FTR
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Will they pay for you to apply to 4 year schools? I can imagine they are very worried if they have government jobs or are contractors. But currently their income is going to show that they have the 210,000 so you’re going to more likely need to look for merit aid rather than need based aid unless you have some other massive family expenses to counteract their salary.
I’m just going to reply as a parent of a last year HS graduate, where both parents are federal employees, who also live in Northern VA, to give you some parent perspective.
When S25 applied last fall, we had no real inkling of what would be coming. We make too much to qualify for need based aid, but had a hard cap on what we wanted to pay, so S25 was looking for schools that offered good merit aid to get under our cap. We asked that he add some VA schools (Virginia Tech, JMU) where we thought he’d have either a lower starting price or a good merit award and an out of state school where their starting price was low AND we thought he’d get good merit. But these, at application time, were mostly afterthoughts.
By the time inauguration day got here, and the universe got very complicated for federal employees in the Jan-April time frame, our outlook on things was a little different. S25 had gotten in to a number of schools, and his dream school was under our original budget amount - but not by much and it was by far the most expensive.
JMU, on the other hand, offered him a huge scholarship. He was a Stamps Scholarship finalist at Virginia Tech and, if he’d gotten it, that would’ve sealed the deal - he would’ve gone there even though it wasn’t the top choice because you don’t ignore that money. The point, though, was that we didn’t let him reject these offers - even though he really didn’t want them - until close to the May 1 deadline. We were so nervous about both of us losing our jobs, that it just felt too scary to commit to the top choice school that, if we stayed employed, was no problem. But if we lost our jobs, would be hard.
At the end of the day, as we got to commitment day we felt stable enough to let him pick the dream most expensive school. But that was a hard decision and it was a scary time. It really really sucks to say to your kid “I’m sorry, the universe feels like it’s unravelling around us, I need you to hold tight a little longer just so we can try to gain some understanding of the situation.” So if your parents are in that boat, I get it, and I get your frustration.
I might suggest that you look at the VA schools to see what appeals to you and tell them you’ll apply there as a backup. Ask if you can still shoot your shot at the big schools, but that you’ll add on the in state choices to give something affordable and closer to home if need be. I know for kids from NOVA with grades like yours, JMU often feels like a let down, like you’ve worked for “more”. But it’s so affordable and you’d be a really strong contender for their biggest scholarships (you have to apply separately, so make sure you do). It’s a solid school that you can go to for very little cost, comparatively, So my suggestion would be to apply to some less expensive or in state schools too, just to keep your options open. There’s a lot of time between now and May 1 and perhaps whatever is worrying them is something that you and they can talk about or that resolves as time goes on.
Also, FWIW, my older son has a friend that did one semester at Richard Bland before transferring to W&M and it was a great process for him. Richard Bland made the start of college easy, and they did stellar work with managing the transfer process and helping to make sure that everything he needed would translate over. This student had also taken a number of APs in HS and had a pretty advanced academic record, so it’s not like you’d be the only one in that situation. If they insist on a community college, I think this would be a nice middle ground for you - unlike NOVA, it’s still residential, plus they really excel at getting their students moved on and out to a four year program. And their agreement with W&M means you’d be ending up at a really strong school, not that far away from home, and not that expensive.
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