<p>I don’t think people are suggesting you get more match schools. I think people are saying you need more safeties. And a safety isn’t a safety unless you can afford it.</p>
<p>I know you have good grades, OP. They are great, but they won’t guarantee admission at the schools you are aiming at. I think you don’t realize how common it is to get top grades. If only the single top student from every high school applied to the colleges on your list, there would still be too much competition and many students would be shut out.</p>
<p>Four times is too many and for schools that don’t honor score choice, it would be problematic.</p>
<p>You can apply to all the schools on your list, but it will take time and money and I think you need to add some safer options. As others have mentioned, whether you get sufficient financial aid often depends on how a school defines your family’s estimated contribution and it seems as if it’s possible that given your parents’ assets, a school might give you less than you actually need. Because of that, you need to have schools where you could either get merit aid or which don’t cost very much to begin with. However, some of those schools might not be very well known and I think that’s something you need to accept - I’m not saying that you won’t get into some of your match/reach schools with sufficient financial aid, but at this point, there’s no way to predict your chances of success.</p>
<p>I think you should add Macaulay Honors Program to your list. The application is due on December 2nd, but as an out-of-state student, I believe if you were accepted, you might have to pay as little as $15,000 per year - all other costs would be picked up by the program (and by the way, you are not a shoe-in for acceptance because it’s a very competitive program). You could apply for the City College campus, which offers free housing and a pretty decent CS program.</p>
<p>You might also consider Stony Brook - very good CS program, total out of state costs of approximately $30,000, but you might qualify for sufficient merit aid</p>
<p>“DePauw I think will serve sufficiently as a safety as the avg finaid was 38k. And I think over 90% of financial need was met. Same sit with the other LAC’s.”</p>
<p>Average financial aid is meaningless. What matters is whether or not your aid package will make the place affordable. Yes, the NPCs might not be very accurate given your family’s situation, but they still will be better than a wild guess.</p>
<p>Meeting 90% of financial need also is meaningless. You could easily be in the 10% of the students who needed aid whose need was not met. Or even if you are within the 90% whose need is met according to the college/university, that doesn’t mean that the package will be affordable to your family.</p>
<p>Lastly, these figures are reported for students who actually end up attending. No one keeps track of the students who decide to not attend once they find out that their aid isn’t good enough.</p>
<p>Go ahead and apply to all of the places on your current list if you want to. But do spend the time to come up with either one or two dead-on safeties that you know for certain you can afford, or draw up a Plan B in case you do end up with a Gap Year because all of your admissions prove unaffordable.</p>
<p>Would this work? Take a gap year to go work in America and qualify for in state at a Uni? UW is great, UC’s are amazing. One kid actually did this. He didnt bother appyling. He just took a gap yr and worked in California for a year. Then got accept</p>
<p>The reason why people are focusing on your SAT CR score and not holistically is because the top schools you’re looking at all receive highly competitive applicants. It’ll be easy to reject someone with “subpar” SAT scores even if grades and ECs are comparable.</p>
<p>I also know students who managed to become CA residents for tuition purposes - but that was long ago. I don’t know the details of the situation there now.</p>
<p>Each state, and sometimes each public CC, college, and university in a state, sets its own policy about in-state status. Read the information at their websites, and find out what you would need to do in order to qualify as a state resident. When it is possible, usually the student is required to live and work in that state for a full 12 months, and to provide evidence that they were self-supporting for that time period.</p>
<p>If you want a small school with CS that is probably safety level for you, you may want to consider South Dakota School of Mines and Technology. It is not that selective and has a low list price, so you may be able to cover its cost with a direct loan and some on-campus work earnings added to the $15,000 per year you have.</p>
<p>Congratulations!
Did they offer any aid (or does that decision come later)?
Can you afford it at the in-state rates (assuming no more aid is coming)?</p>
<p>Getting accepted at in-state tuition level is an AMAZING scholarship, pretty much $30,000 right there!
Congratulations
Can you afford UCB now? If so, you have an amazing school waiting for you.</p>
<p>I didnt get accepted!! Im still applying!! It was a broken post. Read my post before that. I know someone who did by taking a gap year and staying in ca for a year</p>
<p>Shoot, I didn’t realize it was a “broken post”, I thought you’d just received that piece of information
</p>
<p>Well then you’re still where you were before.</p>
<p>Are you still trying to cut down your list or are you fine with the number you currently have? Do you want suggestions for more safeties?
Can you list things according to what you think are your reaches, your matches, and your safeties?</p>
<p>That CR improvement will help you a lot - congratulations! The writing score went up as well. Great job!</p>
<p>You are now in a much better position. But the original reaches are still reaches so make sure to choose a couple of safeties that you can afford and that you would like to attend.</p>
<p>Congratulations on that improvement!
2130 is excellent
You’re now in contention for some schools on your list, but you should definitely add some more matches/safeties.</p>
<p>Someone asked me to post an update on what happened. So for anyone who’s wondering or reading the thread in hopes of taking from experience. I got rejected from a bunch of places; ivys, northwestern, wustl, HMC, usc. Accepted by Grinnell, URochester, CMU, Purdue. And wait listed by Vanderbilt. I chose Grinnell since I’m practically going for free. </p>
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