<p>It is my contention that all students should have at least one, preferably more schools on their list that they know will accept them and that they can afford with no contingencies. Once you have that base covered you can go to town with your other choices. You have some good direct with your choices already. You have the stats so that you have a decent chance of getting accepted to a school that will meet full need. But you need to have some idea what these type of schools define as need. You might want to run some NPCs on some possibilities. If your family limit is $30K a year, and the numbers come out that your family should be contributing more, and the school offers need only money, you are not likely to meet your price goal at those schools. If the numbers consistently come out to a contribution of $30K expected from you by full need met schools then you can have some expectation that applying to such schools will result in a price that is affordable. Otherwise you need to look at schools where your stats are well within the percentage of merit aid given with large enough such awards to meet your pricing goals. </p>
<p>Also, if you want a lot of flexibilty in taking a variety of courses, bear in mind that some universities are comprised of internal “schools” and there are restrictions in taking courses from a school other than the one you are enrolled. You have to apply to another school within the infra structure to change to some majors. That has happened to some of my kids. So make sure you ask what the rules are in taking interdepartmental or inter school courses, so you don’t find that obstacle there. LACs don’t tend to have this issue, but a lot of the larger schools do. You can’t just take, say business courses unless you are in the business school or are a business major in some cases.</p>