<p>Have you run any FAFSA calculators to see what your EFC will be? </p>
<p>It sounds like your EFC will be too high for Pell Grants, but you could get a 5500 student loan to supplement your $10k per year from your family. Frankly, you’re going to need that much just to pay for room, board, books, fees, etc and int’l travel costs.</p>
<p>Your SAT will likely prevent you from getting large scholarships from schools with engineering. A good GPA is good, but schools have lots of kids with strong GPAs and they’re not giving them all big scholarships. Schools use test scores to largely determine who gets the large scholarships. For you to get a large scholarship (like free tuition) your test scores need to be in about the top 10% of the school. </p>
<p>I just looked at UA-Huntsville (a regional univ with good engineering) and to get free tuition, you’d need at least a 1360. <a href=“http://finaid.uah.edu/scholarships/2012-2013%20approved%20scholarship%20grid.pdf[/url]”>http://finaid.uah.edu/scholarships/2012-2013%20approved%20scholarship%20grid.pdf</a> At Alabama (the flagship) you’d get free tuition plus 2500 for a 1330 as an engineering major. </p>
<p>You provided UT-Arlington as a “good example,” but with your stats, you’d only get $6000 per year at a school with an OOS COA of about $30k. </p>
<p>If you could retest and get your scores up, then a school like Mississippi State might work for you. It has good engineering. </p>
<p>It’s hard to find school that have engineering, that also give large merit for a 1200 SAT.</p>