<p>Agree with Mom2 regarding cars. But your stats justify aiming high. Chicago and Rice both have excellent financial aid. The residential college system at Rice has to be seen to be fully appreciated. Although Davidson is not a safety, you will be statistically near the top of the stack. Others in your region that are “safer” for a very strong applicant, though not sure bets include Emory and Wake. Perhaps not not a Ferrari but at least a well-equipped BMW. UNC is your safety.</p>
<p>At schools which use the PROFILE (or their own financial documentation) your father’s income will be considered. That will make it tougher to get good FA. Any chance you are a NMF?</p>
<p>An earlier poster mentioned Oxy and St. Olaf as being 100% need-based. To me that means they offer no merit aid. Both are generous with merit aid. St Olaf allows some stacking, even better, and if the really want you St. Olaf will give you a preferred package. Carleton is also generous in FA. Of the need-only schools it offered my D the best FA.</p>
<p>
I can see that the ambiguity of my phrasing confused you. They are “100% need” schools, meaning that they are pledged to meet all the need an admitted student has above the calculated EFC (sometimes with loans). This does not preclude merit scholarships, although some schools committed to this approach do not offer them. Oxy and St. Olaf do, however, as you rightly point out.</p>
<p>But the link I provided would be a good one for the OP to pay attention to. The schools listed at 100% should award him financial aid up to his EFC. (There is, of course, room for difference in how the EFC is calculated.)</p>
<p>Eyeballing the list you cite as “catching your eye”, inglenook, I would hazard an estimate that Lewis & Clark, Hendrix, and probably Case Western could be considered “sure bets” for you.</p>
<p>Are you male or female? If female, you could look at some of the women’s colleges as safeties. If male, there are some admissions advantages at some of the now co-ed former women’s colleges trying to maintain a reasonable male/female ratio, such as Vassar.</p>
<p>If you want a similar engaged student edgy feel, Oberlin and Wesleyan are right up there. If you want a great small school but not edgy, consider Washington & Lee. It gives something like 40 full merit scholarships. Tulane gives substantial scholarship. But I would seriously consider applying to state schools like mich, wisc, maryland and others. Many of the state schools give substantial scholarships to attract the top kids. I thought Grinnell also was a good recommendation</p>
<p>If you’re male, check out Deep Springs College, which is free and accepts students with your stats. It is a VERY unusual place but perfect and lifechanging for some students. Springers attend DS for 2 or 3 years and then typically transfer to one of the Ivies, UC, or Berkeley to finish their undergraduate education.</p>
<p>UC IS Berkeley. Maybe you meant UCLA.</p>
<p>^</p>
<p>UC = University of California</p>
<p>Berkeley = Cal</p>
<p>U of C = University of Chicago</p>
<p>Isn’t that what I said, more or less? The poster said UC, I said UC = Berkeley. the poster did not say U of C.</p>
<p>I don’t understand your post anyway, RML. UC = University of California = Cal = Berkeley. Right?</p>
<p>^ There are quite a few UCs, right? (UCLA, UCSD, etc.) There is only one UC Berkeley (a.k.a. Berkeley, UC Berkeley, Cal Berkeley, or simply Cal). </p>
<p>I interpreted jingle’s “UC” in context as a reference to the UofC (Chicago), which is a popular target school for Deep Springs alumni.</p>
<p>tk21769 - There are quite a few UC schools, but it is well understood on here (I thought) that just saying UC refers to the flagship school, Berkeley, also known as Cal. Otherwise people say the specific school (UCLA, UCSD, etc.) or refer to the “UC schools”. UC as an abbreviation for Chicago is not common unless the context has been clearly established in prior threads. Kind of like USC, pretty much always taken as So. Cal, not South Carolina. UM is Michigan, not Missouri (MU), or Mississippi, or Montana, not to mention a few others (UMass, anyone?).</p>
<p>also from California here, and sorry to disagree FC, but UC doesn’t refer to Cal. Cal refers to Cal, UC is just the system as opposed to CalStates.</p>
<p>OK, maybe it is just me that if someone says “I go to The University of California”, they mean Berkeley. Maybe no one says that anymore because of the confusion it could cause, but it used to be pretty clear because people at UCLA always said UCLA, etc. Times change, I will concede to more knowledgeable authorities.</p>