<p>I think UC-Berkeley is sort of an outrageously bad deal for an OOS student. Non-resident tuition and fees is around $32K and room and board is $14K, so we’re looking at $46K per <em>year</em> for a public university (however fantastic) and that’s not even including other living expenses, books, transportation, etc.</p>
<p>National Hispanic Recognition Program is sponsored by the same program as National Merit. If she’s designated herself as a Hispanic student on her PSAT, then she’s eligible for National Hispanic and National Merit. I was a National Merit Commended Student, but a National Achievement Finalist (which is the African American version). However, that depends on how she identifies herself - if she identified herself as Asian or “other” she may not have been counted at eligible.</p>
<p>Honestly, UGA’s deal is going to be hard to beat - free tuition, fees, and a book allowance; room and board is only ~$8,000 a year there. So she’d either have to find a school that’s lower and/or equal to UGA that costs her parents less than $8,000 a year out of pocket, OR she’d have to find a school that’s acceptably more prestigious in her parents’ eyes to warrant shelling out the big bucks. There are some schools (a lot actually) that I’ve seen suggested that are worth the extra bux, but I don’t know if I’d pay full pay at Tulane or Brandeis instead of going to UGA with essentially no student debt and very little yearly burden on my parents, you know what I mean? I can sort of see her parents’ point.</p>