<p>Like onemom is suggesting with her list above, I would also consider trying to find schools slightly below your original standards that are more likely to give you a "free ride". For example, if you live in California, the UCs tuition is free, and the fees are reasonable ($6-7,000), but the housing will kill your parents' finances ($10,000 to 13,000).</p>
<p>Applying to a UC that might give you enough money to cover these costs through a scholarship or need-based aid is a better option. Rather than applying to only UC Berkeley, UCLA, or UCSD, also consider schools like UCSB, UCD, UCSC or even Cal Poly SLO, where you are likely to get enough scholarships to make it easy financially. </p>
<p>Looking back through the threads, there are lots of people who applied to Ivys, but who were offered "full rides" at slightly lesser "esteem" schools, like American University or Penn State or even USC that are excellent schools in their own right. And without these offers--many of them would not be going to college next year (after they realized just how much it costs to go to a Ivy league or equivalent school)</p>
<p>P.S. The only exception with the Ivys would be those that are now offering to pay all the costs for those families making $50,000 or less--which I think applies to Harvard, Penn, and the "west coast Ivy", Stanford.</p>
<p>Oh, and you should also consider colleges close by (if there are any good ones close by), which would allow you to live at home and save on the room and board costs.</p>
<p>Wellesley sounds great for you (which is where I will be going in the fall); also, they give very generous scholarships (I got exactly the amount I applied for).</p>
<p><em>sobs</em> Thanks for answering you wonderful people. Yes, I am looking into LACs... a quick and dumb question though, does a 'full-ride' FA include room/board? I probably asked someone this before... but I forgot. </p>
<p>And wellesley is definitely one of my top choices. That, and JH.</p>
<p>Sounds pretty good, except for that #13 stone cold sober ranking--but then that's a personal preference, I guess. </p>
<p>I would probably prefer Wellesley over JHU--John Hopkins is a good school, and Baltimore is a nice city (lived in the suburbs of Baltimore for 4 years), but the college is in a terrible part of town. Wellesley has got to be better from that point of view.</p>
<p>Oh, and that "full-ride" depends on the school--sometimes it just means full-tuition, but usually it means tuition and room and board.</p>
<p>You people rock!
And I thought my thread was dead.
Wellesley sounds pretty awesome as of right now. I do want to go to a school with a really strong med program. Dead set on becoming an pediatric oncologist. That is, unless something strange happens.</p>
<p>Hi, have you gotten any scholarships that won't be coming from a school? (i.e. National Merit, Toyota, etc.). The thing that many schools will do is require you to borrow some amount of money (that is, unless you're applying to Stanford or Harvard) after financial aid. This comes in student loans and/or work-study among some other things. </p>
<p>If you've gotten some outside scholarships, let the school know because they won't deduct it from your financial aid but will make it so you have less debt.</p>
<p>As for the dirt poor process:
Most colleges right now don't look at financial aid until after they've reviewed the rest of your application. Chances are, the people that are going to make a decision on your application won't put too much stress on your financial situation unless you bring it up.</p>
<p>This usually can be done in the essay. Essays now are quite open-ended and you're free to discuss any particular hardship that has affected you. The key thing is, you must BRING IT UP yourself. They won't pay much attention to financial aid until after they're finished deciding whether to accept you or not so if you want to let the admissions board know about your situation, you must be the first the let them know.</p>
<p>In terms of the low income thing, karot nailed it.</p>
<p>As far as I know, all these schools have need-blind admissions. They will not consider your financial status in admissions. Frankly, all they will see is that you are asian, and that will not help you. If anything, they will assume you are "another" one of those rich asian kids who's parents paid your tuition to an elite private school, unless you say otherwise.</p>
<p>IMO you should talk about this stuff in your essay, such as difficulties transitioning from your middle school to an elite private school. This will raise your stock A LOT. All top-tier schools now are looking for socioeconomic diversity, they don't want to have that stuck-up elitist image. Of course, don't write about something that isn't you, thats the worst thing to do.</p>
<p>This is coming from a "ghetto" no-good asian kid whole was barely in the top 10% of his class at an average competitive high school (avg sat 1000), 3.7 weighted GPA, didn't crack 1300 on his SAT, mangaged to get into UVA, waitlisted by Cornell.</p>
<p>
[quote]
If anything, they will assume you are "another" one of those rich asian kids who's parents paid your tuition to an elite private school, unless you say otherwise.</p>
<p>IMO you should talk about this stuff in your essay, such as difficulties transitioning from your middle school to an elite private school.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I agree with that. Write and imply you can add to the socioeconomic diversity.
You'll probably get into Emory and Wellesley, but not if you totally blow off the essays and applications. It really does show through if you don't really want to go to a college, and I've seen some of my more qualified friends get shockingly waitlisted, probably because of that reason.</p>
<p>Johns Hopkins is definitely more geared to hard stats (SAT, GPA). Same with Northewestern.</p>