<p>What’s in-state for you?
As tk above said, public universities do not have financial aid for out of state applicants so if you need financial aid, either 1 or 2 of your 3 choices will be unaffordable.
Have you run the Net Price Calculator on each website? Colleges are now required to have those and you’ll have a better idea of how much each school expects you to pay vs. how much your parents can afford. You have to run the NPC on each website because each school is free to calculate your need the way they want. Furthermore, the universities on your list do not “meet need”, that is, they may decide you’ll have to pay $7,000 but only offer aid that brings the cost down to $14,000… in effect, making it impossible for you to attend (what is called “admit/deny”). Another college may decide you need to pay $5,000 and make sure you don’t have to pay more than that.</p>
<p>Cast a wide net, it’s a best way to have enough decent financial aid offers. You should have 2 safeties (schools you like, can afford, and are 100% sure you can get into) + 2-5 matches (schools you’re reasonably sure you can get into and that are affordable) + as many reaches as you wish or can afford.</p>
<p>If you need a lot of financial aid, you probably qualify for application fee waivers: have you asked your counselor? If so, use them all (8?) and if not, go ask them on Monday.</p>
<p>For Marshall, you can watch the film “We are Marshall” :).
It’s a pretty good school actually.</p>
<p>Remember that, if the school is small, you may have more opportunities on-campus, and if it’s in/near a big city, you’ll have access to professional sports.</p>
<p>Schools for you to look into that are matches for your stats: Alfred University; Coe College (probably a good scholarship there, since you’d bring geographical and cultural diversity, which automatically makes you more interesting to them); Emory&Henry; Defiance (small, but in a big city with sports); Marietta; Quinnipiac; Barry (FL); Baldwin-Wallace; Xavier (Cincinatti); Canisius; Duquesne (Pittsburgh); UCharleston (WV); Nova Southeastern (FL).
Highly renowed in that field, and so a reach for you: Ithaca College (in Ithaca, ie., where Cornell is located, so big college sports); Marquette University.</p>