<p>Kathryn…before you go any further, you need to ask your parents how MUCH they’ll spend each year.</p>
<p>VERY few parents will pay high OOS rates when there is a good instate option. Those OOS schools do not give financial aid to OOS students and give little or no merit aid. </p>
<p>If your parents won’t pay the $40k+ per year for these OOS schools than this discussion is moot.</p>
<p>If you still want to go OOS, then find out what your budget is, then find schools that will give you large merit for your stats. </p>
<p>What is your GPA and test scores?</p>
<p>Virtually all flagships (and really most schools) are “party schools”. Anytime you get 18-22 year olds together, you get parties (unless it’s a bible school).</p>
<p>For costs, my parents aren’t able to pay much at all so I will have a lot of loans that I’ll be paying off when I start working after college. But I don’t want this to limit me to cheap schools where I won’t have a great time or get a great education</p>
<p>For stats I have a 3.9 unweighted gpa and last year when I took the act without any prep I only got a 28 due to running out of time quite badly on 3 sections. I just retook and still had a little time issues on two sections but a very reasonable guess would be a 31. Top 10% of class, a lot of honors and APs</p>
<p>As for the partying part, I realize all big schools are party schools and that’s fine I’m just hoping to go somewhere people will want to do other things too. It’d be nice to be able to find some friends that don’t drink. At some schools it seems like it would be too overwhelming and hard to find something to do with anyone if it doesn’t involve alcohol</p>
<p>Your plans are not realistic. You cannot possibly borrow enough to pay out-of-state rates at those schools, and it would be foolhardy to do it if you could. Your stats are nowhere near high enough to get a substantial merit aid package from any of them. You need to build your application strategy around a set of schools where your have a realistic chance of acceptance and the ability to pay for.</p>
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<p>“A lot” (more than the subsidized Stafford loan limit of $23,000 for four years) of loans is not a good idea.</p>
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<p>To keep debt down to reasonable amounts, you really should strongly consider:</p>
<ul>
<li>In-state public schools like The Ohio State University. They tend to have better financial aid than out of state public universities.</li>
<li>Safety-level big merit scholarship schools like those listed in <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/1348012-automatic-full-tuition-full-ride-scholarships.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/1348012-automatic-full-tuition-full-ride-scholarships.html</a> (you may want to see if you can raise your ACT/SAT score for better ones). Many of the full (out of state) tuition ones leave a remaining cost of attendance of around $10,000 to $15,000 per year.</li>
<li>Reach-level big merit scholarships like Park at NCSU, President’s at Georgia Tech, etc. (but you likely need a much higher ACT/SAT score to be competitive).</li>
<li>Private schools with generous financial aid. However, most of these tend to be highly competitive.</li>
<li>If your parents can pay up to about $25,000 per year, then many of the schools listed in <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/1294383-less-expensive-list-price-less-obvious-schools-attract-good-students.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/1294383-less-expensive-list-price-less-obvious-schools-attract-good-students.html</a> should be in reach with just subsidized Stafford loans or good summer job or internship earnings.</li>
<li>If they can pay up to about $20,000 per year, then they could be in reach with subsidized Stafford loans and good summer job or internship earnings – but that would be a risk, since good summer jobs or internships are not guaranteed.</li>
</ul>
<p>Try the net price calculator at each school’s web site to get an idea of need based financial aid. Then check to see what kind of large merit scholarships are available to you.</p>