<p>Can you tell us what state you are in? It will help with specific options for your safety schools, where you can be assured of admission and a good aid package. Once you have set up a reasonable list of safeties you can proceed. Make a couple of lists of the schools mentioned here. Some are mentioned for the good financial aid and some are the reach schools that will likely give you full tuition/room/board some with no loans. Keep a notebook of each school, track the special scholarships and programs.</p>
<p>Did you qualify for a fee waiver for the SAT? If so, you can get application fee waivers for many schools. This will help as it will allow you to apply to a wide variety, then see how the money shakes out when you get your acceptances. This may be unusual at your school so your GC may not want you to apply to too many, so you’ll have to explain the strategy.
[College</a> Application Fee Waivers - college fees](<a href=“College Board - SAT, AP, College Search and Admission Tools”>College Application Fee Waiver FAQs – BigFuture)</p>
<p>At Brown University, the acceptance rate is less that 10% now, but if you get in they do give excellent all grant/no loan packages for students with families earning less than $60,000. They award money for tuition/room/board/books/laptop/flight home. If you are frugal, you can use the money to pay all your expenses.</p>
<p>They also give advantages to families with less than $100,000. In addition, there is a special Sydney Frank scholarship that covers the expenses of the neediest 128 or so scholars. You will be given an extra grant your first you so you don’t have to do a job or work study (unless you want to jobs at Brown are TERRIFIC, often doing research with professors.)</p>
<p>Although it is extremely hard to get into schools like this, they are certainly beating the bushes to find high performing rural students from states that are not often represented there.</p>
<p>In addition, Brown offers a PLME program, where if you are accepted as an undergraduate, you have guaranteed acceptance to Brown Medical School, you do not need to take the MCAT. Only a few students get this a year. It is highly competitive. But I saw a speaker last year who was in the program, she came from an underprivledged gang area of South Central LA, and certainly didn’t attend a good high school or have role models. Have you done any volunteer actuvities or community service that show interest in a medical career?</p>
<p>Also I think the suggestion of Women’s colleges is excellent. Wellesley and Smith are great for science. And at Scripps you’d be a candidate for a full tuition I’ll bet. Scripps is a very small pretty college, 700 students or so, set with 5 other colleges in the Claremont Colleges in Southern Calif. You can cross take classes with the other ones, they are all next door to each other. it is a community of about 5,000. It is in a cute LA suburb.</p>