<p>jvd, Williams is strong in both physics and astronomy. I know absolutely nothing about either but my son's suitemate who comes from a family of physicists says both are toprate. Take a look at the Physics thread on the Williams board of this site. Can't offer much in the way of warm weather, but like Alaska clear skies and plenty of stars. Great humanities in case she changes her mind. No merit, but I understand generous in the financial aid area.</p>
<p>I thought of Williams, too, but did not mention it because of lack of merit aid. But it is indeed top rate.</p>
<p>Williams looks good but does not give merit aid so it's out.</p>
<p>Rice looks impressive. I think Caltech is a reach but might as well try. Tulane is on the list as is Pamona. </p>
<p>D nixed Trinity in San Anonio. I don't know why, I'll try to get her to take another look at it.</p>
<p>I would sure second the idea of Pomona. Small, warm, and what looks like lots of opportunities in her areas of interest. The amount of aid would be the tough part, if she were to be accepted. <a href="http://www.astronomy.pomona.edu/brochure.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.astronomy.pomona.edu/brochure.html</a>
Also, the other Claremont colleges, since some cross-registering is allowed, such as Scripps, CMC, Harvey Mudd. I think that Caltech would be a pretty big reach?</p>
<p>jvd, are you sure you wouldn't qualify for regular financial aid -- large family, expensive state? I know a family in a similar income level whose son received aid of about $30,000 at an LAC and an ivy. Girls are still rare in physics. That plus her geographic diversity would be hooks. You have nothing to lose by applying.</p>
<p>JVD, you may want to cautiously recalibrate some of your expectations. We're a one-child family with household income over $100K and still got needs-based aid, along with a bit of merit aid, at a very good school. You don't know until you go through the process. The college that my D wanted to go to initially came in with the lowest aid offer of the four schools that accepted her--but <em>all</em> of them came up with offers that weren't chopped liver--but they rengotiated after I made an appointment to discuss my Schedule C, where they had backed out depreciation and some other stuff into my income, raising it and thus lowering their calculation of EFC. There was probably a $3K spread between the offers of the four schools.</p>
<p>I'll admit that even with one child the payment structure isn't pretty...long story to family finances. Suffice to say that D's tuition is being paid through a combination from grants and scholarships to her, her working, our current income, her loans, and loans from us. Put all the pieces together and it works. Is it more than we wanted to pay? Yes. Is it doable? Yes. Is it reasonable compared to what others are paying? As near as I can make out, yes. But every college FinAid office is different.</p>
<p>Good luck.</p>
<p>Btw, Smith has its own observatory and offers Physics, plus you can take Physics courses through Amherst. And they have special merit scholarships for women in the sciences.</p>
<p>I'm going to go ahead and complete the fafsa and css.</p>
<p>Am I understanding correctly that different schools give out need based aid based on different criteria? I think I may have been mistaken in thinking that need based aid was primarily a federal pell grant thing.</p>
<p>the FAFSA is for federally determined aid. The PROFILE and the schools individual forms can reinterpret data depending on how deep their pockets are and Williams has very deep pockets.</p>
<p>Although I agree that you should apply for financial aid (you never know!), one thing that you might want to consider is how widely cost varies between schools without aid. My family didn't expect aid (and didn't get any - partly because my college-age sister and I both got merit scholarships). If we hadn't gotten merit aid, the sticker prices would have been very different between our schools. I don't think that you should decide not to apply somewhere that you love because of the sticker price, but it is just something to think about.</p>
<p>For example - say you were accepted to Pomona and to Rice. Rice gave you no need based aid, and Pomona gave you $9,000 per year in need aid. It seems like a no brainer - Pomona is the better deal. But no, Rice's sticker price is so much lower that Pomona still comes out more expensive! Especially if some of that need aid is in loans (which is more than likely).</p>
<p>So it's not really the amount of aid that you recieve, it's a little more complex - it's total cost, and then it's also how the aid is divided between grants, loans, work-study, etc.</p>