<p>“At the end of the day we’re going to have to “suck it up” and pay.”</p>
<p>depends totally on where she applies and more importantly, is accepted.</p>
<p><a href=“https://fafsa.ed.gov/FAFSA/app/f4cForm?execution=e1s1[/url]”>https://fafsa.ed.gov/FAFSA/app/f4cForm?execution=e1s1</a></p>
<p>Figure out your expected family contribution (efc). This is usually a number that tells you right away if your efc is lower than school’s price tag for financial aid.</p>
<p>Here are calculators for some of schools with FA packages.</p>
<p>[Princeton</a> University | Princeton Financial Aid Estimator](<a href=“http://www.princeton.edu/admission/financialaid/estimator/]Princeton”>http://www.princeton.edu/admission/financialaid/estimator/)</p>
<p>[Net</a> Price Calculator](<a href=“http://npc.fas.harvard.edu/]Net”>http://npc.fas.harvard.edu/)</p>
<p>[Net</a> Price Calculator | Undergraduate Financial Aid and Educational Financing](<a href=“http://www.studentaffairs.columbia.edu/finaid/npc]Net”>Estimate Your Net Cost | Columbia Financial Aid and Educational Financing)</p>
<p>[Paying</a> for a Penn Education](<a href=“http://www.sfs.upenn.edu/paying/paying-pro.htm]Paying”>Submit My Documents | Penn Student Registration & Financial Services| Penn Srfs)</p>
<p>[Yale</a> University Financial Aid > Financial Aid Calculator](<a href=“http://www.yale.edu/tuba/finaid/calculator/index.html]Yale”>http://www.yale.edu/tuba/finaid/calculator/index.html)</p>
<p>Your daughter is unlikely to win some sort of scholarship that could put a huge dent in paying for college (such as a $20,000 scholarship and more) unless she is extremely smart and/or talented in some field like art, music or writing (look at the kids who win money from Intel, Siemens, Moods math challenge, Davidson, etc). But you could get small scholarships, around $1000 or less or more each, which may amount to over $10,000.</p>
<p>The way most people at your income level afford full freight tuition is that they’ve saved since the kids were little. Even if they don’t have four years of tuition saved, they combine the savings with current income and possibly loans. </p>
<p>Look for merit scholarships as others have suggested. However, be aware that they are highly competitive and rare at many of the top schools. </p>
<p>When you say that you’re sure that your daughter can get into one or two of the schools on the east coast, not sure what schools you’re referring to, but don’t make any assumptions. Read some of the school specific forums around notification dates. Every year kiss with amazing stats get rejected from ivies and other top schools.</p>
<p>From what I can gather, lots of this financial aid is coming in loans. Also, you aren’t middle class. </p>
<p>The trouble, which many don’t see, is in general people become more successful later in life. So just because you make that now doesn’t mean you’ve been living on that for 20 years. But most of life is choices. People now choose things that were unheard of previously - big houses and mortgages, 2 cars, nice vacations, designer clothes, cell phones, ipads, computers, cable, etc. These are choices we make in lieu of saving more money.</p>
<p>I have a feeling that we’ll be seeing a college bubble someday like we’re seeing a housing meltdown. And many parents who were thinking they’d get heloc’s to cover tuition may find themselves out of lock if their house depreciated significantly.</p>
<p>It seems to me the ones getting the most money are applying to lower level schools than their stats.</p>
<p>“depends totally on where she applies and more importantly, is accepted.” </p>
<p>Exactly right!</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/52133-schools-known-good-merit-aid.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/52133-schools-known-good-merit-aid.html</a> again look closer to the end for up to date info… some of these are selective, or only a small number received. some offer automatic based solely on stats,…some are tuition only, some include housing,</p>
<p>“Your daughter is unlikely to win some sort of scholarship that could put a huge dent in paying for college (such as a $20,000 scholarship and more) unless she is extremely smart and/or talented in some field like art, music or writing (look at the kids who win money from Intel, Siemens, Moods math challenge, Davidson, etc). But you could get small scholarships, around $1000 or less or more each, which may amount to over $10,000.”</p>
<p>Yes, we’re counting on some scholarship money to help.</p>
<p>cortana…depending on her stats, there might be quite a few that would give significant merit…but they wont be the elites.</p>
<p>Hispanic girl from New Mexico with a high rank, high stats and good ECs has a reasonable chance of making the cut at many private schools that look for racial diversity in admissions. So OP is not too far off in expecting her to get into one or two schools back east.</p>
<p>Also remember that many of the smaller scholarships given by local organizations are for one year only and not renewable.</p>
<p>Yes, we’re counting on some scholarship money to help. </p>
<p>ok,
I suggest when you are ready to give us more info, and this can wait until the beginnig of her SR year, such as your DD’s GPA, SAT scores, etc, we may be able to help…But if your or her goal , or hope, is both “Ivy type” schools or schools at that level that reject 90% of applicants AND merit $, you will be probably be sadly disappointed.</p>
<p>“When you say that you’re sure that your daughter can get into one or two of the schools on the east coast, not sure what schools you’re referring to, but don’t make any assumptions. Read some of the school specific forums around notification dates. Every year kiss with amazing stats get rejected from ivies and other top schools.”</p>
<p>Correct, we’re not assuming anything at this point. Ivies, nobody can assume getting into those schools. Other top schools back East a bit stronger possibility (we hope) especially since many top NM students don’t even apply for these schools (i.e., Tufts, Barnard, or BC).</p>
<p>[Record</a> Applications for Fall ? Tufts Journal](<a href=“http://tuftsjournal.tufts.edu/archives/1817/record-applications-for-fall]Record”>Record Applications for Fall – Tufts Journal)</p>
<p>think barnard is about 28% acceptance</p>
<p>“especially since many top NM students don’t even apply for these schools”</p>
<p>where on earth did you get this erroneous idea???</p>
<p>I don’t know about all ivy league schools, but at Harvard, with 200k income and rental properties, there will be no financial aid. </p>
<p>Quite honestly, you should be able to pay the bill anyways.</p>
<p>“I suggest when you are ready to give us more info, and this can wait until the beginnig of her SR year, such as your DD’s GPA, SAT scores, etc, we may be able to help…But is your or her goal is both “Ivy type” schools or schools at that level that reject 90% of applicants AND merit $, you will be probably be sadly disappointed.”</p>
<p>We don’t have the latest(junior year) SAT scores since taking it last week. Her sophmore year SATs were 1980 or something. She currently is #3 in her class with a 4.48 GPA and has taken all the AP classes she can take up to this point. Academics is important but extra curricular activities are just as important and she keeps VERY busy with those as well. I’m not going to list everything here but with all her activities in and out of school shows she is a more rounded person than someone with the highest GPA but didn’t much for the community.</p>
<p>“especially since many top NM students don’t even apply for these schools”</p>
<p>where on earth did you get this erroneous idea??? </p>
<p>Sorry, I should have indicated top NM minority students.</p>
<p>sorry but minority probably isnt going to make a huge difference for some of these schools. might be a slight edge. but she will have to bring her sat score up… is she a national merit scholar as well as national hispanic?</p>
<p>Minority status will not be much of a tip since she is not the first generation from her family to go to college[ let alone that her family has considerable assets]. She will have to bring up her SAT’s considerably to have a decent chance at many colleges.<br>
Now if you did NOT apply for FA, that may swing an admissions decision in her favor over another more qualified student needing FA, especially if she were to apply ED somewhere.</p>