<p>This is just what we found out. My daughter had good stats, excellent ec's but not top ten percent of her class. We were not suprised that she got merit aid at Elon or the school she is at and nothing at the state schools. In our area we have an avg. house and the only debt is our mortgage. Husband is an engineer, I work part time at a library. Three out of four grandparents attended college. Our son had one hook - he's an Eagle Scout but ended up with just a B avg from HS but did take a fairly rigorous set of classes. Just okay SAT scores. </p>
<p>We did not think we would get any merit or finaid for our son but both my daughters college and Roanoke college offered him quite a bit. Roanoke starts at $33,000. inclusive. He's getting almost $16,000 in grants! He was also offered a work study and we've been told that will probably disappear once his sister graduates next year but the grants are his as long as he keeps a required gpa. This required gpa starts off incredibly low and goes up a couple of percentage points a year. </p>
<p>He was offered a few thousand at Allegheny also. Now Roanoke is not one of the most competitive schools out there but the avg. SAT is 1200 (old SAT) and the avg gpa I think is just over a 3.0. My husband and I were just down there to move him in last weekend and we were impressed with everything we saw. Spotless campus, very friendly students, emphasis on students succeeding academically, morally and socially.</p>
<p>I understand what you are saying cptofthehouse, about finding match and financial safeties. We did the same thing. Millersville and York college were our financial safeties, but it turns out that two of the most expensive schools that he was accepted to were just a few thousand more expensive then then least expensive ones.</p>