The savings and home equity make it all the more important to run NPC’s on every school, since each school sets its own formula for how assets and/or home equity are handled when calculating aid eligibility. If you run the numbers for a range of needs-met schools like MIT, Cornell, Northeastern, CMU, CWRU, URochester, UMiami…that should show a range of outcomes that you could expect.
Understood, about the preference to go out of state. NY is a big state, so worst-case, there should be an in-state option that isn’t close to home.
Again, if you’re a National Merit Semifinalist, more options open up. For example, U of Tulsa, which has ChemE, would be a full ride just for NMSF status, even if you didn’t become a finalist. Even without national merit, your stats would qualify you for huge merit at U of Alabama and and UA-Huntsville, for example. A merit-based full ride is the brass ring if the priority is financial freedom from your family.
If you give some feedback on how the NPC’s look, I’m sure people will be able to make more suggestions.