<p>Tres Elefantes - have you looked at the University of Maryland? It is a larger school than what you stated in your preferences, but I believe it may be worth checking out. My daughter was accepted at Yale, but she too was unwilling to be saddled with $200K in debt upon graduation. She decided on Maryland primarily because of the generous merit aid - she was awarded a Bannekker-Key scholarship, which paid for everything, including books. She was admitted into University Honors, which allows you to register for Honors sections of specific classes, and also to choose from other unique honors classes; she was also in the Gemstone program, a four year, multidisciplinary team project that gave her the opportunity to work with other students in other disciplines. My daughter’s stats coming out of high school were almost a carbon copy of yours; and she was able to start college with about 60 credits, which gave her the opportunity to double major and take a variety of interesting courses. I believe you would be a top candidate for a B-K scholarship. Many people used to downplay the University of Maryland, because of its past image. The past few presidents of the University have made tremendous strides in improving the academics and the campus is beautiful. The current president spent most of his career at Berkeley, and that is the model he is aiming for. I graduated from Berkeley, and from my review of the materials my daughter (and son, who also attends UMD) showed me, I can honestly say that the curriculum is rigorous. My daughter graduated in 2008 with a double major - accounting and government & politics. She is working for one of the Big 4 accounting firms and is planning on attending law school next fall. She did very well as an undergraduate, and has already been accepted at Duke and Georgetown, which goes to show you that if you apply yourself at a state university, you can still get into great programs for graduate/professional schools. I wouldn’t rule out state universities, and it doesn’t look like you are. Michigan and Iowa are also very good schools. I am just tossing University of Maryland in for your consideration. Their priority application deadline is December 1. This will give you priority consideration for merit scholarships. Good luck wherever you end up, and congratulations on your record so far - keep it up!!</p>
<p>72Bear</p>