exceptional education regardless of race, religion or socio-economic status,” shared James Eberhart, Director of Financial Aid and Associate Director of Admission at Chadwick School. 

“Financial aid is part of our school’s DNA. It’s been a priority at our school for almost a hundred years now, and I think that’s quite unique.”

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Making Aid Go Further With More Accurate Awarding

“Clarity allows us to be more generous without spending more money. We're confident that we're not over awarding some families and therefore having to under-award others to close the gap.” 

“We trust the calculations because we can see exactly where all the numbers come from in the platform,” shared Eberhart. “The amount of control we have over the formula in Clarity means we’re better able to respond to the realities of the LA market and we’re able to award based on the lived experiences of our families more accurately than before,” he added. 

For Chadwick, more accurate awarding was not merely a matter of financial stewardship, it was also a way to strengthen their community and sustain programs that serve both their families and their faculty.

“In our first year with Clarity we were able to restart our tuition remission program for faculty families. The program had been defunct for 20 years and we were able to bring it back in part because of our confidence in the financial aid formula," Eberhart explained. "It’s a big win for our school to be able to maintain the level of generosity with all of our families while also having an impact on the benefits package that we can offer staff members. It’s had a positive impact on the talent we’re able to hire, as well as on school culture as a whole.”

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Freeing Up Time to Focus on Enrollment Growth

“We get about 340 financial aid applications a year. Based on the number of families I used to have to follow up with compared to now, I’m saving about 4 weeks worth of time. That’s an estimate, but the time, that’s real. The time I have now that I didn't have four years ago to devote to other parts of my job is real.”

“Before Clarity, I was probably spending over 90% of my time from October through February solely on financial aid. With Clarity, it's closer to 60% or 70%, so there’s at least 20% more of my time that I can devote to activities that drive our enrollment goals.”

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Making Financial Aid Accessible For More Families

With its long-standing commitment to financial aid, Chadwick prioritizes the ability for families to move through the process quickly and without stress.

“I’ve used many different systems at different schools through the years, and one thing that Clarity does particularly well is reduce the barriers to entry for families,” shared Eberhart.

“I used to spend time helping families understand why applying for financial aid was such a cumbersome process for them,” he continued. “From tracking down documents to asking them to re-scan because it didn’t take the first time, to eventually just having them send it to me so I could do it for them. It always felt like a big hassle.”

“We don’t have to think about those things anymore, and neither do our families.”

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Putting Families at the Center of the Application Experience 

One of the first things the Chadwick team did as they were exploring Clarity was compare the application process their families would go through with their current process. 

“In our old system that I had used for a decade, it took about an hour and 20 minutes for me to submit a relatively simple application,” Eberhart explained.

“Submitting an application in Clarity took me 18 minutes the first time,” he continued. “When we actually opened the application to families and sent out instructions about the switch to Clarity, within 11 minutes I had my first completed application.”

“I thought there was no way it could be done in 11 minutes, but as we’ve seen in the past few years, it really can be done that fast with no need for intervention from our team."

"Being able to offer the easiest application that a family has to fill out is certainly a win for our school.” 

“We had used our previous financial aid system for over a decade, and there was never any reason for us to think that things could be different or that there was a better solution out there. Then Clarity came along and changed everything.”

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