<p>Lottie,</p>
<p>Some of the large merit schools have scholarship deadlines that are approaching, so you need to identify and apply to those now. </p>
<p>Your family can pay about $5k per year. Even the most generous colleges will expect your family to pay a good bit more than that. You can try for some of the super generous colleges like HYPS if you’d like, but since you don’t know if you’d get in and you don’t know if they’ll be affordable, then you need to consider schools that will give you HUGE merit (nearly free rides).</p>