She needs to consider merit schools if she needs financial aid.
Being a female in engineering is not that uncommon anymore and it really isn’t considered a hook.
Berkeley has no EA/ED.
Actually I think she might get into a few lower reach school. I’ve known people whose kids got into MIT with fewer accomplishment in ECs. It’s even easier with Caltech where admission rate female is like 20%. Come back and let us know which schools she eventually gets in.
Forgot to add, our DS won Nat’l merit.
He was offered ½ tuition at USC, that was $20k.
Total cost to attend was ~$62k, which left us with a balance of $42k.
We really could not swing that per year, since we also have a dd at a UC, at full fees.
DS didn’t really like USC, for his needs anyway, and told us not to “stress about it.”