<p>Hey all,</p>
<p>I would like some schools that might be a good fit for me.</p>
<p>I am a white male in Washington state
I have fairly strong financial need (Hopefully room&board + tuition each year will not exceed 15k after aid), 70K taxable family income with brother in college.</p>
<p>I intend on majoring in Electrical Engineering.
I don't NEED to stay near home, but I would rather stay close to the west coast. I am open to other options though.</p>
<p>Junior
SAT: 2190 (760 CR, 710 M, 720 W)
GPA: 3.63 (Very strong upward trend- 2.95, 3.57, 3.62, 4.0, 4.0, anticipated 4.0 for second semester of this year)
AP: My school doesn't have very many AP classes. They offer 9 or 10 total and I will have taken 7 by the time I graduate. I got a 3 on AP World and I think I will get a 4 or 5 on APUSH and 5 on Stats this year. </p>
<p>ECs:
-100 Hours of Volunteering at local children's museum (may be getting job there soon)
-20-30 Hours of volunteering through service club (officer of club)
-National Honor Society next year
-Leadership club that puts on several events throughout the school year including freshman orientation
-Robotics class this summer
-4 Years of private lessons for drums and saxophone
-Volunteering at library this summer
-French Club member
-GPA award and increase in GPA award</p>
<p>I know I am not the same caliber as many of the posters on CC, but I would like some recommendations. I am aware my GPA is fairly weak but I am hoping that having a 4.0 for the past 3 semesters will save me a bit. </p>
<p>Could you guys also chance me for the University of Washington and University of Southern California?</p>
<p>Take a look at Gonzaga. You’d most likely get merit aid to bring the costs down to a manageable level. To up your chances, visit and have a meeting with an admissions counselor, and apply early action.</p>
<p>Lots of Pacific Northwest kids end up in the engineering departments at South Dakota School of Mines & Technology in Rapid City. We know an engineer whom graduated from Mines last week and is headed to a top ten engineering graduate school this fall.</p>
<p>I’ve posted here many times about SDSM&T. Search and also check the school’s website for more information.</p>
<p>By the way, Mines is about a 2.5 flight from Seattle (obviously shorter from Eastern Washington). Connections through Denver or Minneapolis. Driving from Seattle to Rapid City can be done in 10 hours or less.</p>
<p>@LakeWashington Thank you for the suggestion! I will definitely look into it
@AmicaMom I’ve been to eastern Washington and it’s not particularly interesting to me but I will definitely look into Gonzaga. Thanks!</p>
<p>Your Stats are good but nothing guaranteed. Both University of Washington and University of Southern California seems like great matches.
I will add the following to your list: (Caltec, Carnegie Mellon, Rice, John Hopkins, Northwestern, U of Minnesota-twin cities, U of Wisconsin Madison Etc.),
Best of luck to you.</p>
<p>Private schools in other states may possibly offer you more financial aid than public universities where you would be an out-of-state applicant. Investigate these possibilities: U of Portland, Saint Louis University, Illinois Institute of Technology, Case Western Reserve University.</p>
<p>Alabama would give you free tuition for your stats. You would also get an extra 2500 per year from engineering. Remaining costs would be under $15k…and this would be for the Honors dorms with private bedrooms.</p>
<p>alabama has a new mega-sized Science and Engineering Complex…gorgeous and state of the art. The campus is beautiful and immaculately kept.</p>
<p>your stats would qualify for the Honors College…and also would likely qualify for the STEM MBA program which a number of high stats engg students are doing.</p>
<p>this would be a good financial safety for you, since the aid is assured for stats.</p>
<p>with two in college, not sure if you would qualify for a Pell Grant. what is your brother’s current EFC? </p>
<p>can your parents really pay $15k per child with that income? How much do your parents pay for your brother? Do you have college savings?</p>
<p>Did you do Running Start? </p>
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<p>does your family have a business or is self-employed? If so, then the CSS schools will add back in some deductions. </p>
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<p>All of these colleges would be reaches, I think CalTech is a high reach. OP, you need to run the net price calculators on the financial aid pages of the websites for all the schools you are considering. If your parents are divorced, own a small business, or have rental property, that would make the calculator overestimate your aid.</p>
<p>@ccco2018 I was under the impression that almost all of those were reaches for me.
@LakeWashington Thank you very much for the suggestions. I’ve visited UP and liked it. I will definitely look more into the rest.
@mom2collegekids That seems like a great safety. Thank you! </p>
<p>@mom2collegekids and @intparent
I realize I was probably not clear with my financial situation. My parents are not married but live together, one makes ~70k and the other is retired on social security. My brother is a junior in college so he will be graduating college when I graduate high school. My mom says she thinks the EFC was between 8-10k. I’ll have about 20k for college as it stands right now and I wouldn’t want to be more than 40k in debt so I was taking 5k of the college fund for each year and adding it to 10k in loans. Obviously, I will try and apply for as many scholarships as possible to make it easier.</p>
<p>You don’t just want to run the FAFSA EFC calculator, colleges don’t usually go by that. You need to run the net price calculator from each school. I assume you will need to include both parent’s income, too, for most of the schools. </p>
<p>You personally can’t borrow $10K/year. You are only eligible yourself to take out a total of $27,000 over four years ($5,500 freshman year, $6,500 sophomore year, and $7,500 junior and senior year). You have to take out loans with a co-signer or have your parents take out loans beyond that.</p>
<p>@intparent Does the Social Security really count much? It’s the only money my parent receives. And yes I was aware of the limit, I would take parent-plus loans after that.</p>
<p>Depending on the school, it will count. You need to follow the rules when plugging info into the net price calculator., and you can generally look at the financial aid forms required by the school as well to tell for sure. If you are confused after looking at them, post your questions on the Financial Aid & Scholarships forum – there are some super knowledgeable parents out there who can help you.</p>
<p>And YOU won’t take Parent-Plus loans, I believe your parents will. They will have to qualify for those loans, too.</p>
<p>If will count but if that’s all the money she receives, your EFC will be zero nevertheless.
However, few schools meet 100% need for EFC0 students. They’re all very to highly selective.
This is a website for first gen students which presents a list of them:
<a href=“Colleges with Need-Blind Admission for U.S. Students”>Colleges with Need-Blind Admission for U.S. Students;
Note that some offer financial aid packages without loans.</p>
<p>Can anyone suggest some more financial safeties? </p>
<p>Go to the financial aid forum and look at the pinned threads at the top. You would get some good merit aid among some of the schools listed.</p>
<p>Look at the Western Undergraduate Exchange. You can get instate tuition for OOS public schools.</p>