<p>Let me give a bit of background info. My bio parents are divorced, and both of them remarried. I live with my mother and stepfather, who is a psychiatrist who earns 200k+ each year, and together, their income exceeds 250k. My stepfather has tried to get my mom to agree to let him pay for my college, but my mom won't let him. So, in essence, I can't get financial aid due to the high income bracket, but my college would essentially be handled by my mother, who makes about 20k a year. My father, however, will probably be making <100k a year, and has a wife who doesn't work. My question is, can I take a gap year between my senior year and my first year of college and go live with my father? I talked to the FAFSA people, and they said that "the parent with whom you've lived with for a majority of the past 12 months is the one who you need to list on the FAFSA application." So, if I go live with my father for a year, I'll be putting his income on the FAFSA application, right?</p>
<p>Also, if I apply to a college in my senior year and am accepted, can I put off attending until the next year? As in, say I apply to college in 2015-2016 and am accepted. Do I have to attend the college in the fall of 2016, or can I attend in the fall of 2017?</p>
<p>Just because your dad earns a lot less, his income is still to high for a Pell Grant, so depending on where you go to school, you still may not get much aid. Most schools don’t have much aid to give.</p>
<p>Where would you apply if you moved? </p>
<p>Does your mom understand that her stubborness may prevent you from going to college???</p>
<p>I know of more than one family where the mom’s entire pre-tax income has gone to pay for the child’s education for each year that child was in college. If your mom is willing to let your step-dad support her for four years, she could commit her earnings to your education. If she thinks of it that way, maybe it won’t feel like your step-dad is “paying” for your education at all.</p>
<p>My mom is willing to pay ~20k a year, but I still need about 20-25k more for most of the colleges I’ll apply to. (She earns about 20k annually)</p>
<p>My mother encourages me to get merit scholarships and pushes me to do so, but the top 20 schools don’t all offer merit aid, and the ones that do are highly competitive. </p>
<p>I’d essentially finish high school, take a gap year and move to NYC to live with my father, and then attend college. My second question is, can I apply to college in my senior year (I’m class of 2016) and attend it in the fall of 2017?</p>
<p>If your mom will pay $20,000 a year…and you take,the $5500 Direct loan, you should be able to cover the cost of attending an instate public university in your state. It sounds like you are looking at either private schools or OOS public universities.</p>
<p>You CAN attend college in your home state, probably, on $25,500 a year…plus whatever you earn at your summer job.</p>
<p>You have some affordable options. Perhaps you can consider those as well.</p>
<p>Your posting history is unusual. You say you are a rising high school sophomore…but did you really take the ACT without writing and get a 36? Please let me know if I have this correct…or if I misunderstood a post. You also say you are top in your class and school. Is this true?</p>
<p>If this is true, your mom is right…you could be in the running for some merit awards IF your sophomore and junior years continue to be strong.</p>
<p>Yes, but I really want to go to a top 20. I’ve dreamed of going to Johns Hopkins or Duke for as long as I can remember, and getting into Harvard, Yale, Vandy, or Emory won’t hurt either :P</p>
<p>My home state schools will probably be really low safeties.</p>
<p>Yeah, I did. I find the ACT really easy when compared to the SAT, so I just took that after a few months of prep. Sadly, I didn’t take the writing, so I have to retake it this year.</p>
<p>As for the second one, yeah. My school is not very competitive.</p>
<p>Johns Hopkins, Duke, Yale, Vandy, Emory and Harvard are ALL Profile schools. They will require financial information from your mom and stepdad, and dad and stepmom…all of them. It won’t matter who you live with. These are private schools and they use info from everyone via the Profile for your custodial parent and spouse, and the non-custodial Profile for your non-custodial parent and spouse.</p>
<p>So…moving from one parent to another won’t make a speck of difference to these schools who will want the income and assets of BOTH of your parents…and their spouses.</p>
<p>You may have to dream a new dream as almost all of these schools will look at everyone’s income and assets (mom, stepdad, dad, stepmom) to determine if you have a financial need. Between the 2 households, we are talking about $350k, which probably won’t net you need based aid at Harvard/Yale.</p>
<p>If you have the stats for these schools, you need look at schools where there is the possibility of merit money. You need to also sit down and talk to both sets of parents to find out how much they are willing to pay/borrow for you to attend school.</p>
<p>Run the net price calculator separately for each family and then add the 2 together to get an idea as to what your EFC will be.</p>
<p>Dear God, that sucks. I guess the only option for me is to aim for merit aid. Hopefully I can win at some level in Intel ISEF, ISTS, GSF, or Siemens.</p>
<p>And yeah, I did. It wasn’t hard, honestly. The English section was laughably easy, the math only covered up to trig, but the reading and science were a bit hard to time manage. I mean, reading numerous passages and answering questions based on them in 35 minutes is a lot to ask, in my opinion.</p>
<p>And the science was really hard for me to time manage. I had to practice science a lot to get it under 35 mins.</p>
<p>Not wishi g to be a stinker…but on another thread you inquire about how long ACT and SAT scores are valid…and say you plan to take the tests in October this year…your sophomore year. But you already TOOK the ACT (yes, I know you didn’t take the writing).</p>
<p>I plan to retake the ACT this October with the writing portion. I was under the impression that ACT scores only stay valid for three years and just wanted to clarify whether I could use a combination of my freshman year subscores and my sophomore year writing score in my common app or whether I would have to use both sets of subscores from this year. The reason I took the ACT in my 9th grade was simply because my mom pushed me to. </p>
<p>As for SAT II, I took two of them already, and the third, I plan to take this year. I was wondering whether I would have to retake the two I took previously, because I heard that the SAT II scores are only valid for three years.</p>
<p>In retrospect, I should probably stop talking to my sister about standardized testing validity.</p>
<p>Your previous ACT score will be valid. However, you are looking for merit aid, correct? In many cases, the scores from a single sitting are used for merit award consideration, not super scoring, or sections from one sitting and sections from another. So…you want to do well on the WHOLE ACT again…not just the writing.</p>
<p>To be honest, I’m not sure why you are concentrating your efforts on these standardized tests in your sophomore year. At this point, you should continue your strong courses, and then REALLY prep for the PSAT your JUNIOR year as that is the one that matters for NMS consideration. Being a NMSF could open the door on some scholarships at certain schools.</p>
<p>Also, there was an article in the NY Times today about possible changes in the SAT prior to your senior year. Check it out.</p>
<p>As already mentioned, the schools you are considering will use their own calculators that will take into account all parites (both parents and steps) financials. The only thing you MIGHT gain is in state rates at some state schools by making the move, and you even have to check out each school’s particular rules for that carefully.</p>
<p>The FAFSA calculators will give you a lower EFC when you are with your father, but none of the schools you mention use that to give out their own money. All that will guarantee you is some subsidy on the student Direct loan (on $3500 freshman year) if you don’t get other aid. Also gives you access to workstudy funds. At the level you report, hardly likely you’ d qualify for PELL which is pretty much for the lowest incomes or the SEOG and Perkins loans which go to PELL recipients first.</p>
<p>The OP is correct, some schools only accept the ACT or SAT if it was taken within the last 3 years. I ran into this with my DD when I wanted her to take the ACT freshman year to qualify for dual enrollment courses. Our state university accepts test scores only from the last 3 years so if DD took it her freshman year, she’d have to test again later.</p>