<p>Berkeley is not a safety school for the OP, who is out of state and looking for financial and merit aid.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t expect UIUC to give much merit for OOS. Illinois can’t even give decent aid of any kind to IS.</p>
<p>I suggest The University of Iowa though I would not consider it a safety school, many students have Iowa has their top choice. Like many schools, I would expect that you would be admitted at Iowa. Fantastic school and college town, I myself will be attending there this fall.</p>
<p>William & Mary is more of a match than a safety, but I heard they have good FA.</p>
<p>Iowa is a safety school for you.</p>
<p>^^ Unlike UVa, I don’t believe that W&M meets full need for OOS students. (I could be wrong, though)</p>
<p>Also—OP says he needs money. OP: Do you know your family’s EFC? Can your parents afford it? How much are they willing to pay for you to go OOS?</p>
<p>If what your parents are willing to pay is LESS than your EFC (as is often the case), then you’ll need to look for big merit. Someone posted a link to a thread on automatic merit awards. Read it carefully, but be aware of this fact: The rules a college uses for merit awards can suddenly change from one year to the next. Doesn’t affect the students who are on merit at the U already, but it does change what might be given to incoming freshman. So follow up by reading web pages carefully once they reflect admissions info for the HS class of 2011.</p>
<p>Bama, Auburn, and Ole Miss all have merit that you’d qualify for. So they’re probably good candidates to consider as safeties.</p>
<p>Illinois took one of our not-so-bright kids OOS; I don’t know him, but all I know is that there was a rumor that he had got into Cornell and everyone was like WHAT. So you can probably pry some merit money from them because you are not “not-so-bright”. Also, really do look at Early Action; I look a /lot/ like you extracurricularly (replace “Quiz Bowl” with “Certamen”), SAT-wise (800-800-760), and class-rank-wise (maybe a bit lower; I do go to a top-10 public HS, though), and I got into Chicago early oh well there we go no safeties needed Yay! Only two more applications to send off! Get good recs, write good essays, you will get into someplace good (not necessarily Chicago, not necessarily top 20, but good), and the good places tend to be pretty generous. Some of your safeties may even have early action programs. I know people who did instate to the non-flagship, or to Georgia Tech. Depending on when the college gives you its financial aid offer after getting an early acceptance, though, you might still need to apply to some more generous safeties.</p>
<p>Still 'grats on the NLE. Not so many of you, either. :)</p>
<p>you have the sat to go IVY, but UT is your top safety school. YOu are probably better off going to UT if you get in.</p>
<p>RPI is a common safety school chosen by competitive applicants as yourself.</p>
<p>Metaphy6 - People on this forum are having such trouble answering your question, because in all honesty, there are only a handful of colleges in the country which are NOT safeties for you. So the issue isn’t safeties for admission, it’s safeties for affordability.</p>
<p>Given your SAT, I’d guess that if you took the PSAT, you may be a National Merit Finalist. If so, there are a number of free rides or near free rides out there. Alabama would be free tuition for you. And you’d probably be strong for top scholarships at schools for which the 75th percentile of the SAT is < 2100.</p>
<p>What was your PSAT score? If you’re a likely NMSF, there are big scholarships out there at some schools. My son went to his safety school as a NMF because of the big scholarship. Alabama gave him free tuition, free housing, a laptop, study abroad money, etc.</p>
<p>I’m not sure of your financial situation. It sounds like you want big merit and/or financial aid. </p>
<p>Well, you’d only get financial aid if your family is considered in need. Also, safety schools tend to be bad with financial aid, so you’d need to pick schools that give huge merit for your stats.</p>
<p>How much can your parents contribute each year? If not much, then you definitely need to choose some financial safety schools with assured big merit. </p>
<p>Also, if your family can’t/won’t pay its expected family contribution, then that’s another reason to apply to some financial safety schools with assured big merit.</p>
<p>What is your likely career?</p>
<p>“I am a boy in texas, and I know I will need some/ a lot of financial aid. But schools in texas are out of the question; I am desperate to leave this place.”</p>
<p>The key question piece of information is just exactly how much aid you will need. Sit your parents (or whoever it is who is helping you pay for your education) down and run the FAFSA EFC calculator at [College</a> Calculators - savings calculators - college costs, loans](<a href=“College Board - SAT, AP, College Search and Admission Tools”>Calculate Your Cost – BigFuture | College Board) Then find out whether they can meet that EFC or not. If they can meet it, how much higher than that can they go if the place you want gaps you for the aid. Talk about how much student debt they are willing for you to take on, and about just exactly how much money they expect you to make during your vacations and during the school year.</p>
<p>Then go read the threads on merit aid in the Financial Aid Forum, and take a look at these two older threads for strategies on finding merit aid:
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/148852-what-ive-learned-about-full-ride-scholarships.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/148852-what-ive-learned-about-full-ride-scholarships.html</a>
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/291483-update-what-i-learned-about-free-ride-scholarships.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/291483-update-what-i-learned-about-free-ride-scholarships.html</a></p>
<p>One last thing: try to find a way to like at least one of your home-state public institutions. Think of it as your “everything that could possibly go wrong did” option. Just like everyone else here, you need one of those on your list because all too often “everything that could possibly go wrong” actually does.</p>
<p>Keilexandra had an excellent list of schools offering scholarships to NMFs. If that applies to you, it’s well worth a look.</p>
<p>[NMF</a> Scholarships: An Updated Compilation](<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1064662075-post289.html]NMF”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1064662075-post289.html)</p>
<p>You might also want to check over the list of colleges offering the greatest percentages of merit aid. Several very good colleges (Denison, Rhodes, Wooster, Tulane, etc.) make the list.</p>
<p>[Best</a> Colleges: Most students receiving merit aid](<a href=“http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/most-merit-aid]Best”>http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/most-merit-aid)</p>
<p>I would also advise going to the [Common</a> Data Sets](<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/76444-links-common-data-sets-posted-colleges.html]Common”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/76444-links-common-data-sets-posted-colleges.html) thread and looking at section H2A of the CDS. It tells you how many students receive merit aid and how large those packages are.</p>
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<p>Oops, forgot OP was OOS.</p>