<p>So…what IS really your SAT score? I can see how you would not know,your oarents’ mortgage amount but you surely KNOW your SAT score. Is it 2070 or 1800.</p>
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<p>Huh? Did I miss something? Where did that come from?</p>
<p>Haradonia -</p>
<p>Trust me. Come January, a whole bunch of those kids who have graduated with you will be back at NOVA. Some because they flunked out at College A. Others because they hated College A. Others because their parents realized they can’t afford College A. Others for umpteen other reasons. </p>
<p>If you sit down with your own guidance counselor, and look at the data about where graduates of your high school actually enroll each September (not where they initially apply, or even where they say that they are going to attend just before they graduate from high school), I also bet that you will find that many students each year choose NOVA. That’s the way it is at Happykid’s “Newsweek Top 100” high school in Bethesda. Each year more students choose MC than any other place. Most years more head there than to all of the other public colleges and Us in MD combined. Why? Because it is cheap, close, and very, very good. Much as NOVA is for you.</p>
<p>Most adults who don’t have cars do maintain valid driver’s licenses to use as a form of ID and so that they can occasionally rent a car. That your parents don’t is unusual. But they certainly must have their reasons. You do not want to be getting a license without a certain amount of driving practice. If your parents don’t object to you learning to drive, get your permit as soon as you can, and take driving lessons at one of the local driving schools (I bet NOVA has classes for that too). When you are more confident, maybe you can get one of your friend’s parents to supervise some of your driving time. If not, pay for the extra lessons with a professional driving teacher. This is not something you want to do entirely on your own. It is too easy to get hurt or hurt someone else because you don’t know what you are doing. Not to mention that driving here is a nightmare. Happykid was glad to take the bus!</p>
<p>Do a gap year in a foreign country and reevaluate.</p>
<p>but out of the 500 students at my highschool, most have private cars, and I would say all of them besides me have parents who have cars. And most of their parents wouldn’t allow them to go to NOVA or GMU.</p>
<p>Unless you go to some unusual public that has all very affluent kids, I highly doubt this is true. You may have a social circle where this is true, but it’s not likely true for the entire 500 member senior class.</p>
<p>My own kids went to a private school where nearly everyone’s parents had a very good income (otherwise they’d be going to public, no scholarships at this school). Everyone didn’t have a car, and some didn’t “go away” to college. My older son didn’t get a car til he graduated (his grad gift). My younger son did get a car at 16, but he agreed to pay half and he did. Some classmated ended up commuting to the local state univ and a couple went to a CC for the first two years.</p>
<p>Anyway, my point is that from your young view, you’re seeing what “your crowd” of kids is doing. That’s not what the whole school is doing. </p>
<p>And right now, you’re hearing “lunch table babble”. My kids heard it too. Many kids “talking big” about where they’d be going to college or where their parents expect them to go. Then after acceptances/rejections and FA pkgs come in, many find that their acceptances aren’t affordable. </p>
<p>I remember a couple of girls who only applied to tippy top schools (w/o the needed stats!). But for the months leading up to Spring, they “held court” during lunch putting down all the other students’ choices who applied to more reasonable choices. In the end they were rejected at their top schools. They had to scramble and one ended up at the local public and the other found space at another state school. </p>
<p>You need to just find what will work for you based on your stats and ability to pay.</p>
<p>your parents paid $6000/ month mortgage</p>
<p>lol…I doubt it. That’s $72k per year…on a $140k income. Very doubtful. The more recent info of a mortgage in the $3k range sounds more like it.</p>
<p>Anyway…this thread is sounding a lot like a young person who knows bits of info and is guessing/assuming the rest. Facts are needed to come to a real solution.</p>
<p>Do you have a CC that you can commute to? Paying for R&B for a CC is often a waste of money. </p>
<p>You are a year young for your class. Did you skip a grade or did you start school in a state like Calif that lets 4 year olds start K if they turn 5 by Dec. </p>
<p>If you can’t find a school that will give you enough merit, then you may need to find a school that will be affordable and is commutable by the transportation that your dad takes. </p>
<p>BTW…I’m not sure that getting a car/insurance is best at this point. Your parents don’t have insurance, so you’re not just an addition on their policy. You’d have your own policy and that would be very pricey.</p>
<p>Actually, only 1 percent of my class of 500 are economically disadvantaged, and my the majority of the homes are around 1 million according to my zip-code, and the neigboring zip-code which also is part of my school.</p>
<p>Just because there are many million dollar homes in your zip code does not mean that all those families can afford to spend $60k per year on college. As my dad used to say, “you can’t spend a dollar twice.” Many people have a very high % of their income dedicated to their mortgage/prop taxes, so they don’t have a lot of money leftover to pay for college. </p>
<p>And a student doesn’t have to be “economically disadvantated” in order to now afford a pricey school.</p>
<p>Looks like your parents have high income with spending habits that consume all of it, perhaps due to living in an area where most people have even higher income and spending to match.</p>
<p>GMU’s tuition and fees are about $10,000, with books probably another $1,000. Even if your parents continue to subsidize your food, utilities, etc. costs for living at home, and cover your transportation costs as a commuter student, it could be hard to afford GMU’s tuition, fees, and books of $11,000 on just direct loans and a reasonable expectation of work earnings. Starting at NVCC would be more like $6,000 per year, but then you have to transfer to a university to complete your bachelor’s degree, resulting in the same cost problem two years from now.</p>
<p>Would you be eligible for any of the full rides listed in these threads?
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/1348012-automatic-full-tuition-full-ride-scholarships-20.html#post16451378[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/1348012-automatic-full-tuition-full-ride-scholarships-20.html#post16451378</a>
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/1461983-competitive-full-tuition-full-ride-scholarships-4.html#post16224918[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/1461983-competitive-full-tuition-full-ride-scholarships-4.html#post16224918</a></p>
<p>Typo…should have written:</p>
<p>“And a student doesn’t have to be “economically disadvantated” in order to NOT afford a pricey school.”</p>
<p>There may be some kids in those pricey homes who will later find out that their parents were expecting aid to help pay for college…and the aid wasn’t awarded.</p>
<p>There is an old saying. “Don’t count other people’s money.” </p>
<p>It doesn’t matter at all what others in your school, town, neighborhood, or family are doing. It only matters what YOU can do. Look at your own resources. Find out what YOUR family financial criteria are for colleges. Forget about the millionaire houses around you. Forget about students having cars. Forget about where everyone else is going to college.</p>
<p>Concentrate on your OWN college list.</p>
<p>Thumper is right. </p>
<p>You need a strategy that will work for you. If you find “lunch table talk” too upsetting, then you don’t need to share what you’re doing. I know a girl who didn’t tell anyone where she was going to college until after graduation. She just didn’t want comments/criticisms/etc. </p>
<p>It doesn’t matter why your parents can’t/won’t pay, that’s their choice. </p>
<p>What is your Math + CR SAT. From that, we can help direct you.</p>
<p>Haradonia -</p>
<p>It looks to me like your parents deliberately choose to live in your neighborhood so that their children could attend schools that they believed would be better than the ones in other neighborhoods. If this is true, there are a whole bunch of other families that also made that choice, which means that plenty of students at your school will face the same kind of budget restrictions as you are facing. If your guidance counselors are on the ball (and I won’t deny that they might not be), they will have a whole list of places that students like you can get into and will be able to afford. Not the list you might think you want to be given to look at right now, but one that would be workable for you and your family.</p>
<p>Pay another visit to your guidance office. Tell your counselor about your financial limits. Get some help with this.</p>
<p>At our high school, the GCs are not permitted to discuss finances…not at all. That is not their area of expertise, and it is not something they can advise about.</p>
<p>That being said…,there are net price calculators on every college website that students can access for estimates of potential aid…</p>
<p>^^^</p>
<p>I agree. GCs are rarely going to be a good source for info when EFC is an issue. </p>
<p>With the basic info of:</p>
<p>GPA
SAT breakdown
major/career goal</p>
<p>We could make some suggestions.</p>
<p>Ask your parents if they can pay ANYTHING towards college…even a couple thousand.</p>
<p>You mention what your dad earns. How much does your mom earn?</p>
<p>I think the mom works part time. OP…what is her income because that WILL be added to your dad’s when the colleges compute need based aid.</p>
<p>Look at the guaranteed merit aid stickie. See if you qualify for any of those.</p>
<p>Though counselors won’t discuss finances, they can certainly share info on those schools that have been “good” to graduates from that high school. Nice to know that Local Private U tends to give some high ticket awards to students. A lot of those are not guarnteed awards.</p>
<p>Even if you can’t get a financial aid discussion going with your GC, they probably have stats on what schools kids from your high school end up at. That would give you insight into what people are able to afford. Just from our experience our GC’s knew absolutely nothing about why people did or didn’t choose various schools, nor did they have any access to the FA offers. But when we looked at where people were going the financial bias was clear.</p>
<p>If you have access to Naviance, or a similar system that tracks where graduates get admitted to and matriculate, that can help you suss out this information, as well.</p>
<p>Although, our high school did collect information on what awards students were given. I have no idea what they did with it though - they certainly didn’t share it!</p>
<p>Yes I do know how much expected family contribution I would get according to colleges. For American and GW, i would get twenty thousand possibly for fin aid. But its about 60 thousand dollars. I am hoping on some merit possibly or staying home, but I am not really looking at going to either of these schools, even though they fit my stats and are perfect for my major and minors. </p>
<p>For Vtech and JMU, I would most likely get little to no fin aid. But they also fit my stats, and most likely will get in.
For all of the colleges incl. GMU, I adequately fit into the graphs my career counselor and county gives me for my high school(naviance). I expect I would most likely get into all schools except maybe GW or VTech possibly. </p>
<p>I already talked to my parents, and they have a very tight budget and honestly are not reckless spenders. My mom just started part time work a year ago, and my dad makes 140 k. Most (98%) of his money goes to taxes, insurance-healthcare etc, mortgage and necessary expenses. Even though my dad makes a good amount, it is not a lot of money living in this area. We dont live a completely lavish life… we shop from peapod- giant online( since we dont have a car), rarely take vacations, and basically walk, metro or taxi everywhere. </p>
<p>Not to focus on first world problems, but my parents cant even afford an iPhone (which literally every highschooler has), and only have a PC computer. I just got my first phone a year ago.
We did go on vacations alot before, and had a good amount of debt, but we paid all of it off a couple years ago.</p>