<p>In your case, I’d recommend checking the Hispanic box. If for some reason the cut-off in your state is so high that you miss NM Finalist, you will still absolutely qualify for National Hispanic honors. This will get you on a whole other bunch of mailing and email lists. </p>
<p>Your scores and grades are very good. Read through <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/848226-important-links-automatic-guaranteed-merit-scholarships.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/848226-important-links-automatic-guaranteed-merit-scholarships.html</a> to see if you find anything you like.</p>
<p>Medical school is even more ridiculously expensive than private undergraduate universities. If you are committed to a medical degree, you need to find ways to keep your undergraduate degree as cheap as possible. Then your family may be able to help you pay for med school.</p>
<p>Lots of parents tell their kids that the price of college doesn’t matter. Then they run the FAFSA in the kids senior year of HS, and find out how much the colleges expect them to be able to pay, and they realize that there is no easy way to scrape that kind of money together. Do your parents a favor, and print out <a href=“http://www.ifap.ed.gov/efcformulaguide/attachments/101310EFCFormulaGuide1112.pdf[/url]”>http://www.ifap.ed.gov/efcformulaguide/attachments/101310EFCFormulaGuide1112.pdf</a> Ask them to work through it, so that they know what their FAFSA EFC is likely to be. Then talk with them about how your family will come up with that kind of money. Maybe they do have a giant college fund stashed away for you somewhere and it will be no problem. But maybe they don’t. It’s better to know now than in April of 2012.</p>
<p>Wishing you all the best!</p>