You’re right, and you have an element of maturity, we don’t see very often in this forum. In an elite school, you’re just another smart kid with top grades. Those schools are on a different planet as the rest of the college world. On the other hand, there are a lot of great schools where you could get scholarships, but you have to know where to look. It’s really population size that drives the competition. A lot of these scholarship schools are further south in schools like University of KY, University of Louisville, University of AL, University of AZ, University of TN, Auburn, Mississippi State, and Ole’ Miss. There’s a lot more, but you’ll have to research them.