<p>When you put together your list, start with the schools that are certainly going to take you and that you can afford. Cherry picking like you are doing is easy. The former is much more difficult and is the crux of college selection. Once you have a list of schools that your family can afford and that will take you, then you can add schools to your heart’s desire as reaches, and bear in mind that reaches they are in terms of admissions and getting money from that list you have shown. Not a problem, but those schools should be added LAST as lottery tickets because that is what they are in terms of getting any money.</p>
<p>Also get rid of the schools like UCH with no engineering programs and those like MIT that have absolutely no merit money. Stanford does not give merit money either. Don’t know about CIT; if they do very difficult, harder than getting into HPY, all 3 to get any out of them, I’m sure. High reaches are one thing but you are wasting your time applying to schools when you need merit money and the schools give out zero as a matter of policy . Run your parents financials through an estimator and get some idea what you can expect in aid, and if it is indeed a big fat zero, then forget about schools that give only need based money, because your chances of getting money from them via merit is NONE and you are just wasting time and money pursing entry to them. Focus on those schools where you have a realistic chance of both entry and getting money since you need both. </p>
<p>Every year these boards are filled with sad students who can’t go to their schools because they got no money for them. It is is ludicrous when it is clear up front that even if the kid got in, he wasn’t going to get a dime from the school because the family doesn’t qualify for need and the parents can’t or won’t pay what the school says they should according to formula. Find out what your family is willing to shell out and fill out some estimators and see if you are eligible for any financial aid from these schools. </p>
<p>Bear in mind that OOS publics tend to be stingy with financial aid to kids not from their own states so if you aren’t way up there in stats in the engineering dept, you are not likely to get much from them. My son’ good friend is going to Purdue for engineering with stats similar to yours, and he only get about $5K or so in merit money (no fin need) which his parents found astounding considering the average stats of the school. He didn’t get into his first choice schools of which MIT, Cornell, Villanova, Harvey Mudd were some, to name a few. So you gotta do some research. Pitt, for example is a good choice, as you would be in the running for a full ride Chancellor’s Scholarship with your stats, whereas in the same state, Penn State is unlikely to give you more than toke merit because they have very little in that area, and the costs for those two school is close to the same.</p>