<p>I’m currently looking for colleges to apply to, and I’m going out-of-state. I found many colleges which fit me, but… most of them are private, with the tuition up to $40,000. My family contribution (EFC) for FAFSA is about 7000. GPA is 3.5 and SAT is 1800 (going to take it again, I took SAT during my first spring in the US, I came here 2 years ago, so the scores must be higher).
For example, I’m interested in Loyola Marymount University and NYU, but the tuition is sky high for me. So can scholarships and grants cover some part of it? How do students deal with that much tuition?</p>
<p>You need to look for schools that “meet 100% need”.</p>
<p>NYU has bad financial aid</p>
<p>Full need schools are fantastic, but schools with merit aid are more common. I don’t know if you can get it down to $7000.00, but check the merit money threads.</p>
<p>When you apply to a school and get accepted, then will send you a financial package. Then you will see where you got in and which ones you can afford to go to. Most schools cannot meet ‘full need’ so they don’t have money to pay all your difference between the COA (Cost of attendance) and your EFC (as calculated by them.) Also you might find that the package they give you contains more loans that grants, so it might be a financial disaster if you go to such a school. Particularly NYU is notorious for not being very generous with funds, I suppose they get enough full payers.</p>
<p>So yes, 100% of need met schools is what you need to research first. Many of those schools are very hard to get into, like Harvard and Brown for instance. But there may be a few LAC’s who have a greater admit rate you can try. You need to work very hard on that SAT score, what is the breakdown by category? Every year you usually natuarally gain 50 pts in each catagory, typically.</p>
<p>Another way to get some grant $ is through merit aid, where the school might award you up to $10,000 a year, if you are if the top of the applicant pool statistically.</p>
<p>You need to look hard at your financial safties, which are usually your instate options. What state are you in? There isn’t much point in applying to schools you won’t be able to afford (NYU), so consider the financial side as much or more than academics and how much you like it.</p>