Vikram Jagadish, a senior at North Senior Miami High School, has long dreamed of going to Georgetown University. A political junkie, he started his own lobbying group and spent many spring breaks schmoozing with legislators in Washington. "It really tied to my interests," he says.

Georgetown accepted Mr. Jagadish, but this fall he'll be enrolling instead at the University of Miami, low on his list of favorites. The reason: It will cost him only $5,500 a year. Georgetown offered just $250 a year in scholarship money -- not much help with a $38,000 price tag.

As high-school seniors finalize their choices, it's already clear that more families than usual are choosing colleges with their wallets in mind. Instead of gravitating toward the most prestigious school on their list, many are opting for the one that charges the lowest tuition or offers the most-generous aid package.

The upshot is that a number of schools, particularly private colleges just below the top tier, are having to scramble to fill their freshman classes. Last year, for example, Bucknell University didn't accept a single student from its wait list -- it didn't have to. This year, the Lewisburg, Pa., college is dipping into the wait list to fill 30 spots, or 3% of the freshman class. It's a similar story at schools from George Washington in Washington, D.C., to Emory University in Atlanta.

Part of the reason, of course, is that the economy is taking a toll on family finances even amid a relentless flow of inflation-beating tuition increases. At the same time, states and some private colleges are cobbling together increasingly generous aid packages to woo more top students.

The deadline for high-school seniors to mail in their final decisions was May 1, and colleges are still sorting through the responses. But interviews with college-admissions officers, high-school counselors and students make clear that money concerns are influencing applicants' decisions in dramatic ways this year.

Jane Webber Runte, a college counselor in New Jersey, has seen this with her own students. One this year opted for the University of Virginia instead of Harvard. Another picked the University of Rochester, despite getting into Ivy League Cornell. A third will be going to University of California at Berkeley, even though the student really wanted to go to the University of Chicago. What tipped the scale in each case was thousands of dollars in financial aid or cheaper tuition.

The Applicant Gap

All of this highlights the widening gap among colleges when it comes to landing the best students. In general, colleges at the very top of the heap are getting the students they want; enough of those families are still willing to ravage their retirement savings to pay for a degree at MIT or Harvard. Because these schools get more -- and more-competitive -- applications every year, they can be increasingly selective.

Meanwhile, schools down the food chain are forced to compete for the leftovers. That's prompting them to roll out richer financial-aid packages -- a strategy that is paying high dividends this year with more families out of work and saddled with debt from big-ticket items they bought before the bubble burst.

The battle for top students has important consequences for schools. Yield rates -- the percentage of accepted students who actually enroll -- are a factor in the closely watched college-ranking guides. If students opt to reject an offer because of money, a school can suffer in the rankings.

Eighteen-year-old William Rohde applied to seven schools in the Southeast. After a round of visits, Davidson College, in Davidson, N.C., emerged as his top choice. But it offered him significantly less aid than some of the other schools. That was a huge blow to his family -- William's father's employer went out of business in 2001, and the Rohdes had to tap their savings to start up a new company.

Emory University, on the other hand, offered Mr. Rohde $18,400 in aid a year -- on top of state tuition-assistance programs he qualifies for. As a result, his tuition there will be $5,000.

Colleges and guidance counselors say that in the current economy many parents are simply less willing to do whatever it takes financially to make sure their child gets their dream school. That represents a return to the way it was for many families before the '90s boom created so much new wealth that people were suddenly willing to shell out more for tuition.

These days, "it's not 'Princeton or die,' it's not 'we'll sell the house and mortgage everything,'" says Ms. Runte, the New Jersey college counselor. "That's a big change."

Union College thought it had already factored such concerns into its admissions decisions. Figuring that more families might balk this year at its $36,000 cost of attendance, the school accepted about 50 extra students outright. But that still didn't provide enough of a cushion. Dan Lundquist, vice president for admissions and financial aid at the Schenectady, N.Y., college recently e-mailed two dozen students on the wait list to offer them spots.

George Washington University is taking 25 more students from its wait list than it did last year, in part because "we're seeing students going to their state institutions more than last year," says Kathryn Napper, director of admissions.

At the University of New Hampshire, Durham, acting director of admissions Gary Cilley says a new $1,000-a-year scholarship may be driving more in-state students to enroll. So far this year, 46.6% of in-state students accepted an offer of admission, up from 44.3% a year ago.

Even Harvard College is having to loosen its purse strings a bit, says Sally Donahue, director of financial aid there. While Harvard expects close to its usual rate of 80% of admitted applicants to attend, its average need-based scholarship has grown 9% this year to $22,750.

With applicants shopping aggressively for price breaks and colleges doing more to lure top students, last-minute jockeying on both sides may become increasingly common. That could make the wait list less of the dead end that it has been for so many students over the years.

Working the Wait List

Applicants who land on the wait list shouldn't call or e-mail the school any more than once a week, and parents shouldn't call at all, college counselors say. A campus visit can help, but don't appear desperate. Getting a favorite teacher to dash off a fresh letter of recommendation may also score some points. But students who are on more than one wait list need to be careful: Playing schools off against each other can backfire. "They do talk to one another," says Ms. Runte.