Wright criticizes such thinking on the part of students, however, calling financial aid offers the wrong reason to choose a college.

Over the last year and a half, Harvard and virtually all its peers embarked on major financial aid initiatives, raising levels of aid.

Miller says the end of overlap was not the sole reason for the wave of changes. Endowment growth and a national belief that college costs excessively burdened the middle class helped push the overhauls.

Top administrators, however, did acknowledge that competitive pressures helped bring the changes at the University, and the overlap arrangement would have helped curb that competitive pressure.

"There's no question the institutional changes made by Yale Stanford, Princeton and MIT made a shift in the landscape," said President Neil L. Rudenstine.

But according to Lewis, Harvard can avoid bidding wars to a large extent because of its aggressive and strategic use of financial aid.

"We have two tools," she says, referring to need-blind admissions and need-based aid.

In meeting all demonstrated need, the University hopes it can undercut competitive offers at other schools.

"We've been pleased with the success we've had," she says.

Harvard does not seem to have suffered since the end of overlap. Its yield percentage, the percent of students who ultimately decide to accept admissions offers, remains far and away the highest in the country.

Even from the University's point of view, the overlap group was not entirely helpful. Miller says that for admissions and financial aid officers at Harvard, the process was very time-consuming, though ultimately helpful.

He denies, however, that the overlap group inhibited Harvard's ability to act independently, without the approval of the other overlap members.

"We always did what we wanted to anyway," Miller says.

But, in fact, the overlap schools are still far from independent.

Most members of the overlap group, including Harvard, are also members of the Consortium for Financing Higher Education (COFHE), a Cambridge-based research organization of 31 colleges and universities.