<p>Another " hook" which my daughter had, is that she has learning disabilities ( which she addressed in an essay) and she was first gen college.
Which is possibly why we had trouble finding a school that was a strong fit for her- we didn’t have CC as a resource 
at the time, & because of the LD’s , her advisor recommended colleges that we thought were " too safe" & not challenging enough.</p>
<p>Our neighbor had attended Reed ( same year as Steve Jobs) & assured us that they had good financial aid- I had no idea colleges even handed out money to attend, so it hadn’t been on her first list because it seemed too much of a reach. ( which was also why she didn’t apply ED, even though Reed said that ED candidates had the best aid packages, we still felt we needed to be able to compare them).</p>