<p>Hello. I'm a student with good stats (3.96uw gpa 2290sat 35act good extracurriculars etc.) And I'm trying to figure out where exactly I should apply. My family can't really afford to pay for my college (the cursed lower middle class, 4 children with income that isn't dirt low, but isn't high enough etc.) And so I have a dilemma. I applied to Princeton and I'm also planning on applying to Columbia (I know they both have good financial aid programs), but I know that realistically I have only a small chance of being accepted. I'm also applying to some state schools (I live in Florida: uf, fsu).
I'm trying to figure out if there are any other top schools, slightly below Ivy's that I could get into and that wouldn't cost a ridiculous amount of money. (I'm aware of uchicago since they aren't an ivy but they're ivy level difficulty, and I'm aware of alabama's program for high standardized test scores, and sadly also aware that MIT and Stanford don't offer much financial aid.)
I would like to have some lower-reach or good fit schools on my list of places I'm going to apply to, so any suggestions would be very appreciated, thanks!
By the way, if you couldn't tell from the school lists, I'm interested in Physics, Pure mathematics, and possibly engineering.</p>
<p>First, MIT and Stanford offer very comprehensive aid, your award shouldn’t be much different from them than from Princeton and Columbia, is that what the Net Price Calculators are saying? Are you saying that need based aid isn’t doable for your family? No of course we can’t tell your major from the very few schools you named–they happen to have just about all majors!</p>
<p><<<
sadly also aware that MIT and Stanford don’t offer much financial aid.)</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>???</p>
<p>Who told you that? Stanford offers super fabulous need-based FA. MIT also offers good FA.</p>
<p>If you plan on applying to Alabama for their merit scholarships, get that app in soon…the merit deadline is Dec 15 and the app is super easy and super quick…takes like 5 minutes…no essays, no LORs.</p>
<p>What is your family’s Adjusted Gross Income?</p>
<p>My son is in the same situation - same stats, same majors. College search engines always match him with the top schools and they are the most generous with financial aid, but of course, with the lowest chance of acceptance. The other suggestion is always to go for honors programs at the larger schools, but then the OOS publics give little aid. It seems to be very difficult for high achieving, middle class students to find the “right fit” schools that are affordable with a decent chance of getting in. He has a safety and reaches, but we’re still searching for good matches. Good luck to you.</p>
<p>Go to each school’s web site and use the net price calculator to get an estimate of its financial aid for your situation.</p>
<p>Stanford and MIT are generally regarded as having good financial aid.</p>
<p>As Ucbalumnus states, the NPC will be useful here. The best fin aid in the world isn’t going to help a student who does not qualify. You can get some idea what schools feel you and your family should be able to afford. If it’s more than your parents are willing and able to pay, you need to find schools with merit awards that you can snag and low cost alternatives. You also need to have a talk with your parents and find out how much they are willing and able to pay, and assess what you can put towards costs with summer/ school year work, your savings, and possibly taking up to $5500 in DIrect Loans freshman year.</p>
<p>My kids’ lists always had some “Hail Mary” merit schools where they hoped some scholarship would pan out to make it work. A couple of them did. THey also looked at lower cost schools, schools within commuting distance. Also schools where it looked pretty good that they might get enough money to make it work.</p>
<p>My son this year, had Alabama and Temple on his lists as they guaranteed free tution for him. Also SUNY schools are free tuition for him. He just got his first EA accept, and it’s probably game over for him, as it’s a Hail Mary pass that panned out with a half ride and was his second choice school. Hard to beat that, and it’s within what we can afford. But all of his EA choices are affordable if things panned out. He 's been considering Penn, JHU, Dartmouth, but they have little to no merit aid, unlikely he’d get any of the top awards there since acceptance is even a reach, so they are unaffordable to him.</p>
<p>Agree that it isn’t clear from your post whether you have been running the net price calculators at various schools. You need to do that, they are on the financial aid page of each college’s website. You will need your parents to help you do this. It can give you a pretty reasonable picture of the cost of each college, although if your parents own a small business, have rental property, or they or you have trusts, it can show more aid than you would really get. You don’t seem to be real well informed on this, as MIT and Stanford do have excellent aid. You might look at Harvey Mudd, CalTech, and Swarthmore. All are schools that meet need and would be strong in physics & math, but they also all have low admission rate (all are reaches).</p>
<p>Where you will have issues is if you and your parents don’t think you can meet the cost of attendance as the schools determine it. But you need to run the calculators and have those discussions.</p>
<p>Adjusted gross income from last year was about $87,000 but this year my dad (my mother doesn’t really have income) is only working part-time, making significantly less, (I qualify for reduced lunch and fee waivers) and will soon not have a job (it remains to be seen if he will have a new one) and we’ve basically had to live off savings and stuff, so agi might look higher than it should be or something (I don’t really know how it works so well). Also there are 6 people living in the household with none of my siblings currently going to college but one will be in a few years after I’m already there.</p>
<p>Oh, my guidence counselor said that the Ivy’s give much better aid than Stanford, and I know someone who’s going to MIT who almost didn’t go because they didn’t offer her that much money so it was going to cost a lot, but everyone I know going to an ivy says that the financial aid is fantastic.</p>
<p>Stanford has extremely generous need based aid…on par with Harvard and Yale which are very generous as well. I’m not sure where your GC is getting the information, but from this vantage point, Stanford is as generous as most, if not all, of the Ivies.</p>
<p>This year’s AGI is what they will base aid on, so that is actually going to be beneficial for you (at least for this year). Although if it goes up in future years, your aid will likely go down. </p>
<p>You shouldn’t use hearsay (even from your GC) on financial aid estimates. The net price calculators are there for that purpose, go do your own research on each school with them. I would run it twice, once with this year’s estimated AGI, and once with the $87,000 AGI, just to see what the range of costs might be if you dad gets a comparable job again in the future.</p>
<p><<<<
Oh, my guidence counselor said that the Ivy’s give much better aid than Stanford, and I know someone who’s going to MIT who almost didn’t go because they didn’t offer her that much money so it was going to cost a lot, but everyone I know going to an ivy says that the financial aid is fantastic.</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>Your GC is VERY WRONG about Stanford. And your friend may not have gotten much aid at MIT because his parents (BOTH parents) may have incomes or assets that are too high…(or he had a non-custodial parent who won’t pay).</p>
<p>It can depend on a lot of factors as to what schools give some students more aid than others. It doesn’t help YOU if someone else gets some benefit, nor does it hurt you when someone doesn’t Things like home equity values, siblings assets, home businesses, NCPs can really change the numbers and schools do treat those things differently. As others have said, run your own numbers. </p>
<p>Also Ivy is a sports league They do NOT use the same Fin aid formulas. The ivies Dartmouth, Penn, Columbia, Cornell are all in the 568 group and use similar fin aid methodology, the other Ivies are not and have their own formulas MIT is also in the 568 group. Other schools in that group use similar methodology like Notre Dame, BC, Haverford, Swarthmore, Amherst, etc.</p>
<p>Thank you guys. I guess I’ll just have to go check one by one.
Does anyone know of any schools in the duke, umichigan, u of Illinois, etc. that have a reputation for good financial aid? I’ll check those schools, I’m just exactly sure where to start. (I’ll also check the schools cptofthehouse mentioned, and I’ll reconsider applying to MIT and Stanford, even though they’re very reach.)
Thank you guys again for the help.</p>
<p>Duke has good financial aid and competitive merit awards. UMich promises to meet need for in-state students. For OOS students, public Us like UMich and UIUC don’t meet need, usually don’t even come close. UVa and UNC are the only Public Us that claim to meet need for OOS but they are very hard to get admitted to OOS.</p>
<p>uiuc is lousy with aid for instate and OOS students</p>
<p>UMich is a crap shoot. They use CSS and they don’t promise to meet need for OOS students. There is a mom who posted here on CC that her instate student got lousy aid (and we never could figure out why considering income was modest, sibling in school, and no significant assets or businesses). </p>
<p>I would not be surprised if as UMich tries to give more aid to OOS students that it becomes either “need aware” for OOS students or the aid becomes essentially merit by only accepting highly desirable OOS students (which UNC and UVA seem to do)</p>
<p>Duke meets need as they define it. </p>
<p>The last time I tried Michigan’s net price calculator, there was a discontinuity at a somewhat lowish income level (somewhere between $30,000 and $40,000) where out-of-state students from lower income families got good financial aid and an affordable net price, but out-of-state students from families with just a few dollars more income got poor financial aid and a much higher net price.</p>
<p>Here is the thread: <a href=“Is UMich a good choice for OOS students? - #6 by ucbalumnus - College Search & Selection - College Confidential Forums”>Is UMich a good choice for OOS students? - #6 by ucbalumnus - College Search & Selection - College Confidential Forums;