college cost is like the airlines filling seats, some pay low, others pay high.
Some of them are also really sophisticated in their modelling.
Emory offers smaller discounts to students who have made repeated contacts expressing interest in the school and bigger discounts to those who have not expresssed such strong interest. Why? They want to price the product to exactly the level it will take to put that customer in a seat. A strongly interested Emory customer will pay more. A less strongly interested customer needs a bigger inducement.