<p>Ripe, on other threads you indicate an interest in applying to the likes of Princeton, Harvard, MIT, Columbia, Cornell…schools that give ONLY need based financial aid. This thread indicates that with your parents’ current assets, you will not qualify for significant need based aid based on an estimated EFC.</p>
<p>How much will your parents contribute to your college education? My impression from this thread and comments made on other threads (e.g. trying to convince your parents that applying to Columbia is worth it in your financial situation) is that your parents are not willing to pay as much as these schools cost. Are they perhaps also encouraging you to look at other, more affordable schools?</p>
<p>Regardless…you should cast a wider net than just schools that will guarantee to meet your full need…whatever that turns out to be. If you have the stats to get accepted to the Ivies and the like, you might also have the stats to garner significant merit aid elsewhere…if that happened, it wouldn’t matter how much money you had in the bank.</p>