Category Archives: admissions

admissions, college guidance, college planning, college prep, parenting

5 Steps to Prepare for the College Admissions Process

college admissions process

College preparation does NOT begin during your student’s senior year. It starts in middle school with a discussion about college and decisions related to high school course selection and gets off to a running start their first day of high school. While you might be astonished and astounded by this statement, the truth is if you take it to heart, your student will enter senior year prepared and at the top of the college applicant pool.

Following are five steps to take once your student enters high school to prepare for their senior year and the college admissions process. These steps will help you and your student have less stress and be less likely to panic due to lack of preparation when that all-important college application time comes along.

Continue reading 5 Steps to Prepare for the College Admissions Process →
admissions, careers, college books, college guidance, college planning, college prep, college visits, community service, essays, FAFSA, financial aid, financial planning, high school, mom approved tips, parenting, podcasts, Resources, scholarships, social networks, standardized tests, student loans, study abroad, test prep, websites

100+ College Prep Resources

1 Comment
college prep resources

It’s exhausting searching and scouring the internet for the right information when it comes to helping your student prepare for college. But what if you could use ONLY ONE RESOURCE and find everything you ever wanted to know about college prep? Wouldn’t that be amazing?

Here it is. I’ve done the research, examined the links and their resources, and compiled a list of 100+ college prep resources for you. (If you know of others, please leave them in the comments and I will add them to the list!)

Continue reading 100+ College Prep Resources →
admissions, college guidance, financial aid, financial planning, parenting

Southern Truisms for the College Admissions Process

southern truisms

I’ll admit (willingly) that I like to offer my unsolicited advice to my children, often in the form of southern truisms (I grew up in the south and was raised by a family of southerners). Even though they are grown, I feel the need to continue to parent. As they did when they were younger, they smile, listen, and then do things their own way. It’s a type of dance parents and kids do with one another.

The hardest part of the college admissions process for a parent is finding a balance in your parenting. You want to encourage them, guide them and help them make the right choices. But when you push too hard, nag and set guidelines that interfere with their independence and individual choices you create a stressful and frustrating college preparation experience. This is a monumental step in your child’s life and you don’t want to taint it with fighting, frustration and family discourse.

Following are 5 tips for parents of college-bound teens (based around good old southern truisms) to keep peace in the home and reduce the stress related to the college admissions process:

Continue reading Southern Truisms for the College Admissions Process →
admissions, financial aid, financial planning, parenting, work study

Different Types of Financial Aid

types of financial aid

Those two little words — “financial aid” — can be music to a parent’s ears. I know they were to me!

What I didn’t know as I began the college application process with my daughter was that there are a number of different types of aid available. Not only that, but the awards colleges offer when they offer admission can vary tremendously.

I was surprised to find that many private colleges can be generous with merit aid because they have institutional funds to distribute as well as federal dollars, while public universities with tight budgets may offer less aid. This can result in a private college with a higher “sticker price” costing less to attend than a public university.

Back to the example of my daughter, who applied to a mix of public and private universities. We knew we would need help financing her education, so when she applied to college she also applied for financial aid and we completed two online forms: the FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) and the CSS/Financial Aid PROFILE (administered by the College Board and required by many private schools and some flagship state universities).

Continue reading Different Types of Financial Aid →
admissions, college costs, financial aid

Breaking Down the Award Letters

award letters

It’s a joyful day for your high school senior when an offer of college admission arrives, and the joy is magnified by a financial aid award.

Award letters arrive along with (or soon after) acceptance letters. I remember the first time I saw one, my daughter’s senior year. Quite honestly, it was Greek to me.

How were we supposed to compare the offers? The letters included the same basic categories — loans, work-study, grants and scholarships — but without understanding what each category meant it was hard to tell whether or not the college was meeting all of our financial need (Total Cost of Attendance minus our Expected Family Contribution, or EFC). Every college was different and every award letter was different!

Continue reading Breaking Down the Award Letters →
admissions, financial aid, financial planning, scholarships

6 Ways to Search for College Scholarships

1 Comment
college scholarships

For college-bound students, scholarships can fill in the gap between what you can afford and the cost of the school. Most students believe college scholarships are a pipe dream if they aren’t athletes or 4.0 students. But nothing could be further from the truth. There are thousands of scholarships available for the taking. You just need to find them.

There are six key places to look. But remember: Finding them is half the battle. You have to put in the effort to apply and be vigilant in paying attention to requirements and deadlines.

Continue reading 6 Ways to Search for College Scholarships →
admissions, college guidance, college planning, college prep, extracurricular activities, parenting

There’s More to Extracurriculars Than Sports

1 Comment
extracurriculars

Any parent who is looking at college applications knows how important getting involved in extracurriculars can be. Your teen might not have the involvement in school activities that are going to impress the kinds of colleges they are looking for, but it’s not too late. However, there’s no denying that children who aren’t sporty can find it tougher to find the activities that they like. Here are some of the options you might want to nudge them towards instead.

Continue reading There’s More to Extracurriculars Than Sports →
admissions, college planning, college prep, parenting

New Survey Shows Parents Want to Be Involved in the College Process

college process

You probably don’t need a survey to tell you what you already know: parents are more involved in the college process than ever before. They want to participate in the decision and communicate with the colleges. They want to help and guide their students in the decision-making process.

Here’s what the survey found:

Insight #1-Parents want direct communication from colleges.

Parents want to be more involved. Parents are increasingly anxious and hands-on. Parents want communication from the college and want to participate in the college decision. They want to be involved at the same time as their students in the college search.

Continue reading New Survey Shows Parents Want to Be Involved in the College Process →
admissions, college guidance, college planning, college prep, parenting

Should Your Student Apply to 40 Colleges?

2 Comments
colleges

I read a post from a parent on one of the Facebook groups I follow. Her son was applying to 40 colleges and she asked how he was going to do it using the Common App since there is a maximum of 20 allowed in the application.

Parents chimed in with suggestions on how to supplement the Common App by applying via college websites and choosing alternate college applications. I read all the suggestions, which were logical and helpful. I kept wondering if anyone would respond by encouraging her to help her son narrow down his list.

Finally, someone spoke up with that suggestion. I’m hoping the mother took their advice because it was the most logical of all.

Continue reading Should Your Student Apply to 40 Colleges? →
admissions, college planning, college prep, FAFSA, financial aid, financial planning

Do You Understand the EFC?

EFC

I will never forget the moment we received our Student Aid Report and I saw the EFC (Expected Family Contribution) on the right-hand corner. I was in shock as most parents are. How could the powers that be believe we could afford to pay that amount for college? It was a mystery to me how they came up with that number, as it is to most of you.

The EFC determines how much financial aid the colleges will award to your student. You can’t receive any federal or institutional aid without getting an EFC when you complete the FAFSA. We are stuck with it and will probably never truly understand how they use to determine how much money your family can afford to pay.

If you are going to need financial aid for college (and who doesn’t?), you will need to understand the EFC.

Continue reading Do You Understand the EFC? →