It may also depend on the school. At both of my kids' private colleges-- one meets fulls need and the other not quite, but very generous -- outside scholarships can be used to reduce work study and federal loans, but not any institutional grants. Usually the college will have this info posted on their financial aid pages.

I don't know anything about it, but Truman State comes up all the time on College Confidential as an affordable OOS school. Too small, though?

Nebraska?

If the FAFSA was already filed, you're DS should have received an email that is was successfully processed along with information on how to access his SAR. The EFC would be there, although it's meaningless for CSS schools.

What about Loyola, MD? In Baltimore but not downtown. Has a required core. About 4000 undergrads. Easy travel to FL (fly from BWI) or NY fly, train, 4 hr or so drive). As far as I know the only requirement for homeschoolers is that they can't apply test optional. You'd have to check for anything else.

Our pubic school district does 1492-1876 in 8th grade and then 1877-present in 11th if in regular US history. AP US is everything.

What is she using as the subject line for the email? My DS had a required supplement for a school as a homeschooler and they had a specific way they wanted the subject line in order to deal with it/match it to his file. It was DS "last name, first name, homeschool applicant additional essay" So maybe for you do something like her Last name, first name homeschool applicant required whatever. Just a thought.

Try this: https://www.collegeessayguy.com/blog/supplemental-essay-prompts-2019-2020 There should be links to the prompts for each college. I haven't actually checked. Some good ones are Boston College, U Chicago, Wake Forest. Note that the best essays often require knowledge of the college and have that woven through the reply so I would try to find schools she's interested in rather than wasting a bunch of time getting familiar with a school you know she won't apply to.

^^ This. A public school teacher I know gives extra credit for wearing a collared shirt to the final. Nothing academic about it.

Still a work in progress but I'm putting together a course on the history of the American muscle car for my DS. He wanted something fun and light for spring of his senior year, so I said come up with something and this is it.

Does the price for #1 include the cost of communing -- the bus when not riding with dad? Does the cost of #2 include car, gas, insurance, maintenance for said car, any tolls, etc.? Need to know if I'm comparing apples to apples on cost first.

Thanks all! I've been second guessing the format of my DS's transcript and every sample I looked at had a spot for SSN so I was second guessing m decision not to put it on there. It won't be there.

Another reason to at least plan for and take SAT/ACT is scholarships and honors programs. Often even if the school is test optional the tests are required for those two things. FWIW, my DS is applying to several test optional schools, but so far the only one that is test optional for homeschoolers is Wake Forest. He confirmed this at his interview. That being said, there's a reason Wake has 7 supplements to the Common App.

Social security number on the transcript -- yes or no? Thanks!

Log in to the Common App as a counselor/recommender. If you click on "Profile", you should see ""Counselor Profile." Under that will first be "Personal Details", then ""School Details", then "School Profile". At the end of all the "School Profile" questions is says "Attach your school profile here" and that's where you can upload it.