TANGENT
I mentioned it because the OP wants top tier/prestige and didn’t seem to regard the information posted by the experienced adults on this site. I REALLY DON’T LIKE posting my personal information. For some crazy reason, some kids need to see it, to “believe” it. It gets tiring.
Wherever the OP attends, she needs to have investigated in realistic and valid information from the schools via written, virtual, or personal means .
EECS is relevant in this case because she believes she is being tracked. You didn’t read the full post.
Another thing to understand. Many colleges will not award need based aid to fund your family contribution.
But this is why we are suggesting you run the net price calculators. Some colleges have deeper pockets and they will calculate your need to be higher if your income is below a certain threshold. They use institutional (the college’s money) to provide what they determine is your need based aid.
And again…merit awards will be independent of family finances, others in college, etc. and the new FAFSA guidelines.
your EECS first mention came at the end of your bragging paragraph, without any explanation, getting into an EECS program is a great accomplishment but the only reason to bring it up in thread where the OP has only expressed an interest in pre-med, is to brag about it.
Yes, the residency opportunity is unique to Utah; your parents do not have to move there. It’s an excellent flagship university and you could get great merit, especially if you do well on the SAT/ACT. The only thing you can’t do is take the WUE reciprocity discount in the first year, if you want to transition to in-state for years 2-4. You have to choose between WUE and the path to residency. And getting residency requires you to spend the summer after freshman year in Utah. (No further restrictions on time spent out of state, once you’ve established residency.)
Here is the Utah costs of attendance. The OP would need to figure out if they could afford even the instate cost of attendance if they pay OOS that first year.
OP, have you received any notification or has your GC talked about ELC (top 9% of high school), given you’re at the top of your class, you should be eligible for it, meaning guaranteed admission at a UC, though not necessarily the ones you want. You may also be eligible for the statewide guarantee (top 9% of state) as they’re not using test scores this year. This may not help in affording a UC, but hopefully with admissions.
If you have all As - truly all As - you can’t beat Arizona for merit aid - $35K off $37K and they guarantee tuition all four years. Has a good Honors College too.
The other thing to note is that, while colleges use FAFSA and/or CSS Profile, they can choose to use the information therein to calculate their financial aid however they want. For example, a college that uses only FAFSA does not necessarily have to use the government’s FAFSA EFC formula for anything, and a college that also uses CSS Profile may calculate differently from some other college that also uses CSS Profile.
Since you’re female, you might think about gunning for merit at Mt. Holoyke, which gives up to full tuition scholarships. It’s part of the 5-college consortium, so you’d have access to classes and resources at UMass Amherst, Amherst College, Smith, and Hampshire as well. It’s a high reach to get the large merit awards, of course, but admissions are holistic and your story and high motivation may resonate. Also consider Agnes Scott College in Atlanta, which is a great women’s college that has cross-registration with others in the area including Emory.
Have you looked at Weber Honors College at SDSU? It has its own Residential College and there are honors-specific scholarships as well. I don’t think it would be as much of a compromise as you assume.
That’s a ridiculous reply. “I havent read the details of this conversation but you are all wrong.”
It is not a rumor the the new FAFSA law will hurt twins like me badly.
My father is a UC professor and we both know that the UC system will be out of reach for me once the FAFSA kicks in, if it wasn’t already.
Your reams of advice seem to be responding to someone who is not me and didn’t say all the things you are responding to.
Yes I’m sure I can get into a UC. That’s not the problem. It’s that I can’t afford them. My GC said my chances might be better that I can get some merit aid from private colleges, but I have doubts about how I stack up in heavy competition, hence leading off with the FL question.
If you are not eligible for needed based aid, you should apply to less selective schools that will give you merit for your GPA. There are plenty of valedictorians with high test scores who go to in state flagships for this reason.