Mom2, I do plan on visiting Alabama soon, heard from friends that it seems like a beautiful campus. But I’m glad that I know my financial safeties might be where I end up before I do the whole process and get my hopes up.
And Madison, beaches and surfing would always be an add-on, my main two criteria are 1. South/West, 2. Big rah-rah school, and after that I am looking for a mixture of the best possible computer science school with a reasonable amount of aid. With that said, since I’m looking to move south, Mizzou (my flagship) is not really plausible to me. I would rather go to Alabama WAY more than Mizzou. And sometimes Illinois gives in-state and is part of the reason why I’m sort of looking at U of I, but it’s still not south. Do not think any southern states will give tuition reciprocity with Missouri, but maybe I’m looking in the wrong places. I know it sounds annoying, and I am at least a little open minded to staying a bit North, but unless it’s Harvard, there are health reasons to why the South is much more plausible to me.
I also don’t really expect the college to cost more than 15k, but what I would hope is to get a decent percentage in work study, student loans, federal aid, and merit aid to where it comes around to only costing my parents around 15k if not a little more.
But still, I might be asking for too much, I think my best bet is to dig deep and find some good merit scholarships or financial aid packages at a private school. I added Tulane to a possible school on my list last night because I am reading online about how it gives a lot of aid to OOS, but I really need to start running these financial aid calculators.
Side point for anyone, is there a good thread where I could find examples of what other people similar to my position got in financial aid? Just seems like a good way for me to get a better idea of what to expect.
I also might add that my GPA isn’t really 3.74, I used that number in a old thread because the UC’s don’t include freshmen year which sounded amazing to me as I got a 2.8 freshmen year (rough start), but when you take that out I have about a 4.0 weighted or 3.7 unweighted. (with it, I have a 3.6 and 3.3).