I think it is somewhere between ‘shoot for the moon’ and ‘don’t even try.’ Sure, try for the $50k school IF you have run the NPC, if you can see on the website that merit is awarded for your gpa/scores, if the school lists scholarships for which you are qualified. Don’t just apply to UMich or Williams because, well, you never know and you heard that Mary’s cousin’s boyfriend got in and got a lot of money.
At first glance my daughter’s school was well out of reach, but with a little research we learned about the merit money available, the state grant, her merit grant, another source of money, and it made it affordable to apply with a realistic hope that we could afford it. However, if the big merit money didn’t come through then we couldn’t afford it. We could see the money was there, we didn’t just hope it was there.
There was an article online this week and the FA director from Oregon was quoted. He said there are still way too many parents who let their kids apply to schools ‘hoping’ something will happen and the money will appear, especially OOS families. He said it doesn’t appear, and that either the student is crushed or that the family will borrow way too much and the student has to leave school because the family can’t borrow more.