Chance me for Caltech, MIT, Ivies, and UCs!

OP needs only one true safety. If she’s confident of her admissions to CU Boulder or one of the UC’s, she’d be fine.

On the question of CoA, OP mentioned her family is low income but high assets. I assume her family’s major asset is the equity in their primary home in the high cost Bay Area. If that’s the case, she should focus on the schools that ignore home equity in their FA calculation. On her reach list, the first 5 schools don’t take home equity into consideration, but Cornell, Columbia or Harvey Mudd does.

I also assume OP is going to apply as a physics major. She’s likely to benefit as one of the relatively few female applicants to the physics major. She would likely have a reasonable shot at her first choice Caltech.

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