Yes, agreed that the OP ECs are impressive. I just don’t share your view that her chances for admission/merit are “great” at USC or any school that has a 9% acceptance rate and 2% merit rate. Also, the most represented states for the Class of 2027 at USC are California, NY, Texas and Illinois so I don’t think OP being from Illinois will help her chances either.
But we can agree to disagree as I am far from an expert on USC admissions. I’m just a mom who spent many hours on USC’s threads last year and where my daughter will be attending.
I hope OP adds more targets to her list and applies to whatever reaches make the most sense both academically and financially.
This - financially. Back to parents will pay half. UIUC is different in cost to USC. Are they truly paying half or up to a certain amount? Half of SC costs more than all of UIUC.
Find out what they are paying. Then find schools to fit in that amount.
You can’t afford to pay half of anything - and if you’re thinking loans, a bad idea, all YOU can get is $5500 in year one.
Do they really mean half of tuition or do they mean half of the total cost of attendance (COA)?
In addition to tuition, schools have a variety of fees. Room and board are also often close to $20,000/year. Tuition at a private university might be $60,000, but total COA could be $80,000. If they are willing to pay half of tuition only, that would leave you with $50,000/year to cover by yourself. Even my state’s public universities have a pretty reasonable tuition of ~$17,000 but then R&B is another $17,000. “Half tuition” would leave you with over $25,000/year to cover on your own, which is probably unwise and maybe impossible.
I don’t think we should get too caught up in the “half-tuition” aspect of this student. The parents make enough money to pay full price and they’ve indicated they will pay full price for a college they deem worthy.
Basically this is a case where the choice will come down to a relatively low-cost in-state public flagship, or an expensive T30 university. Either way, it sounds like the parents can and will cover all COA. The parents in this case do not want to agree to a non-prestigious expensive college, and that’s what their “half cost” statement really means.
Based on the following, I’m not entirely sure that’s the case.
The family is probably willing to “stretch” further for a more prestigious school than a non-prestigious school, but they may be of the generation when “prestigious” schools still gave merit aid or they read news articles about someone getting a “full ride” to a Top X school, not realizing that the “full ride” was need-based, not merit-based. Depending on how far north of $200k the family’s income is, paying approximately $1.6 million for college ($400k/kid for 4 kids to a Top X school) could very well be out of the willing/able range for the family.
Alternatively, the parents know what the financial situation is like at college nowadays but don’t feel like telling their kid not to go for it. But when OP gets in but can’t fund the other half of the costs, the parents say, well, then you can’t go, when it was never a possibility anyway. I suspect it’s the former situation more than the latter, though.
As the parents have 4 kids to put through college, I personally suspect that the parents are going to say that they’ll pay the equivalent of UIUC’s cost of attendance and if OP wants to go anywhere else, merit aid, loans, and work will be required. But I am not OP’s parents, so that’s just a guess on my part.