usergre395,

Scholarships generally fall into the need and merit categories as you've already seen. I'm not sure what you mean by his "needs," but I suspect you're feeling the sticker shock many of us have with children in college. Many of the Ivies and tier two schools are offering better packages than in previous years to families that make under $100,000.

Some other suggestions, make sure your son visits the high school college counselor on at least a weekly basis. Focus on his extracurricular activities, and find out what scholarships are available from those organizations. Check with local philanthropic groups for local scholarships. The idea is to create a patchwork quilt to cover as many of the expenses as possible.

Now that we're in November, look at universities that offer "Presidential" scholarships. It might not be the Harvard or Yale schools, but tier two or three school that eagerly seek the best and brightest and offer bigger scholarships to entice the Ivy League kids.

Finally, you might want to join us in the College and Beyond Group because we're all going through what you're going through, or have just gone through it. It's located at: community.greatschools.net/groups/11551