<p>The calculator said I’d only get 5,600 a year in finaid.</p>
<p>That leaves something like $30K for your family to supply. Gapping is not meeting financial need. Can your family afford $30K/year?</p>
<p>Certainly not but what I’m getting out of it is priceless. I want to go to an HBCU or women’s college, so that leaves my 5 at Spelman Wellesley Smith Howard and Yale because my mom wants me to (it’s ten minutes away from my house & she thinks I’ll fit in.) we’ll be doing final visitations over April break and the summer.</p>
<p>There are dozens/hundreds of articles on the subject of too much debt, on the web at large and in college confidential. I’m not going to look up links, but you really REALLY need to. You DON’T want to start out as a young unemployed adult with $150,000 in student loan debt. You and your mom seem to have a rose-colored view of the issue, but it’s real and it’s bad and it’s scary. </p>
<p>It would cripple your finances for too long to have a small house worth of debt at age 23 and unemployed. Good luck. <a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/29/your-money/student-loans/29money.html[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/29/your-money/student-loans/29money.html</a></p>
<p>You have a much better chance at Wellesley if you can raise your SAT around 150-200 points, and then you’d probably also get STRIDE at Smith (20k merit scholarship and two years of research with professor of your choice). As is, you’d definitely get into Smith, just probably wouldn’t get STRIDE.</p>
<p>I agree that you shouldn’t apply anywhere ED no matter what, just EA and RD.</p>
<p>Geekmom63 I know all too much about debt, well my mother does more than I do. She says she knows what it’s going to take…and I’d rather go to an HBCU than anywhere else. But thank you for the article it was very informative. </p>
<p>Wanton- that’s what I’m shooting for, I’m trying to break 2100 in May and do well on the SAT subject tests. I think I’ve heard about STRIDE… not sure. We have to visit Smith this summer, we visited four school so far and none of them are in my final list 
but thanks and I’ll look into that</p>
<p>Speaking of HBCUs, have you considered North Carolina Central University? Not a bad liberal arts program at all. Plus, they participate in a cross-registration arrangement with U of NC-Chapel Hill and Duke University.</p>
<p>The only HBCUs I’ve looked at are Howard, Spelman, and hampton. I’ll look into it but I do like the first two. </p>
<p>Regarding PP about being $30000 a year in debt with going to Spelman, the other schools’ scholarships (like STRIDE) offer $15000 off… Which leaves us to pay around $35-40000</p>
<p>Bear in mind, some of the other schools may be more generous with financial aid (need-based) than Spelman, and if you are fortunate enough to get merit and need-based, the net result might be lower cost of attendance.</p>
<p>However, I don’t think Smith gives out all that many Stride scholarships…it’s not something you could count on.</p>
<p>I would add more schools that would be likely to give you merit aid and/or more schools that are known to meet full financial need w/out ‘gapping’. There are some threads in the financial aid forum on these topics that might be helpful.</p>
<p>Did you look at Agnes Scott? Women’s college in Georgia. They give some great aid, if you get your SAT up a hair I think you’d qualify for some guaranteed aid…just an idea, since you said you like women’s colleges. I’ve heard good things about it.</p>
<p>thanks paperplane. but i don’t want to add schools just because of that. i undertand the financial aspect of what you all are saying, but i’ve been a lot of places that i don’t like that give good aid. for example, MIT. if your parents make under 75,000 a year they give you a full ride. but i hated MIT, although i’m an engineering buff. on a previous post that Erin’s Dad made, MIT along with MHC, columbia, wellesley, and yale were all said to have met the full need of their students. i don’t know if that’s still enough, because what a college thinks you can pay and what you KNOW you can pay are two totally different things.</p>