<p>Thank you all for your responses- I want you to know that I am incredibly stressed-out and this website and its generous contributors are the only thing that helps me =[</p>
<p>2collegewego- I did the FinAid calculator and my family’s EFC is 8169… which means I’d need 45 G for Gtown/Tufts/Brandeis, and around 10 for Binghamton/Geneseo… I think I’m more of a merit-based applicant, so my question was- what would my academic safeties be, where I’d get a lot of money? </p>
<p>holliesue- what schools are academic safeties?? One example was American…</p>
<p>mom2collegekids- yes, that’s out of 1600, and my home state is NY. My EFC is low, so does that mean the government will offer me a lot of financial aid, or just loans? And as a side-question, in what circumstances does the government offer grants?</p>