<p>Are your parents willing to pay your application fees? If they aren’t willing to commit to paying your college expenses, and their income is high enough that you won’t be eligible for need-based financial aid, you really need to strongly consider availability of merit aid when selecting which colleges to apply to. If your parents object to this strategy, for now I would suggest to compromise, and apply both to both types of schools - highly selective schools that offer no/little merit aid, and well-regarded engineering schools which do offer significant merit aid. Then, next spring when you know where you have been accepted and your financial packages, then you can make the decision that makes the most sense. (And I really doubt the decision that makes the most sense will be you taking out $250k in loans.)</p>
<p>One thing for you to keep in mind is that as a high stats woman applying for engineering, your odds of getting merit aid are quite good at schools that do offer significant merit aid, and higher than the overall % of students at the school who get merit aid. But you won’t get merit aid at schools that don’t offer merit aid, which is most of the schools on your initial list. </p>