The admissions and financial aid process from the perspective of a retired Guidance Counselor and a parent of four children. I spent 34 years in education with the last 22 years as a high school guidance counselor. I specialized in admissions and financial aid as two of my key assets as a counselor. I visited many colleges up and down the east coast and networked with many admissions/financial aid counselors in order to better service my counselees and their parents. I have successfully put three (3) of my children through college but I did this in an economy that was flourishing. In today’s economy with our assets and investments down anywhere from 30% to 50%, it makes this process a lot more difficult. College admissions have become more competitive and more expensive since my last child graduated from college in 1998. My first two daughters graduated from college in early 90’s and the admissions and cost was very reasonable during that period.

In general, for those of you that are planning to send your sons and daughters to college in the next 2 to 5 years, you should begin to do your preliminary research right now. For those of you who will be sending your son or daughter to college in the next 2 years, you should have done your preliminary research and your financial planning already. Right now, you and your son or daughter should be visiting colleges, taking the PSAT’s and SAT’S in the junior year. The mindset and training begins a lot earlier than I have just mentioned. Financial planning also should be started as early as possible. Your sons and daughters will most likely get into 3 to 10 colleges/universities, depending on the number of schools that they apply to. Admissions will be based on what kind of profile that your son or daughter creates during high school and this will also effect what kind of financial aid package he or she is going to receive. After everything is done, what it comes down to is where can you afford to send your son or daughter. It comes down to money and the decision will be made between April 15th and May 1st of your son’s or daughter’s senior year.

Now, I will get in to the specifics of college admissions and financial aid. I will also give you links to websites where you can get more information.

 

Admissions to colleges are based on your son’s or daughter’s transcript, class rank, SAT scores, school activities/sports and letters of recommendation from teachers and his or her counselor (grades and activities from grades 9 to 12 are considered for the purposes of applying to college). The student’s work habit is established early in years. Once your son or daughter enters high school, everything that he or she does will become part of his or her profile. For admissions you need to go to www.collegeboard.com/csearch to become familiar with PSAT’s, SAT’s, plan for college, find colleges, apply to colleges and pay for college. 

Once you have your son’s and daughter’s GPA, class rank and PSAT’s or SAT scores, you should go to the college’s and university’s website to see what the previous freshman class’s profile was to see how your son’s or daughter’s profile compare. This will give you an idea of what kind of chances he or she will have when he or she apply. There many websites out there that you can use to do your research and your best resource is your son’s or daughter’s guidance counselor.

You should work closely with your son’s or daughter’s high school’s guidance office. Also, you can always call the college’s admissions office to get information specific to that college.

When your son or daughter does apply to college, he or she should apply to at leas 5 schools. You want he or she to apply to at least (1) one school that you have a real good feeling that he or she will get in and that you can afford. Your son’s or daughter’s safety school is extremely important on your list of schools. He or she should also apply to at least (1) one reach school. The rest of the schools should be within his or her profile.

 

Financial aid or financing your son’s or daughter’s college education, is to me, the most important part of this whole college search process. Because it doesn’t matter where and how many schools that your son or daughter get into, if you can’t afford to send him or her to one of those schools. You need to apply to schools in variety of price ranges. You should from the beginning, apply to at least (1) one school that you know based on your Expected Family Contribution (EFC), that you can afford that particular school with little financial help or no help at all (your financial safety school). The following websites will help you determine your EFC: www.fafsa4caster.ed.gov/

Your EFC is calculated when you file your financial aid forms (FAFSA and CSS Profile). In most cases, you only have to file the FAFSA, which is the federal form, and it is income driven. You should calculate your Expected Family Contribution as soon as possible so you can realistically do your college searches. You want to know how much the schools are going to expect you to come with financially and it always is more than what you think.

I hope that the information that I have given you is helpful in your college search adventure. For more information, please contact your son’s or daughter’s guidance counselor.

 If financing your son’s or daughter’s education is a concern in today’s economy and you are willing to investigate how you can pay for you child’s education with easy. You could possibly have your son or daughter come out of college debt-free. I will provide you with more free information on my website which will give you more details on how you can make a second stream of income in a risk-free and recession-proof business opportunity. We don’t sell anything or make anything. We are the new millennium middlemen.

Good luck and God bless! I will not ill advise you. I was in the helping profession for 34 years and I have been blessed again with an opportunity to continue to help people but this time it is financial in nature.

If what I have just described to you is of any interest, click on the following link for more information!

 http://leoneldarosa58.myhomefortune.com/land1.php

 

Leonel DaRosa

FHTM Independent Representative

 

First things first, you need to get your son or daughter signed up to take the SATs, ACTs, or possibly both. Look at the required testing for admission consideration for each school. Remember, it is better to over-test than under-test. If their chosen schools want to see either the ACT or the SAT, it may be a good idea to take both tests.

In fact, your son or daughter may want to take the tests more than once, since schools accept your highest scores. If your son or daughter scores higher on the math section and lower on the writing section, they can take the test again and use the highest score on each section to calculate their cumulative score. Since the tests are offered multiple times each year, it’s best to start early and test often to get the best test scores you can. SAT and ACT prep classes are also available, and many helpful hints can be found online.

Your son or daughter should also start considering what their high school transcripts are going to do for their odds of acceptance during the admissions process. Adding an honors or advanced placement class, just so long as it won’t damage their overall GPA if the class is too difficult for them, is a great idea. Encourage your child to get involved in student government or other extracurricular activities. Admissions departments love well-rounded applicants. Community service, hobbies and jobs can also count in your child’s favor when it comes to extracurricular activities. However, make sure their grades stay top-notch while they are diversifying their interests.

The last variable in the college admissions process is in the admissions essay. This is the part of your son or daughter’s application that lets admissions officers get to know them better as a person. It is critical that the essay has no grammar or punctuation mistakes. A great essay lets you hear the writer’s voice clearly. It is best to have the essay proofread by a few different people, if possible. An English teacher and a guidance counselor would be ideal as proofreaders.

It is also important to remember one last vital element to the college admissions process: your emotional support as a parent. High school students have a lot of social pressure on their shoulders to begin with, and the college admissions process is a huge step in their lives. Make sure your son or daughter knows that they can turn to you for support, regardless of whether they’re going to an Ivy League school or a community college. Your support will help them make the most out of their potential.

With this being said, it is important that every student takes a close look at each school they are wanting to attend. If a student is planning on furthering their education by going to a graduate school or a medical school, the student should find information on the undergraduate programs at the college they are wanting to attend. If the student is planning on attending medical school, he/she should find out if the chemistry department and biology department at the college of their choice is prestigious enough for him/her to get accepted into medical school. Even so, whether or not the student is planning on attending graduate school, he/she should find out information on the undergraduate program that he/she will be attending.

What students seem to forget is that they aren’t the only ones trying to impress someone. Colleges too are constantly trying to impress their prospective students. Therefore, if students are serious about getting the best education, they should do their own research on each college they are considering. Many students forget that the process goes both ways are happy to be accepted anywhere.

Even though I have done very well academically, I don’t consider my academic performance to be a complete measure of my current or future success. Colleges realize that academics aren’t the only way to find the most motivated students who will have success in the real world. Therefore, they are always looking for better ways to learn about future prospects and the kind of character that will be added to their campus through the students they recruit.

It wasn’t too long ago when I myself went through the whole painstaking ordeal of being accepted into the college of my choice. What I enjoyed about my ordeal however, is that the college admissions officers took a look at more than just my test scores and grades. There were many of us prospective students who spent a weekend doing various activities on that college campus while college admissions officers watched us closely and interviewed many of us. By doing so, there were able to see more of who I was and not just that I had awesome test scores. (I don’t mean to brag, but, they were pretty good.) Nevertheless, I was happy with how the entire ordeal was run and that I was considered to be more than just a test score.

College admissions processes are still a work in progress. Many schools nationwide are looking for new ideas to improve the way they deal with college admissions, trying to find a way to make prospective students more than just grades and test scores. With so many applicants, it makes it very difficult for college admissions offices to look at each student in depth. A quicker way to filter through student applications would be an ideal way to better the process.

Advancements in science and technology has helped to lessen the headache of the process of admission to college for the colleges and students. Online applications have made the process much easier for students. There are also new and exciting ways for college admission officers to recruit students. College recruiting is going to be taken to the next level soon with new programs that allow students to showcase themselves to any college of their choice. For example, the Yale Admissions Officers or Harvard Admissions Officials can now recruit using online services in order to find potential students.