<p>Agree with Erin’s Dad here. Since your EFC is $0, you absolutely cannot afford to assume that any particular college will magically meet all of your need. So you will need to look for * financial safeties * as well as academic safeties.</p>
<p>Start with colleges that meet full need with little or no loans for students with great financial need. [At all but the most well endowed, you should expect colleges to put maximum amounts of Stafford loans into your need-based aid package.] These are worth applying to since * if you get in, you will be able to afford them*. The problem, of course, is that the schools on this list will not be academic safeties: In other words, you cannot expect to solve the “how to pay for college” problem by assuming you’ll get into one of these colleges.</p>
<p>So you also need to look very carefully at your state publics, even if they are not as good of a fit for you. On April 1, they may be the only ones that are really financially affordable. Also investigate whether your state has any need-based grant aid as well and how much you are likely to qualify for. Investigate the rules for that aid: In some states, the state aid can only be used at in-state public colleges; in others the rules are more relaxed.</p>
<p>And then continue to look at schools in that 40–100 USNRW range:</p>
<p>At least a few of them do promise to meet full need for all students (although they’ll do it with full Stafford loans and maybe Perkins loans as well). For example, St. Olaf is somewhere around #49 or 50 on the USNWR list of national LACs and promises to meet full-need, but they will put in maximum Stafford loans and possibly Perkins loans into your need-based FA package.</p>
<p>But many of the schools in the 40–100 range practice what’s known as “preferential packaging”—in other words, if they really want a high stat applicant, they’ll be more likely to meet most or all of that student’s need with institutional grant aid and Stafford loans, but if a particular student’s stats are in the middle of the pack of their typical students or below, then the student may well have Parent PLUS loans as part of their “aid” or a major gap between their “need” and their “aid”.</p>
<p>So my advice is: Cast your net pretty wide and include at least one or two sure fire financial as well as academic safeties that you are willing to go to if the FA news on April 1 is not good. Include at least a couple of academic reaches/high matches that are known to meet full need without putting (major amounts of) loans into the need-based FA package. And include several academic low matches/safeties with decent merit money available that *may * be financially affordable [if you’re lucky] because the college really wants you because your stats are far enough above the norm for the college.</p>
<p>And do NOT fall in love with a school that does promise to meet full need: You will want to carefully compare all the FA packages after you get them and then select the best match from those schools whose FA packages make the school genuinely affordable for you.</p>
I’m not over-stressing about it though because I’m willing to take out loans and I’ve always known they wouldn’t be able to contribute much if any. I have accepted that I will have college loans. I haven’t been looking at colleges based on price, but rather how good the schools financial aid is, if they have a need-blind admissions policy, etc. With that said, does anyone know of some schools that have excellent financial aid that would be good matches for me?</p>