What's the Best Way to Come Up With A List of Financial Safeties for My Child?

Paying for College
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<p>On these forums, I read a lot about choosing financial safety schools, but would like to be referred to a thread that talks about the actual steps of researching and figuring out which schools might be financially safe for my son.</p>

<p>He'd like to go to a school with strong math/science/computer program with some access to liberal arts as well.</p>

<p>My son is going to apply to a number of reach private schools with excellent financial aid, but we have to face the reality that although he has excellent scores and grades, so do lots of other kids and he may not get into any of them. </p>

<p>This may have been covered on other threads before. If so, can someone refer me?</p>

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<p>Financial safeties are often mid-tier schools and below where the mid 50 stats are below your child’s stats.</p>

<p>For instance, if your child has a 4.0 GPA and a 33 ACT, and the mid 50 range at your flagship is ACT 25-28, then that is probably a safety for you (except for Texas, UCs and other schools that don’t admit that way).</p>

<p>However, for such a school to also be a **financial **safety to you, the school must be affordable by one (or a combo) of the following means…</p>

<p>1) you can pay all the costs.</p>

<p>2) Your child’s stats will give him a large assured merit scholarship (and you can afford the rest out of pocket and/or with a small loan).</p>

<p>3) Your EFC is low enough that known fed aid, state aid, small loans, and/or contributing some of your own money will cover the costs.</p>

<p>A financial safety is not a school that you “hope” to get financial aid or merit $$. You must know what you’d get or know that you can afford to pay for it for the school to be a financial safety. So, a school that has competitive scholarships or has unknown awards would not likely be a financial safety.</p>

<p>Often financial safeties are the local public that a child could commute to if he had to or a school where the student knows he qualifies for an assured merit scholarship and the balance is affordable.</p>

<p>AUTO $$$ CC Important links to Auto Scholarships…
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/848226-important-links-automatic-guaranteed-merit-scholarships.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/848226-important-links-automatic-guaranteed-merit-scholarships.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>Maybe this thread can get deleted since it’s a duplicate. I’ll move my post.</p>