Read for merit: Are there ANY colleges on this list that may be more generous with financial aid?

[Tigerwife92]

I found kevinfromoc’s thread interesting when D20 was applying and chasing merit; they had similar stats and some overlapping schools. His daughter was chasing merit as well. Although many schools weren’t a good match for DD, there’s some good info in here that may help your S22. [Edited to add; his summary of the process/outcomes starts at post 1579]

Looking for advice in Merit aid for a top 1% student

I’m sure this will come as a shock to a lot of people here but college is ridiculously expensive (yes, I’m sarcastic by nature). My daughter is graduating in 2020, and we are looking for schools to apply to, with the concern not being which colleges she will get accepted to, but instead which colleges we can afford. Most college calculators tell us our EFC is anywhere form $30K to 40K per year, which is about 1/3 of our after tax income and more than double our annual mortgage payment. There’s no way we can afford that, and there’s no way we’re taking out loans and mortgaging our (or our daughter’s) future to cover that cost. We need that number to be around $15K. Fortunately, it looks like our daughter will qualify for merit aid, so we are targeting schools with generous merit aid that also have great engineering programs (right now she’s looking to major in Chemical Engineering). I’m hoping to get advice from folks who have gotten merit aid and/or can offer suggestions on schoo…