<p>how many schools should i apply to considering I am white and have need of financial aid? I am planning on applying to between 15-20 I know it will be TERRIBLE HELL but in the end I hope it will be worth it, i have a few older friends with financial need that did similar things and they say it is worth it but they would never recommend it. Anyone else have any insight?</p>
<p>I really don’t think 15-20 is necessary and that would be absolute hell trying to fill out all those applications and write those essays in the middle of Senior year. If you have financial need then make sure you apply to schools that are known for giving good financial aid. I wouldn’t apply to more than 10. Have a couple of safeties, matches, and reaches and you should be good to go</p>
<p>I agree, 10 is a good number, 12 if you want a little more. I applied to 20 schools and it was totally unnecessary.</p>
<p>I think that with a very reasonable and thought-out strategy you can get by with about 6-8 apps. I’m always hesitant to say “apply broadly” or “cast a wide net” because if you’re sending out 10+ apps (or whatever) and you target schools that won’t work, you’ll end up without any affordable schools. </p>
<p>However, you have to have a reasonable list based on how much aid you need, what type of aid you need (merit or need-based), and what your stats are. </p>
<p>If you want need-based aid, then you need to determine whether you qualify for the aid you need, you need to determine whether your parents will pay what’s expected from them, and you need to determine if your schools will actually give you that aid. </p>
<p>If you want merit-based aid, then you need to determine if you have the right stats to get the amount that you need. You need to determine how much merit you need based on how much your parents will pay. You also need to apply to a couple of schools that will give your ASSURED merit for your stats in the amounts that you need. Those can be your back up schools.</p>
<p>*Parents and Financial aid…
I have a serious problem. My mother refuses to talk about money for college with me, and insist that she will not pay a cent. She tells me that she will fill out the FAFSA but that I have “No right or need” to know her financial information. Is there anything I can do to get her to talk to me? She won’t even fill out an EFC calculator. She takes me to visit schools that I may not be able to attend because of money and she doesn’t even care. MY EFC will probably be about 15k so i’ll be paying about 20.5k a year counting a max of 5.5k in institutional /federal loans included in the fin aid package. I have no idea what to do.
*</p>
<p>Ok…you really need to provide the right info on your threads so that you’ll get appropriate responses.</p>
<p>You expect to have about a $15k EFC, but your mom won’t pay anything. That’s very important info. That means that your post shouldn’t be saying that you need a lot of financial aid; you need a lot of merit aid. You need nearly a free ride of merit aid. </p>
<p>BTW…do you have a non-custodial parent? If so, then his income will also be considered at some of the schools that you’ve mentioned in other posts. Or does that $15k EFC include your dad’s income? What is he saying about college costs? </p>
<p>BTW…how are you guessing that you have a $15k EFC?</p>
<p>15k EFC includes both parents. We’ve filled out a calculator.</p>
<p>What calculator? One on a school website or just a general FAFSA calculator?</p>
<p>Anyway…since you have an unaffordable EFC, then you really need a very good strategy. It’s ok to apply to a couple of schools and see if you’d get enough need-based aid, but unless you get accepted to Harvard, Yale, Princeton or Stanford, I don’t see how you could have an affordable situation that relies on need based aid.</p>
<p>YOU can only borrow the following amounts (and these will likely already be in your FA pkgs):</p>
<p>5500 frosh
6500 soph
7500 jr
7500 sr</p>
<p>As you can see, you’d have a huge shortfall. From the sounds of it, your parents won’t be co-signing loans, and even if they did, you’d have too much debt…well over $80k in debt. That’s nearly 3X the recommended amount of student loan debt for undergrad.</p>
<p>Note that it is not just college applications that take a lot of time. The financial aid paperwork is a real bear at many schools as well, and often is not consistent. My D applied for FA at only 5 of her schools, and I thought it was a nightmare how many different combinations of tax forms/additional forms the schools wanted and how they wanted them sent. I honestly can’t imaging doing that for 15 schools. :(</p>
<p>I applied to 11 and when the results came in, I regretted applying to even that many. I wish I’d capped it at 7 or 8.</p>