Special family circumstances: Chance me for generous schools?!

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

<p>Demographics:
Asian male with total family income in the $0-60,000 bracket. One of my parents had injured themselves severely causing memory loss, pseudo-bipolar disorder and counseling while the other has an inherited disease costing 3k a month in medicine. As a result, family income is tight and what college savings I might have had have gone to paying medical bills. I was banking on the AIMS scholarship but found out that the scholarship only pays 25% of my tuition. A few friends from hs who are now rising frosh in college said the highest available scholarship from ASU and U of A total at 9k but cost of attendance is 24k. I just couldn't afford 15,000 in loans a year so I <em>need</em> to get into an out of state school with generous financial aid. </p>

<p><strong><em>Grades & Scores</em></strong>
ACT: 31 R, 33 E, 32 S, 34 M = 33 composite
SAT II: 700 Bio (M) and 780 Math (2)
List of IB/AP Classes:
-IB: English HL, History HL, Biology HL, Spanish SL, Math Studies SL, Physics SL
-AP: Spanish Literature, Chemistry, Calculus AB
GPA: Unweighted is 4.0, Weighted is 4.394
Class rank: 3/540</p>

<p><strong><em>EC's in Common App order</em></strong>
-Marching Band (4 years, 2 years section leader [max])
-National Honor Society (2 years, 1 year President [max])
-Music 4 Humanity (150 hours of teaching music to underprivileged students. I'm not a very technically skilled musician but I'm passionate and have a strong understanding of music theory so I started the charity at my former elementary school.)
-Pediatric Patient Outreach (180 hours of working with kids with special needs in the ED at the hospital.)
-Classical Piano (12 years)
-Musical Theater (4 years of playing in pit orchestra, doing stage help and performing on stage. I worked my way up from because I had never taken a vocal lesson before and on a whim auditioned for the show.)
-Spanish Honor Society (3 years, 1 year VP)
-Scholar's Bowl (2 years, 2 year Team Captain [max])
-Cross Country (4 years, 1 year varsity)
-Relay For Life (2 years, 2 year Team Captain)</p>

<p><strong><em>Awards</em></strong>
-National Merit Commended Scholar
-Arizona Boy's State: Surgeon General & Dick Auguston Memorial Award.
-Arizona Centennial Honor Band (Performed for the state's 100 birthday, selected out of 20,000 eligible students)
-Arizona Study Program, Piano performance and music theory through level 5 earning "Superior A" ratings.
-Walt Disney Co. "Ears 4 the Arts", invited to perform and record soundtrack instrumentals at the Disneyland sound stage. </p>

<p>Can anyone chance more and/or suggest addition schools that match me for applications? I'm looking at the following schools with ASU's Honor College with some miraculous scholarship as my safety:</p>

<p>Duke ED, Pomona ED2 if rejected, Harvard, Brown, Northwestern, Columbia, Vassar, Stanford, UNC: Chapel Hill, ASU Honors College and Trinity College in Connecticut.</p>

2

<p>Look into Vanderbilt and their Mosaic Scholarship. It’s a diversity scholarship and Asians are not overrepresented there.</p>

3

<p>After some advice from my counselor and other friends I edited my list of colleges and can update a few scores and such. For my IB tests, IB Spanish SL (6) and IB Math Studies SL (6). I also got my schedule back and won’t be able to fit AP Chem into the schedule but idk how much that will affect me. My list of colleges right now is Brown PLME (ED), Emory (ED2), Duke, Pomona, Harvard, Columbia, Stanford, UNC: Chapel Hill, Johns Hopkins, Northwestern, ASU Barrett and University of Rochester. A friend of mine suggested URochester because it’s super IB friendly apparently with credit and scholarships so it would really help with cutting the cost there… Anyway, can anyone chance me? I didn’t get much feed back the first go around :/</p>

4

<p>You should go spend some serious time in the Financial Aid Forum. There you will find several threads on the topic of guaranteed merit aid. Read through those threads for useful ideas about where you can find the money you need.</p>

5

<p>Oh! thanks so much for that: I’m just struggling with those merit scholarships because I’m just under the mark for a lot of the schools by being under 1350 or 1400 :confused: I’m retaking SAT’s though. Do I stand a chance at any of the schools on my list?</p>

6

<p>As for which colleges to apply to, I’m not sure. However, you managed to create an impressive resume despite the hardships you had to overcome. Im sure there are several schools that will offer you generous financial aid. Good luck!</p>