Help with College List

College Search & Selection
1

<p>Hello!</p>

<p>I am a junior at a small high school in a small town on the North Shore of Massachusetts.
My weighted GPA is a 4.2 and my unweighted is a 3.9.
SAT: CR (720) M (680) W (740)
I'm taking the ACT Saturday with a goal score of a 33.
I have 720 hours of community service so far in high school.
AP Exams: US History (5) Biology (Waiting for July) World (Waiting for July but probs a 3/4) Language and Composition (Waiting for July but probs a 5)</p>

<p>I need some definite help in narrowing down my list of collge choices. Financial aid is going to be a really big decision factor for me because my parents can donate about $2000 each (divorced parents=fail).
I visited Rice over April break and LOVED it. It is by far my favorite colleg ae and I would love to apply there early decision. The problem is the money factor. If I apply Early Decision and am bound to paying off loans for the rest of my life, I will be freaked out and probably reject it, even though I love it. It's just so expensive with travel from Masschusetts to Texas and I have a twin brother and sister entering college the year I graduate, so I do not want to burden my parents while they are getting through high school. So, Rice is definitely my first choice, but here are my other schools.</p>

<p>Boston University
Davidson College
Duke University
Elon University
Emory University
George Washington U
Georgetown U
U of MA Amherst (safety) Commonwealth Honors program
NYU
Rice!!!
U South Carolina Honors
St. John's
UTexas Austin
Tulane
Vanderbilt
Wake Forest U
Washington and Lee U
Washington U in St. Louis
College of William and Mary</p>

<p>I really do not know what I want to do, but definitely something challenging and exciting, and I would like to travel a lot.
I want to be in warmer weather than Massachusetts, too.</p>

2

<p>That does not matter to the colleges that your parents only want to contribute $4,000/ per year for your education. </p>

<p>Have you calculated an EFC? The Expected Family Contribution. You and your parents may be very shocked by your EFC. It may be a lot more than $4,000 annually. </p>

<p>If you have a step parent, their income & assets will be counted at privates.</p>

<p>You might only be able to afford UMASS-Amherst.</p>

3

<p>If you pop over to the financial aid forum, you will find lots of helpful information. Some of the places on your list may be do-able, but many won’t be. I would suggest that you set that list aside for now, and start a new one based on what you can afford.</p>

<p>Your GPA and test scores are good enough to get you merit-based aid at some colleges and universities. Read through this and see what you think: <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/848226-important-links-automatic-guaranteed-merit-scholarships.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/848226-important-links-automatic-guaranteed-merit-scholarships.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Your college budget is $4,000. You need to work with that. If you take out the maximum Stafford Loans each year ($5,500 freshman, $6,500 sophomore, $7,500 junior, and $7,500 senior), and if you can make about $2,000 each year with summer jobs and part-time jobs during the school year, you probably can afford an in-state public U. You can’t borrow more than the Stafford Loan maximum without a co-signer. And it looks like your parents aren’t in any position to do that.</p>

<p>For any place else, you do need to estimate what your family will be expected to be able to pay. Run the financial aid calculators at [FinAid</a> | Calculators | Expected Family Contribution (EFC) and Financial Aid](<a href=“Your Guide for College Financial Aid - Finaid”>Expected Family Contribution (EFC) Calculator - Finaid) and [EFC</a> Calculator: How Much Money for College Will You Be Expected to Contribute?](<a href=“http://apps.collegeboard.com/fincalc/efc_welcome.jsp]EFC”>http://apps.collegeboard.com/fincalc/efc_welcome.jsp) to get an idea of what the minimum amount is that colleges/universities will expect from your family. Most will expect your family to pay more than that. </p>

<p>Wishing you all the best.</p>

4

<p>2008-2009 school year is on Finaid, so it is not current EFC calculator.
Best of luck.</p>

5

<p>The FinAid Calculator does use an older version, but it still is ball-park for the real FAFSA. When I’ve run it, it has given me numbers that are about 5% higher than the FAFSA itself. The FinAid website has a lot of useful information, and a bunch of other helpful calculators. Overall, I like it a lot better than the CollegeBoard website for that kind of thing.</p>

<p>The current FAFSA formula is on the web at <a href=“http://www.ifap.ed.gov/efcformulaguide/attachments/101310EFCFormulaGuide1112.pdf[/url]”>http://www.ifap.ed.gov/efcformulaguide/attachments/101310EFCFormulaGuide1112.pdf&lt;/a&gt; It does change a bit from year to year, and someone will surely post a link to the updated formula when it appears in the fall. If anyone has a complicated financial situation, they really should print the formula out and work through it on paper so that they can see which factors most affect their results.</p>

6

<p>*
I need some definite help in narrowing down my list of collge choices. Financial aid is going to be a really big decision factor for me because my parents can donate about $2000 each (divorced parents=fail). *</p>

<p>Many of your schools may not work out because of the amounts that they will expect your parents to pay…which they won’t be able to pay.</p>

<p>Do NOT apply ED…you will not likely get the aid you need…and YOU CANNOT borrow that much by yourself…nor should you…large debt can really ruin your adult life.</p>

<p>YOU CAN ONLY borrow the following amounts by yourself…</p>

<p>frosh 5500
soph 6500
jr 7500
sr 7500</p>

<p>To borrow more than that would require parent co-signers…and most parents will not do this, because they know it’s too risky for themselves and their kids (too much debt).</p>

<p>Rice also uses CSS Profile and Rice will use both parents’ income/assets to determine what they should pay. Rice is a great school, but it is known not to be generous with its family contribution calculations. It is VERY likely that Rice will expect your family to pay more than what they can pay. Rice will put a loan in your FA package so you won’t be able to borrow to help pay for your parents’ contribution.</p>

<p>It’s fine to apply to Rice for Regular Decision just to see what might happen.</p>

<p>BUT…since your financial situation is not good, you HAVE to protect yourself and apply to a few schools that will give you ASSURED scholarships for your stats.</p>

<p>If you do insist on applying ED, the DEFINITELY apply EARLY to a couple of rolling admission schools that will give you ASSURED HUGE scholarships for stats - these often have EARLY scholarship deadlines. (I believe that’s ok with ED rules…others can verify). </p>

<p>That way, if your ED situation doesn’t work out, you’ll have a couple of Rolling Admissions acceptances with HUGE scholarships in your hand when you get your ED results.</p>

<p>You do NOT want to be one of those very upset kids that posts in January that is upset because his ED school isn’t affordable and now it’s too late to apply to schools that give large scholarships for stats.</p>

<p>Since your parents will only pay $4k total, you need to have back up plans with that amount in mind. You have the stats to get at least a full tuition scholarships at a few schools. With such a scholarship, your parents’ $4k, and a student loan of 5500, you can cover most costs. You might have to work a summer job to pay for books or incidentals.</p>

7

<p>NY generally gives awful aid. UT Austin will give you nothing since you’re OOS. William and Mary is an OOS public and will gap you.</p>

8

<p>BU = terrible aid, you will be gapped at BU.</p>