<p>Table Year:
Dependency Status:<br>
Independent Student
Age of Older Parent:<br>
Number in Family:<br>
Number of Children in College:<br>
Student Income:<br>
Student Assets (Business/Farm):<br>
Student Assets (Other):<br>
Parent Income:<br>
Parent Assets (Business/Farm):<br>
Parent Assets (Other):</p>
<p>Using this quick template it said my EFC was ~$20,000</p>
<p>So 1/4 of their income would go to college not including our house payments etc.</p>
<p>COMMUNITY COLLEGE FTW! No just kidding, but that’s a little disappointing seeing as they barely feel like paying for my $5,000 dollars a year of High School even with scholarship :P</p>
<p>Like I said earlier, check out the midwestern LACs-they offer generous financial and merit aid, they are actively seeking students from the coasts to get more geographic diversity, and the culture sounds like a fit for you: Grinnell, Macalester, Carleton and Oberlin.</p>
<p>I LOVE the Claremont schools and if I was a student doing it all over again I’d defintely have gone to one. Many of the Claremonts meet full need (some with loans), that means up to your EFC, or more precisely, up to the EFC the school determines since all private schools can make a different determination.</p>
<p>Try focusing on schools with merit.</p>
<p>Be forewarned, many merit schools will still leave you with a bit of money to pay.</p>
<p>For merit, look at these that give up to full tuition:</p>
<p>Trinty University in TX
Susquehanna ¶
Moravian ¶
Roanoke (VA)</p>
<p>Arcadia in PA is suppose to have increased merit up to full tuition, but I did not see it explicity on their website. Arcadia has almost all students study abroad. </p>
<p>Also, consider a large university like Alabama where you can get into the Honors Programs and have small classes. Alabama does not care about ECs. The Merit Scholoarships are strictly GPA/SAT or ACT.</p>
<p>For a good deal of schools, I don’t think your lack of EC leadership positions will matter. </p>
<p>The schools I listed are purposely below the caliber you want. I do think you can get into higher ranked schools without the ECs being a huge issue, however, to ease the financial issue I suggest you seek schools where you can get full or near full tuition.</p>
<p>Also, check out the book “How to Be a High School Superstar” It discusses high stat kids who did not kill themselves with ECs. Some of the book is over the top to me, but the biggest thing is that it can help ID what smart, non-competitve kids do with their time. How to be “interesting” on the college application without being packaged. So, in addition to searching for schools, also focus some time on evaluating what you have done with your time.</p>
<p>Thanks for all the suggestions it means a lot =) I haven’t run an EFC full-calculator though or done any scholarship hunting, but I will soon. Going to try focusing on some options for EC’s, and if not I do still run at home can I say that I jog as a hobby? And I also spend time making videos, but they are for videogames so that would only hurt me I assume haha!?</p>
<p>Some smaller schools (like LACs) will want to know not only if you’d succeed in the classroom, but also how you would contribute to the campus community. If you feel weak in the EC department, you might want to concentrate on larger schools that might not care as much.</p>
<p>Vossron is right. Consider too, if you are an introvert, whether you want small classes with people you know and faculty who you can drop by to chat with (a very personalized environment) - or prefer the anonymity of the lecture hall.</p>
<p>I also want to second St. Mary’s. Great school in a lovely location.</p>
<p>Final comment: Jogging is a hobby but not one that will enable them to say ‘yes, he/she is really going to contribute to student life around here.’ Find one, or at most two, things that you want to put some serious time into - they don’t have to be school clubs either. You can get a job, do an internship, develop your artistic talent in an area, do research - there are many options that will not require you to suffer through ‘group’ activities.</p>
<p>You might find it reassuring to read the thread on “hidden ECs”. Don’t discount the job you are doing and the lessons you have learned there. The thread talks about activities like cooking for the family, or taking care of siblings, or reading all of an author’s books, as activities that can be discussed as ECs on your application.
Note that these activities you do because they matter to you are worth more in admissions that signing up for clubs as a senior.</p>