<p>Hello,</p>
<p>I'm looking to go to college for cheap (less than 10k per year, including loans). I've lived solely with my dad in California without contact with my mom since April or so of this year. My dad's EFC is $500 (Federal Methodology), my mom isn't willing to contribute, and I'm desperately looking for good schools that will offer me a lot of need-based aid.</p>
<p>Determining which schools offer need-based aid to someone in my position is really difficult and confusing. I've tried going through the CSS Profile list ( <a href="https://profileonline.collegeboard.org/prf/PXRemotePartInstitutionServlet/PXRemotePartInstitutionServlet.srv">https://profileonline.collegeboard.org/prf/PXRemotePartInstitutionServlet/PXRemotePartInstitutionServlet.srv</a> ), however some of the "Noncustodial Profile: No" schools still require noncustodial information to determine need-based aid award (e.g., UVa) and many of the "Noncustodial Profile: Yes" schools will consider waiving your noncustodial parent's contribution for your EFC.</p>
<p>I live in California and have already applied to some UC's and a CSU, however I'd need additional private scholarships in order to fund either of those options. I'm really counting on schools such as Vanderbilt, Franklin W. Olin, and U. of Santa Clara that offer lots of institutional/need-based aid and do not consider N.C. parent contribution, or a Claremont school/UVa/UChicago/Colorado College/Washing Univ. in St. Louis with a N.C. form waiver that gets approved (how likely is this? anyone have any experience with this?).</p>
<p>Before I began making my college list this Thanksgiving, I knew nothing about college or how much it costed, and I'm struggling to catch up. Curiously, I'm finding very few resources about people in my financial situation and it's really difficult to comb through college lists of names of colleges that I've never heard of to find colleges that 1) offer lots of need-based aid, 2) don't consider non-custodial parent, and 3) don't have Ivy-tier admission selectivity.</p>
<p>I would greatly, greatly appreciate any help or information determining colleges to apply to. Surely other people have been in my situation before, even if I can't seem to find them!</p>
<p>Some stats and necessary info about me:
10th-11th weighted: 4.41; unweighted: 3.96
in the first semester of 9th grade I had straight A's, in the second semester I got straight B's due to family issues and being unfocused, only had one B since -- this brings my 9th-11th down to 4.07 weighted
33 ACT composite + 8 writing in a single sitting. Combined from the two times I took it: 35 math/34/34/34/10 writing
SAT: 2130: 740/740/650writing, only sat for it once
white male, first to attend college on my dad's side
interested in engineering/physics/comp sci/astronomy
AP lang.&comp.: 5; AP psych: 4, AP chem: 3
currently taking 2 honors/2 APs
some volunteer work and club participation, just what's standard
varsity tennis league champion runner up (league consists of 6 high-tier schools of 1500-3000 students) and first non-senior team captain in the history of my school's men's tennis team
team captain of the cross country team as well as JV league champion last year and #3 runner for my school's very strong varsity team
reigning 400m/pentathlon school champion for track and field
made $2,100 selling virtual items for real money through my own business on the online game RuneScape when I was in 9th grade
narrowly missed qualifying for a tournament with a prize pool just shy of $100,000, top 1000 overall players for two months in the game Hearthstone (20 million registered players) -- strategy/card game
two-time winner of Overall Best Player award which denotes best overall performance in a two-week period in a text-based online game of deception/social engineering/lies, 400k registered users</p>
<p>Again, thanks so much for reading this and any help or info you're able to give. Not sure where else to go.</p>
<p>edit: reposted this, as this subforum seems a better fit for my thread</p>