<p>You probably need to ignore list prices, apply to a variety of schools that you would like to go to (local, state, private) and then compare the packages that you get. If the state school offers wonderful huge loans, and the private school offers need based grants you might find that the private school ends up being cheaper. You can’t really compare until you get the offers. Also consider that come schools use the Profile which includes home equity etc while other schools only use FAFSA. With your income and stats, list price may be irrelevant.</p>
<p>With your stats, you really should look at schools that “exceed need” (ie exceed EFC) for the upper-middle class. Do a net price on Vanderbilt, I bet you will like the number. There were not many LACs that I remember, I remember Washington and Lee being good.</p>
<p>My D has a very similar credential as yours and we also could not afford even in state flagship if without financial aid. She did not apply any of those schools offer full ride to NMF but to schools within the mid-west with strength in the major she wants to study. She actually got accepted by one schools already which has offered scholarships to cover almost the full oos tuition although it is not on the full ride list for NMF.
So between the elite school and your local college, there are many other options that can be affordable and have great programs for your credentials. You should focus on your intended major first as mom2collegekids said. Do the cost of attendance calculation for each school and look up their financial aid data on CDS. With your credential, you may get merit aid from many schools and you may be surprised by some offers like my D.
Good luck.</p>
<p>I’m not settled in an intended major/career path yet. Right now I think I’d like to be a professor of English specializing in Victorian literature, since it’s a subject I have a true passionate interest in, but I’m also interested in exploring the social sciences and biology more at school. I’ll be doing either a double major or a minor in music because I certainly don’t want to stop playing flute!</p>
<p>Thank you all for your advice. It’s really helping me figure things out. I am doing lots of looking around at other schools to make sure that I have a solid mix of choices, not just possibly-unattainable LACs and one fallback. 
Then all I can do is apply and wait and see what kind of offers I get!</p>
<p>If I could ask one other question - how exactly does the Expected Family Contribution work? I’ve talked more with my parents and they’ve said that other than the $16,000 they’ve saved this far, they’ll only be able to contribute about $1,000 a year more, which is a lot less than the EFC’s for a lot of schools. Some schools say that they’ll match 100% of all demonstrated need, but does that mean the gap between their aid + the EFC and the cost of the school, or simply anything you can’t pay, regardless of whatever you are expected to be able to pay?</p>
<p>Schools that “meet full need” will offer grants = COA - EFC - ESC.</p>
<p>COA = cost of attendance list price
EFC = expected family contribution, which may be different at each school using institutional methodology.
ESC = expected student contribution, usually between $4,000 and $10,000 per year. Financial aid packages typically include either or both direct loans and/or work-study to cover this.</p>
<p>If AFC + ASC < EFC + ESC, then the difference is the financial aid gap (AFC and ASC are actual family contribution and actual student contribution).</p>
<p>If you find significant financial aid gaps at every school with just need-based aid (see their net price calculators), you need to look for large enough merit scholarships.</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/1348012-automatic-full-tuition-full-ride-scholarships-20.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/1348012-automatic-full-tuition-full-ride-scholarships-20.html</a>
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/1461983-competitive-full-tuition-full-ride-scholarships-4.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/1461983-competitive-full-tuition-full-ride-scholarships-4.html</a>
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/national-merit-scholarships/649276-nmf-scholarships-updated-compilation-56.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/national-merit-scholarships/649276-nmf-scholarships-updated-compilation-56.html</a></p>
<p>Demonstrated need is your need above your EFC. All need based aid will expect your family to pay their EFC, according to income and assets, as calculated by that school. So at Pomona, you said that looks to be $16,000. If you won’t or can’t pay that, then they are not just going to turn around and give it too you. Wouldn’t everyone pretty much say they can’t pay that?</p>
<p>*Some schools say that they’ll match 100% of all demonstrated need, but does that mean the gap between their aid + the EFC and the cost of the school,</p>
<p>or simply anything you can’t pay, regardless of whatever you are expected to be able to pay?*</p>
<p>No to the second part. Otherwise families would just say, “we can only pay $1000” or whatever. </p>
<p>The formula calculations determine what your family is supposed to pay. After THAT, schools that meet need provide the rest with grants, work study, loans, etc. </p>
<p>For instance, if your EFC is $20k and a school costs $60k, then your FA pkg may be:</p>
<p>$7k (Stafford and Perkins Loans)
$3k Work Study</p>
<h2>$30k Grant</h2>
<p>$40k FA pkg that meets your $40k of “need”.</p>
<p>$20k Family pays</p>
<h2>$40k from the FA pkg</h2>
<p>$60k Cost of Attendance</p>
<p>You have an unaffordable EFC. Therefore you have to look at schools that will give you MEGA SIZE merit, so that any remaining costs can be covered by 1/4 of your college savings and a $5500 student loan.</p>
<p>You’re going to need more than a full tuition scholarship.</p>
<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>
<p>There are SO MANY schools you could apply to in between these two extremes…!</p>
<p>Go to your town/school library and borrow the Fiske Guide, or Insider’s guide to the colleges, or the princeton review’s best colleges. Start reading. :)</p>
<p>With your stats, ASU Barrett should be a no-brainer. Then, the top “Colleges that change lives” would likely give you merit (ctcl.org).
Use the chart here to see whether you might be eligible for aid at some of the “elite” schools: [2013</a> Guide To FAFSA, CSS Profile, Expected Family Contribution (EFC) And College Aid - Forbes](<a href=“http://www.forbes.com/sites/troyonink/2013/01/02/2013-simplified-guide-to-expected-family-contribution-efc-and-college-aid/]2013”>2013 Guide To FAFSA, CSS Profile, Expected Family Contribution (EFC) And College Aid)
Otherwise, look for good schools with most merit aid. I think Hendrix tops that list every year.</p>
<p>moms2collegekids, thanks for the heads up! Do you know which schools in particular have scholarship deadlines approaching?</p>
<p>Oh gosh…lots of them. Have you looked at the scholarship links above? </p>
<p>Bama has a Dec 15 deadline for the Presidential scholarship, and you’d qualify for that and hopefully the NMF scholarship since you’ll likely make NMF (did you get your stuff submitted? Did your high school do it as well?)</p>
<p>Get the Bama app in…it’s super EZ…no Essays, no LORs…takes like 5 minutes. then do the scholarship app…also super EZ…no essays, no LORs.</p>
<p>Lottie,
as mentioned above USC [ Southern Calif] has a FIRM Scholarship deadline of Dec 1 for submitting applications.</p>
<p>While it’s fine to apply to USC, I don’t think that’s going to work. Her issue is that her parents can’t pay their family contribution.</p>
<p>The USC half-tuition NMF scholarship will get applied to need and the family will still have the unaffordable EFC.</p>
<p>The parents will only contribute $5k per year. The student can borrow $5500. So wherever she goes she needs the net cost to be about $12k per year for everything.</p>
<p>Last year we were in the same predicament. You should apply RD to a lot of schools and see what the FA offers are. You never know what will happen from a FA perspective. You will be very competitive for many merit scholarships. You can contact individual schools to see if you can get a waiver on the application fee. As noted in many of the posts above, you will be surprised at the number of great choices you will have. My S wound up attending a school that was not even on our radar at the beginning of the search.</p>
<p>Good luck!</p>