<p>I think you should do a gap year and reapply as a frosh. </p>
<p>Most schools do NOT give great aid to transfers. Your chances of getting better aid is as a FRESHMAN, not a transfer.</p>
<p>Which school didn’t give you as much aid as you thought you’d get? Why didn’t you get as much aid?</p>
<p>edited to add:</p>
<p>*New Student/Family Orientation</p>
<p>I am going to be a freshman at UCLA in the fall and signed up for new student orientation several weeks ago. I also saw there was an option for my parents to also attend an orientation that lines up…*</p>
<p>UCLA costs about $32k. How much aid were you expecting? What did you get? What is your FAFSA EFC?</p>
<p>Currently, I am thinking about colleges such as:
Williams, Claremont McKenna, Pomona, Duke, Bowdoin, Amherst, Swarthmore, Washington University St. Louis, and maybe even some Ivies (it’s worth a try, right?).</p>
<p>Some of these don’t give any merit to students. Some are highly selective for merit for some frosh. I don’t know if any give merit to transfers.</p>
<p>I think you’re going about this wrong. How much will your parents pay? For that info, we can see how much merit you need. It sounds like you need HUGE merit to get costs down to below what you’d be paying at UCLA. Very doubtful you’d get the merit you need with your current list…especially since some don’t give any merit.</p>