| Please note this important fact: Just because your EFC is low does NOT mean that you can expect excellent financial aid from colleges.
Most colleges in the country can not afford to meet the full need of high need students like you. Many colleges even consider financial need as part of their admissions practices, and will reject students with extremely high financial need.
The relatively few colleges that guarantee to meet 100% of students documented financial need -- and that also do this without saddling the students with enormous loans -- are top colleges like Harvard and Princeton, which are some of the most difficult colleges to gain admission to. For instance, Harvard accepted fewer than 8% of its applicants this year.
Consequently, when considering colleges to apply to take a very careful look at the college's financial aid and admission web pages. Don't bother applying to colleges that, for instance, are noted for providing much less financial aid than students need.
It is worth it to pay the $15 to access the U.S. News premium college on-line site, which provides detailed financial aid and admissions (and other) info for thousands of colleges.
Also, do not apply ED because even though colleges say they will release students from ED commitments if the students didn't get enough financial aid, it is very hard to get released. In addition, applying ED prevents your being able to compare financial aid offers since once you get an ED acceptances, you have to withdraw your other applications.
Make sure that you have at least one financial safety. That means a school that you know you'll be admitted to and can afford. For many students, their financial safety is their local community college, many of which provide guaranteed transfers to in-state public universities as long as students meet the public universities' admissions requirements.
Do NOT assume that 4-year public universities will be cheaper than private universities for you. Virtually all public universities can't afford to meet the full need of high need students.
And don't bother to apply to out of state public universities as public universities give the bulk of their financial aid to in-state students. It's highly unlikely that you'd get a good financial aid package from any out of state public. Due to public universities' not having large financial aid resources, you may have great difficulty getting an excellent financial aid package from your in state 4-year public universities.
Take the time, too, to read the excellent advice pinned to the top of this board. |