<p>If you need merit aid, you need to look at several school sknown to give high merit awards to more than just a few “chosen” students. </p>
<p>Those highly competitive merit awards are like playing the lottery. Only apply to a few of those schools - those schools cannot be your financial safeties since there’s only a small chance of getting a big competitive merit award from them.</p>
<p>You need to look at schools that automatically give merit money to kids with strong stats. Those are schools that are ranked lower than your list. There are some mid-ranked schools that give generous merit.</p>
<p>It sounds like you know you won’t qualify for F/A (which are mostly subsidized student loans), and it sounds like your parents can’t/won’t pay their EFC. </p>
<p>Do you know how much your parents can pay each year for your education.</p>
<p>Talk to BOTH of your parents…get an amount from them (even if your parents are married, you need to talk to both of them. You don’t want one parent promising an amount that the other parent insists is unaffordable - that sometimes happens 
).</p>
<p>Once we know that, we won’t be making stabs in the dark…we’ll be working with real numbers and be looking for real solutions. :)</p>
<p>My gut is telling me that you need a lot of merit money…so just let us know. :)</p>
<p>BTW…what will be your likely major?</p>