<p>The time to figure it out is before you enter the admission process. You’re a kid with ok grades and decent test scores and no money. If you’re goal is one of the top 10-20 schools, you’re setting yourself up for failure. Your strategy has to be to find a place you like that you can be accepted to and can afford. Don’t be the kid we see every April, who has either no acceptances, because it was all reaches, or the kid who can’t afford to attend any of his acceptances.</p>
<p>For my daughter, who had better grades and test scores and lower income, the plan was to apply to meets full need with no loans schools and schools with big merit scholarships and nothing in between. She liked all the schools she applied to. She got into 1 of the meets need schools and all her big merit schools. By the fall of senior year, she knew she was going to college and she had choices. </p>
<p>I would suggest the same type of strategy to keep you away from total disappointment next April. Work with Questbridge, start looking for outside scholarships, search the Financial aid links for automatic scholarship schools. Find a few that you can like and apply. Apply to an Ivy or two, but don’t count on being admitted. Remember, that applying is expensive. Application fee waivers from College Board are only for 4 schools. You can have your counselor ask each individual school for a waiver, but that is not guaranteed. </p>
<p>Line up teacher recs before you leave school this year. Use this summer to really research other schools. Good luck.</p>