<p>flyingllama, pnptruong,</p>
<p>I chose those schools (Boston University and GW) based upon the other factors I wanted in a college. When I started my college search, my goal was to graduate less than $40,000 in debt. I wanted a medium to large urban school that was two to eight hours from home. GW and Bu both fit the bill - I fell in love with them. I knew that being low-income would grant me a lot of aid. At the time, I did not know there were schools that guaranteed aid to students based on income. As I researched BU and GW more and more, it came clear that my financial aid packages from them would probably be very good based on my statistics (generally above the 75th percentile), my family’s income (<$25,000), and my hook (URM). Of course, there are no guarantees. I feel that the best way to search for schools for which you are a match and that will give you good financial aid is to start with fit and go from there. Find what schools fit you and then see which one of those has the best financial aid package. If your search for good financial aid comes up empty, broaden your search and try again.</p>
<p>Personally, I can’t think of any other middle ground schools except perhaps the University of Pittsburgh, where, if you are at the top of the applicant pool, merit aid seems easy (relatively speaking) to come by. Because I knew which target schools I would apply to early on, I have not researched outside much. I have been looking into safety and reach schools, but not the match schools like BU and GW - I’ve known I would apply to those schools since late last year.</p>
<p>I actually made a chart below listing the schools that I am going to apply to. They are in order of the most difficult to get into to the least difficult to get into, all based on my personal research and my personal application. The number next to them is my anticipated debt after four years. I subjectracted non-billable expenses from the total (some schools factor transportation, spending money, and books into the COA), so these numbers involve only the costs associated with tuition, room, board, and fees. Keep in mind that I tallied work study and student contributions as loans, since I will not be able to make the student contribution and I will probably not work study, except for perhaps one year. Also, for Boston University, I used the 75th percentile number for students in the first row, first column of the chart linked in one of my previous posts. I don’t know if this list will be helpful to you or if it will end up being realistic to me, but I’ve put in an effort to clear up the FA confusion.</p>
<p>Yale ($6,750)
WUSTL ($15,200)
Tufts ($13,200 or $4,792; website is unclear)
Rice ($0)
GW (n/a, dependent on many factors)
Boston ($12,032)
Pitt (n/a, dependent on many factors)</p>
<p>For me, anything under $25,000 is amazing. Anything under $15,000 is unreal. However, I will probably take out at least $1000 per year in loans to pay for books and transportation.</p>