If you want to maximize the advice here you should provide a complete budget. On top of the $15k from your folks and the $5k you can borrow what additional funds do you have for college? Is your total budget closer to $30k (or more) per year? Because you won’t qualify for any need based aid you’ll want to identify programs with strong merit but that really varies. If your budget is more than $20k that will open up more possibilities because there aren’t that many schools that will come in at that number and the competition is fierce.
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Everyone is doing well with that right now. If you’re short term trading I wouldn’t count on that to continue on the path you’ve been on. No one, and I mean NO ONE, beats the market in the long run after fees (including hidden ones like high bid/ask). Everyone reverts to the mean or below given enough time.
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These young adults are probably going to learn the hard way (our 23 and 24 year old business school graduates are thrilled right now, fortunately they didn’t start with much).
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Ok, so my budget is 70k per year (15k from teachers and the rest from me). You’re right about merit scholarships being what I should be relying on. Would this be considerd full pay then?
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So on top of the $15k from your parents, you have $55k PER YEAR year of your own $$ to contribute ($220,000 total)? If that is the reality (meaning cash in hand, not “I think I can make that in trading”) you will be able to cover the cost of attendance at most colleges even without merit. That puts most schools back in play and, of course, if you can be admitted UVA would be affordable.
Check out WashU as a top private with merit opportunities. You already have USC which might be your best chance. Someone else mentioned Vandy where you can get a full tuition scholarship. Duke has some merit but seems to be concentrated for students in NC/Southeast. You can look at top scholarships like the Robertson for Duke/UNC-CH and I’m sure you’re aware of UVA’s.
Rice and UChicago have merit but generally goes to under represented students.
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Yup! It’s been a great year. Let’s just say that I’m glad that I found Gamestop stock before it really took off. 
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Wash U is a great option! I’ll add it to the list!
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If your upper class parents and grandparents will only pay $15k per year (so budget of around $20k per year after adding the federal direct loan), then you need to rework your list:
- Safeties = automatic merit scholarship for your stats, approximately full tuition or better.
- Reaches = competitive merit scholarship, approximately full tuition or better.
All of your list are reaches (or super-reaches) because they will not be affordable without large competitive merit scholarships.
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Federal Income Tax Calculator (2022-2023) says that a Virginia married couple with 3 personal exemptions with $600k income has a take-home pay of about $395k after about $151k federal income tax, about $20k FICA, and about $34k state income tax.
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National Merit Finalist should open up more possibilities of full tuition or better merit scholarships, both automatic (for safeties) and competitive (for reaches). However, they are mostly at colleges that are not as highly desired by high school students (e.g. Arizona State University).
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My Dad and I just ran it and we got 130k. Sorry for the miscommunication, I was a little off. I was estimating and was off.
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Thanks for the advice!
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@CADREAMIN Do I have a good chance at USC being a double legacy and a good SAT?
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Ok! This makes sense. For some reason, I was picturing Berkeley costing 80k. I’ll add it back onto the list!
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Wish I could say the same . . .
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I’m sorry to hear that 
I hope it gets better for you!
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No worries, all is well. Was referring to the fact that I didn’t cotton on to the Gamestop stock in time to benefit.
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