<p>Lohanizil, do be aware that federal financial aid is intended to cover those costs for students who are commuting to school, and for state schools. So, what most people find, is that guaranteed financial aid will cover about what it costs to go to a local college, community college. With the Hope and other awards that GA has for its students who choose to stay instate, the option to even go away to school for very little. </p>
<p>To get more than that and to go out of state, you have to be the best of the best. Like if you had wanted to go to a private boarding school. The private colleges are pricey, some up to $60K and many of the most selective will only give need based aid. You should run some numbers through the NPCs of some of the schools you are considering and you will get an idea of what these colleges expect your family to pay. And for those schools that guarantee to meet full need, getting accepted is an issue too. Run some numbers for Duke, and you can get some idea what your package would be. If your family doesn’t own a business and if you don’t have unusual financial issues including non custodial parent problems, those numbers will be quite a good example of what a top school of that caliber will expect your family to pay.</p>
<p>In order to be in the running for merit scholarships, you have to be the best of the best in a school’s accepted pool of students. If a school gives out merit awards for 10% of their students, you had better be in the top 5% to have a chance at a hefty award (if the school even gives hefty awards). Your SAT or ACT score will figure heavily in that process. You put your nose up to Georgia Tech, and I’m telling you that my son, though accepted there, got nothing in merit money with near perfect SAT1s. So that is the kind of competition you will be facing, and you are very lucky to have the option of going to GT at in state prices AND with the Georgia awards to defray those costs. It’s frankly going to be tough for you to beat that calibre of engineering school for the price you have locked in, if you can get in.</p>
<p>Cooper Union has free tuition, and Olin is half tuition with awards, to name a couple of schools that have some guaranteed merit. UPitt has a good engineering school and has some generous merit money. Case Western has generous merit money, Lafayette College is another possibility. If you want to go into nautical engineering, it doesn’t get better than Webb Institute. RPI, RIT, Rice all have some merit money, as does Harvey Mudd.</p>
<p>What schools are you eyeing anyways, other than Mines?</p>