<p>Plumcake, what you need to do is look at schools with an engineering department and start looking at what the costs are. The NPCs will be of help in that regard, though not 100% accurate. That she is a good student with good stats, has an interesting background, is a US citizen and is a female in engineering makes her an attractive candidate for some merit awards. The problem is that certainty is just not there when talking about large awards. Look at Case Western, University of Pittsburg, University at Buffalo, Carnegie Mellon and see if she qualifies for merit money at those schools. Also look at an old thread that Momfromtexas put together on full ride scholarships that will give you a method for looking for what awards she might qualify for.</p>
<p>Also, you should sit down and figure out how much you, she and the family can afford to pay for her education. Surely, you did not think it was going to be totally free. SHe has to eat, have a roof over her head, transportation expenses, necessities, sundries, as well as educational materials like books, computer are all things that are going to cost, especially coming from over seas. Even if she should get a full tuition scholarship thos expenses have to be met. </p>
<p>Here in the US, most kids can get a college education by commuting from home and if the parents absolutely can’t pay a dime, the kids can borrow $5500 in their own name which will cover most community college and local state u tuitions. They then have to find a part time job to fund other expenses that their parents are not covering. If they are lucky, they might get some scholarship money to cover more.</p>
<p>My cousin’s son could have gone to Community college, local catholic college or a local branch of the state university for very little and commute from home. In fact, the community college was the most expensive opton out of the three because the Catholic school and the local state U branch both gave him tuition free awards. He had also applied to the state flagship, but they didn’t throw much merit money in there and his family need pretty much came up to what the cost would be for him to go there. Pricier private schools offered him some need packages that brought his cost down to about the same as going away to stateU, so the family decided to bit the bullet and go for it. He had some savings, he works part time and works all summer. The family had some savings for him, they are scrimping big time to pay what they can, and they are borrowing some as well. He is also taking out a loan. So parent and kid, past, present, future earnings with the school kicking in about half the cost, make it possible for him to go there, a $60K school with some name recognition and he is living there as well. Everyone is happy and proud; he is getting a top rate education at a good private school that he considers a great privilege and is living on campus several hours from home, a great luxury all fo less than half the sticker price, for about what he would have paid for State U. He had some other private schools on his list too, but some turned him down, some included more loans and work in his package than grants and some he just didn’t like as much as this school. So compromises all around.</p>
<p>THat is the kind of scenario you can expect for your daughter.</p>