If you need merit scholarships to afford the college, then the “chance” or “reach” / “match” / “likely” / “safety” assessment must be made on the scholarship, not admission.
I.e. even if admission to the college is “likely” or “safety”, if the necessary-for-affordability scholarship is a highly competitive “reach”, the college is a “reach” based on the scholarship.
i have run all of the COA on the schools on my list. the EFC varies from $17-35k/yr depending on the school.
those who offer merit based aid, such as bryn mawr, already provided a very low EFC compared to others on my list, so they are frankly the least of my concern.
but thank you for that, i will look into merit-based aid at schools a lot more!! the merit based aid is excluded from NPCs and so far my EFC at these schools has been quite low compared to columbia/barnard/etc.
@cupidsushi For a safety with excellent merit and academics, you should investigate College of Wooster in Ohio.
yes i do. i have run the COA for all the schools on my list and compared the COA to the EFC for each school. while some are rather high compared to others, my parents have said the costs we are seeing are not an issue.
i have three safeties where the COA is <$20k/yr.
Are they in the NE? I’m asking because my seniors want to stay within 3 hours of home and can only afford OOS with merit.