<p>Agree with the above posters. The first things you need to do are sit down with your parents and find out </p>
<p>**A. what they are willing and able to pay
**
and very importantly</p>
<p>** B. What your EFC (Expected family Contribution) is likely to be.**</p>
<p>Financial aid is based on your need as calculated by the school rather than what you think your need is. In rough terms ‘need’ it is arrived at by taking your EFC away from the school’s COA (Cost Of Attendance).</p>
<p>You can get an estimate of what your EFC might be by using an EFC calculator such as the one here
[FinAid</a> | Calculators | Expected Family Contribution (EFC) and Financial Aid](<a href=“http://www.finaid.org/calculators/finaidestimate.phtml]FinAid”>http://www.finaid.org/calculators/finaidestimate.phtml)</p>
<p>Sit down with your parents and enter family income and assets (including your own) into the calculator and it will give you an estimate of your EFC. The federal methodology gives you an estimate of what your FAFSA EFC might be. I have found that calculator to be pretty accurate though it has not yet been updated with new rules for 2009-2010 school year. Institutional Methodology gives you an estimate of what your EFC might be at at schools that use profile. Profile schools use their own rules so EFCs can vary more. </p>
<p>Remember some schools promise to meet full need. Many do not. Again the ‘need’ is based on what the school calculates your need to be - not what you think it should be. For instance if a schools COA were $40,000 and your EFC was $15,000 then your ‘need’ on which aid would be based would be $25,000. That need may be met with a combination of grants, loans, work study. Sometimes full need is not met - that is called ‘gapping’. For instance in the previous example if your calculated need is $25,000 but you only get aid of $20,000 then you have a $5,000 gap.</p>
<p>For FAFSA only schools the EFC is based on FAFSA alone. For schools that use profile they usually use profile to calculate institutional aid (aid awarded by the school from their own money) and FAFSA to award federal (from the government) and sometimes State aid. </p>
<p>It is very important to have a serious discussion about what your parents will actually pay as well as figuring out your EFC. If your EFC comes out at 10,000 a year but they will only 3,000 a year then financial aid will not meet the difference of 7,000.</p>
<p>You need to make sure you have a financial safety included in your list of schools. That is a school you can afford to go to and are willing to attend if the financial aid is not high enough at the other schools. This would probably be an instate university. Several of the schools you have listed have very high tuition. I am not saying do not apply to them - but add some financial safeties into the mix.</p>
<p>You can greatly increase your chances of paying your way by applying to some schools where you are more likely to qualify for merit aid. This would mean looking at schools where you are statistically in the top few % points of the student body. For instance if the average ACT at the school is a 26 and the average GPA is a 3.5 you would probably not qualify for merit money with a 26 ACT and a 3.5 GPA - but are likely to with say a 30/3.75. We have a very low EFC but financial aid would not cover the full cost of my daughter’s school without a lot of loans. However her stats put her in the top 2-3% at her school so she has good merit aid in addition to the need based aid which basically means she is almost loan free. I don’t know your stats but it may be worth retaking the SATs or ACTs if you find a school where you are close to qualifying for merit aid. For instance my daughter retook the ACT to try and increase it from a 31 to a 32 or 33. By getting the 32 she increased her merit awards by several thousand a year. A 33 would have added a couple of thousand more.</p>