<p>@middkidd86, I read the original post and replied with Bowdoin. I have more to do than read the entire thread before replying. This isn’t worth the drama.</p>
<p>Temple’s stipend is not for living expenses, I believe you have to apply for them and have a study abroad program , internship or whatever lined up for their review. I do however believe the 100% tuition is guaranteed to all students who meet the stats and apply on time. (I looked that up when I asked Bob to add it to the list and found language to that effect on their site at the time).</p>
<p>If your family earns $79K total, you might actually get some decent need-based financial aid at the more generous schools. If the $79K is an anomaly this year (and perhaps that is why you get reduced lunch, based on this previous year’s lower income, not that it is any of our business why you get it…), then that may work in your favor too, for need based aid. Amherst, for instance, would look to your parents to pay $6K but since they don’t package loans in their FA you could cover most of that with Stafford loans. A generous college like that would respond appropriately to your dad making less in a different year too.</p>
<p>However, the trick with the super generous no-loan schools is getting in. </p>
<p>You have to apply for free reduced lunch every year. When you apply in august/september you will find out if you are eligible for fee reduced lunch.</p>
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<p>Context is important. Surely a bright young lady headed to Bowdoin knows this.</p>
<p>@shockwave it sounds like you have a few good options in FL that should be your primary targets.</p>
<p>I would also recommend you pick one or two super high reaches (ivies, top LACs like Bowdoin) where you may even qualify for application fee waivers- just email in September and tell them you qualify for reduced lunch (if you do). Or get your GC to do it. If you got in to a top 20 uni or LAC, chances are your EFC would be lower than at many other lower ranked schools. Some Ivies consider $65k/yr to be the base for $0 EFC so the gap could be covered by family, federal loans and workstudy. But REMEMBER, this would be like winning the lottery- do not count on this in any way.</p>
<p>Also check out Beloit college. They are known for giving merit aid to students with your stats. It would probably still be a financial reach but worth running the numbers on their NPC. Beloit would be a totally different experience than FIU UCF etc and might improve your chances for grad school.</p>
<p>Finally if your family has special circumstances (e.g. loans for your sister) you can present these to a school like Bowdoin and it might make a small difference. Syracuse and Tulane won’t care one bit.</p>
<p>My son also wanted to leave Florida, and since we were not going to be taking out private loans (or any loans for that matter) for college, he had to find merit scholarships at out of state schools that would bring the cost to the same or less than attending a Florida public. There are plenty of schools to which you could apply, but since you need guaranteed merit aid, you will have to drop some so-called dream schools off the list (though you could go ahead and spend the money and apply and compete for scholarships, and my son considered that, too, but he figured why waste the application money since he had no special interest in those other name-brand schools.)</p>
<p>Anyway, you are fortunate that many of the schools that offer large merit aid awards are in the Southeast region, so travel to and from Florida will be less expensive. Get your applications in early. I would think you would be competitive for all of the following: Alabama, Alabama-Huntsville, Ole Miss, and Louisiana Tech, as well as several Florida schools including UF, UCF, USF, FSU, and FIU.</p>
<p>Louisiana Tech: it is very hard to pass up that full ride. And then if you can save up the extra money to upgrade your free housing to the Honors Housing there, that would be great (would cost another few hundred dollars a quarter, so would depend on your budget, but it sure is nice.) LA Tech’s honors housing apartments were the best housing my son saw - full size apartments, unique modern architecture. Everyone there was very friendly, and the science and engineering programs very strong, but other factors led to my son turning down that great offer. I don’t know anything about their psychology program, and if you apply and get accepted, make sure to visit because Ruston is a very small town.</p>
<p>Alabama (the final choice) and Alabama-Huntsville: again, awesome scholarships which brought our COA below the cost of attending a Florida public (even with Bright Futures included - when you run the numbers, your greatest expense at one of the Florida schools will be your room and board.) I don’t know if you would find Alabama-Huntsville to be a great fit unless you are an engineering major (an awesome school for those who know for certain they want to walk across the street from the school and go work for a defense company.) As an OOS my son preferred Alabama to Huntsville, though Huntsville is trying to promote more community on campus.</p>
<p>Ole Miss: definitely consider this school if you are willing to look at Alabama. Smaller, cheaper, great scholarships for out of state, some neat Freshman programs. You could get a lot of money to go there and Oxford is a neat town.</p>
<p>Your Florida schools: well, your stats are competitive for UF, but as you should know, applying to UF is like playing the lottery, so never consider it a safety. Your stats exceed friends of my son’s who did get into UF this fall, and who received scholarship money (which is not common from UF) but who knows why? Go ahead and apply but have lots of backups.</p>
<p>USF could actually be a great answer for you, because overall it is less expensive than UF and UCF, they are far more generous with scholarships, and their psychology program is well-known and very well-respected. UCF has the fancier campus, but USF has a better location in my opinion. Thankfully, my son had no interest in UCF, because while less than an hour from home, I would not have wanted him to live in Orlando. Tampa/Temple Terrace would not have caused me as much worry. Besides, USF is cheaper. Oh, and if you don’t to live in Tampa, consider USF in St Petersburg (that campus was great.)</p>
<p>Someone else mentioned Flagler - a great option as their tuition is very low for a private, plus you can use your Bright Futures and get FRAG. So check them out, and also take a look at as many Florida private schools as you can. Many are very unaffordable, even with merit scholarships, but you might find a jewel.</p>
<p>Key is to get that list, and come to terms with the fact that, while you may not want to waste your time pursuing the really expensive schools (where you would no doubt get accepted but would get absolutely no merit aid), you still have many options. Don’t rule out the Florida schools just because you want to get out of Florida or it sounds glamorous or more impressive. Remember that the money you save by attending a Florida school could be money you get to spend on a vacation anywhere you want at some later date. You can always leave Florida, but you won’t head off anywhere, especially if you graduate with tens of thousands of dollars of debt. </p>
<p>Louisiana tech is my top safety right now as I have not encountered another I have liked and it offers me full ride… would it be a waste to apply to less known liberal arts colleges known for generous merit aid? I mentioned Wake Forest and F&M but I realize I need to be more realistic and include schools that offer me the most help… any suggestions from schools your son applied to?</p>
<p>I don’t think it would be a waste IF they offer the program you are interested in and you believe you are a top candidate for their merit aid. But I am sure you know that your senior year is going to be full of all kinds of expenses, so you have to balance how much you spend on college applications (and, of course, you have to pay to send your scores to every school, and maybe you have to pay your school district for transcripts beyond a certain number, and then there is your time.)</p>
<p>What helped us was to create an Excel spreadsheet so we could get all the schools under consideration on one spreadsheet, with all of the tuition, room, board and potential scholarships calculated, and I even included the federal unsubsidized loan available to Freshman ($5500) just to see the net cost with and without using that loan money.</p>
<p>Get everything in black and white. Don’t make any decisions yet. Just gather the data, enter the numbers, and then review. Go ahead and throw some expensive schools in there (if they are dream schools to you.) Search out some LACs (I don’t have any to recommend because my son is an engineering/physics major and so he did not expect that many of those schools would offer what he was looking for anyway - he considered Flagler but they don’t even offer a physics degree, though we love St Augustine and go there often.)</p>
<p>Read the threads here at CC that list all of the automatic aid and competitive aid. So many very generous people here have created those threads and my son went through every single list, and looked at every school’s website that was listed. He also considered every single public Florida university (every single one was on our spreadsheet) because giving up the Bright Futures was not an easy decision.</p>
<p>There were many schools that contacted my son constantly (and I know he was not alone in getting the constant mail and emails) but, despite the impressive names, there was no way we were going to afford the schools, but he never felt deprived.</p>
<p>If you major in Psychology, you are going to need to head to graduate school for most professions with that specialty, so save your money, find a solid undergraduate program with intern/clinical opportunities, and then, when you are there, be the top student. Your undergraduate performance is what will open doors to graduate work (and the money that you will really need for those programs.) If you are not worrying about money, you will have more time to focus on your studies and excel.</p>
<p>Best of luck. </p>
<p>Anybody mention New College of Florida yet? It’s a highly-regarded public LAC, and with some merit aid and Bright Futures (and working, and loans), you <em>might</em> be able to make it work.</p>
<p>BTW, is your major going to be psychology? If you had said “creative writing”, the answer would been simpler as UHouston has one of the most respected creative writing programs in the country.</p>
<p>Most likely psychology or neuroscience (more towards psychology)</p>
<p>New College would be a great option (and are they the campus that allows pets in the dorms? or I could be thinking of another Florida school.)</p>
<p>Anyway, there is a list of schools that I forgot my son had looked at this time last year - the list at the Colleges That Change Lives website (the New College of Florida is on that list, too):</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.ctcl.org/”>http://www.ctcl.org/</a></p>
<p>If money had not been a barrier, I would have encouraged my son to apply to Centre College in Danville, Kentucky. The school offers a dual degree for those pursuing a liberal arts (which does include Physics) but also want to pursue engineering. So it would have been great, plus Danville is lovely, but even with potential scholarships, it was not within financial reach. Such is life 
But perhaps you would have a chance to get more aid and additional scholarships to a school like that.</p>
<p>So go through that website and see what you think of them.</p>
<p>Stetson is a college in Florida that allows pets in the dorms.</p>