<p>dpsjss, </p>
<p>Your daughter seems like a very good student and you should be proud of her achievements. Despite your financial situation, you will find many excellent options for her.</p>
<p>First off, is she willing to consider a women’s college? They offer a small, intimate environment that is very personalized, and they tend to be very intellectual. Look at Smith, Mount Holyoke, Barnard, Wellesley, and Scripps. They are all top-notch institutions and I believe that many offer merit aid.</p>
<p>Next, do not rule of schools with extremely generous financial aid. Two schools that may work for your daughter are Williams and Amherst, both liberal arts colleges with huge endowments and generous financial aid offerings. Run your numbers through their calculators (they should come out to be about the same) and see what happens. Your daughter could also apply to Harvard, Yale, and Princeton, which also have great aid even for people who wouldn’t normally receive it. Specifically look into Yale (there is a lot of extracurricular involvement there, and it is quite intellectual) as well as Princeton, which has an undergrad focus. Harvard seems to be more grad-focused, though it’s still a great school.</p>
<p>Then, you should look into schools that would have possible merit scholarships. As others have mentioned, Grinnell has many merit scholarships, as well as Washington and Lee. Many schools have competitive merit scholarships, and I’d recommend looking at LACs ranked 20 and beyond to find most of them.</p>
<p>After this, you may want to apply to schools with automatic scholarships. Though these schools tend to be large public schools, many offer competitive honors colleges. A few users posted links to such scholarships already on this thread. These are important to fall back on if all else goes wrong.</p>
<p>Finally, make sure that you apply to an instate public school. For example, Purdue has an honors program, which tend to feature small classes and intellectual students. Indiana University and Ball State University also have honors colleges.</p>
<p>My last piece of advice for you is to have your daughter apply for local scholarships for students with certain stats, extracurriculars, and talents. Many scholarships can also be gained through essay contests. You could win a couple thousand dollars if you really put effort into such scholarships. </p>
<p>Just remember that the guaranteed scholarships and instate options may be necessary. However, I hope that somehow you can find a way to afford the institution that your daughter wants to go to. I’m sure she’ll do great things in life regardless of where she goes to school.</p>