Paying For College

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A Conversation About College Part II

Last week, I wrote Part I of a series called, “A Conversation About College” which covered some of the more pressing questions that were asked at a workshop I recently conducted at Sacred Heart Church in Southbury, Connecticut. Today, I am sharing Part II with you:Q: We’re not sure what the best type of school is for our son. He might want to be a history teacher, but he’s not sure.As far as figuring out what type of school is the best one, that’s something that comes with time, conversation and research. There are many factors that go into defining what type of school your son will do well at. For example, he should be thinking about attributes such as location, size of the student body, cost, private or public and reputation. Once these bigger ticket items have been identified, he can start doing some visits and online research to see what appeals to him and what doesn’t.  When I work with clients individually, I walk them through developing a college list and this exploration I just mentioned is the first step.

Q: What type of extra-curricular activities are admissions counselors looking for?We talked about this at length the other night, so this may sound repetitive, but the best activities for your son to be involved in are activities that mean something to him and which help complement his brand – here’s a blog I wrote about branding back in the fall that may help shed some light on the concept. Ultimately, you want to encourage him to think about quality over quantity.Q: How important is the essay and the essay topic?

This is a great question because while the essay can be very important, the topic isn’t necessarily what makes it important. What matters in an essay is how you tell your story. An essay really can be about any topic, big or small, but it’s how the student connects to the essay and what they are able to reveal about themselves that matters. A student who can show some depth, who can demonstrate a level of reflection and who can get me to see that what he is writing about truly matters to him is a student who has done a great job with their essay. The best way for a student to accomplish this is to really invest some time in their essay and make peace with the fact that they will write and rewrite several times before their essay is done. In fact, what their final essay looks like may not look anything like the original concept when they started.

Q: We are just starting the college search and our son is a sophomore – where do we start?

For freshmen and sophomores, the focus should be on helping them figure out what is important to them, what their strengths, skills and abilities are and introducing the idea of what college is about. If you go to my website, you will see that I offer a package called the “Early Exploration Package for Freshmen and Sophomores.” Basically, I help students at this stage work through a self-assessment while exploring some long range goals that tie into the college process.

Q: How do we go about figuring out our financial aid & scholarship options?

Again, this is time sensitive for the most part since you cannot apply for financial aid using the FAFSA until January 1st of the student’s senior year in high school. If he or she decides they are applying to any private schools, they may be required to also fill out the CSS Profile. The Profile, however, can be filed prior to January 1st.  While you can’t do anything about filing just yet, what you can do is spend some time figuring out how much all of this is going to cost. There is some detail to this, but essentially you want to know what you will be expected to pay for school so that you have some time to plan. If you go on the College Board website, you can use their EFC Calculator to do just this. EFC stands for “Expected Family Contribution” and is a term you will get to know quite well as senior year approaches. Your EFC is what a college will expect you to pay and it is how they calculate what they will offer you in the form of aid, grants and loans. The higher your EFC, the more you will be expected to contribute and the less aid you will expect to receive. As of this past October, each college and university has been mandated to publish a net price calculator on their website. So, as your student identifies schools where he or she would like to apply, you can use their net price calculator to get a feel for how things might look financially. Here is a blog that I wrote about the EFC calculators.

Q: How to choose a career/major?

This is a great question and one that troubles many students as they work through this process. To be honest, I do some assessments with students to help flesh out their values, interests, personality style and skills – or what I like to call their VIPS. Once you have a good idea of what is important to a student, what they are interested in and what they are likely to do well at, it is a lot easier to present options for majors and to point them in the direction of some useful career exploration. If it turns out that their interests are all over the place, then you want to be looking at schools that offer a wide variety of majors and where a student can start off as an undeclared major and then take some time in first semester to continue their career exploration.

I wouldn’t worry about this issue too much as of right now, especially if your son or daughter is only a sophomore or junior. Over 50% of students end up changing their majors during their freshman year anyway.

Happy Mother’s Day to all the awesome moms out there! I hope you’re having a great day!

If you have any thoughts you would like to share on “A Conversation About College,” please use the comment box below – I would love to hear from you! You can also email me directly at eric@doblercollegeconsulting.com.

Eric Dobler is the president and founder of Dobler College Consulting. Follow him on Twitter.

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Eric May 13, 2012 , , , , , , , , , No Comments
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Four Tips For High School Juniors

High School Juniors! The time is here. As you watch your friends in the senior class find out where they are going in the fall, I hope you are already planning out what you need to do over the next year to get your college process moving.

If you haven’t, here are four things you should be focused on right now:

1. Standardized testing – Both the SAT and ACT have test dates coming up later this spring. The SAT will be offered on May 5th and June 2nd while the ACT will be offered on April 14th and June 9th. Keep in mind that you need to register online for both and the deadlines are typically one month prior to the test date. If you’re not sure which test you want to take – or which one you might do better at, now is the time to take some practice tests.

2. Talk about money – despite the fact that most people hate to talk about money, if you haven’t already talked about cost, now is the time to do it. The average four year cost for public schools is over $60,000. For private schools, it’s nearly $150,000. Knowing what you can afford now will save you a lot of time, stress and heartache when you start building your college list and visiting campuses. Keep in mind that paying for a college is very much like paying for a car – very rarely do you pay the sticker price.

3. Campus visits –Even if you don’t know where you want to apply to yet, you are fortunate to have so many schools within driving distance right here in Connecticut. Want to get a feel for a large, research university? Go visit UConn. Think you might have what it takes to get into and make it at an Ivy League school? Schedule an information session and tour at Yale. Want to see what a highly selective, liberal arts college might offer you? You can visit Wesleyan or Connecticut College. A private, comprehensive university? The University of New Haven is your destination. A regional, state university? Central, Eastern, Southern or Western would fit the bill. I think you see where I’m going with this.

Visiting schools is one of the best ways to figure out how you feel about a school before investing your time in applying. Just be mindful of when schools are on spring break. While some may still offer tours, do you really want to see an empty campus?

4. Senior year courses – planning for next year’s courses should be happening soon and if you read my blog post from last week, you will know that colleges are looking at your senior year course load and grades. AP and honors courses are great ways to demonstrate your academic abilities. Scores of three or higher on the AP test (for very competitive schools, you will need a four or higher in most cases), can earn you college credit.

Another great way to show off your academic skills and earn some credit in the process is to take UConn Early College Education courses, otherwise known as ECE courses. The ECE program allows motivated high school students to take UConn courses at their high schools for both high school and college credit. For example, students at Cheshire High School can elect to take Child Development & Human Growth and British literature in addition to several AP courses.

Considering there are so many steps to finding the right college for you, getting started early can help ease the stress and anxiety of the process.

If you have any thoughts or perspective on things juniors should be doing now to help get their college search moving along, please use the comment section below.

You can also email me directly at eric@doblercollegeconsulting.com.

Eric Dobler is the president and founder of Dobler College Consulting. Follow him on Twitter.

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Eric Feb 19, 2012 2 Comments
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Meeting The State FAFSA Deadline

For those of you still working on the FAFSA, keep in mind that February 15th is the state deadline for filing here in Connecticut. Not to be confused with the federal deadline which is June 30th of 2013 (yes, that’s 2013 – the federal timeline for filing spans 18 months beginning in January of the student’s senior year in high school ), the state deadline is much earlier. If you want to be considered for any state grants, your FAFSA must be filed by the 15th. State grants are typically formulaic based on the student’s academic record. So, if you’re a good student, you don’t want to miss this deadline!

If you are putting off your FAFSA filing because you haven’t done your taxes yet – don’t. Plug in some estimations and then, when your taxes are done, you can go back in and make adjustments later. If you are putting off the FAFSA because you just don’t want to tackle it – arm yourself with resources, resources and more resources.

If you are a current junior, check with your school counselor about when your school might be hosting a financial aid night. Also, look for programs like the College Goal Sunday Program which was held at twelve different locations around the state today. The program’s goal is to help students and their families learn about financial planning for college while obtaining on-site assistance in filling out the FAFSA. It’s a free program and funded by the Lumina Foundation for Education and co-sponsored by the Connecticut Association of Professional Financial Aid Administrators (CAPFAA) and the Connecticut Association for Educational Opportunity Programs (CAEOP).

If all these attempts to get answers to your questions fail, you can always call the Federal Student Aid Information Center at 1-800-4FED-AID (1.800.433.3243). You don’t want to miss out on any type of assistance just because you missed a deadline.

Good luck with the FAFSA and if you have any questions you would like to ask or stories you would like to share, please use the comment section below.

You can also email me directly at eric@doblercollegeconsulting.com.

Eric Dobler is the president and founder of Dobler College Consulting. Follow him on Twitter.

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Eric Jan 29, 2012 No Comments
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It’s January And For Seniors, That Means FAFSA Time

In a world of acronyms, FAFSA may be the one that families dread the most. FAFSA stands for Free Application for Federal Student Aid. If you want to be considered for any federal assistance at a college or university, you must go online and fill out the FAFSA. For nearly 250 private schools, you will also need to fill out the CSS Profile if you have not done so already. While the Profile can be filled out as soon as you’ve identified the schools you are applying to, the FAFSA cannot be filled out until January 1st of senior year.

Prior to filling out the FAFSA, both the student applying for aid and his or her parents will need to secure a PIN from the federal student aid website. Once you have your PIN, you’re ready to go!

The FAFSA has long been considered a beast of an application. But, don’t fear, it has been simplified over the years and as long as you have set aside the information you will need and have completed a worksheet, you really should be in good shape. Oh yeah, set aside some time to do it. Don’t expect to just blow through it in ten minutes. Like any other financial application that requires you to enter personal information, you want to take your time and enter everything correctly. In other words, double-check everything you enter. One wrong entry can skew your results significantly. While you are working on your FAFSA, if you run into a problem and realize you need some help, you can always call the Federal Student Aid Information Center at 1-800-4FED-AID (1.800.433.3243).

If you want to read through some great tips on how to avoid mistakes on the FAFSA, check out a recent blog entry on The College Solution by Lynn O’Shaughnessy. I love Lynn’s blog – it’s informative, easy to read and always has references to other web-related resources that will help you feel more confident about working your way through college financing issues.

Good luck with the FAFSA and if you have any questions you would like to ask or stories you would like to share, please use the comment section below.

You can also email me directly ateric@doblercollegeconsulting.com.

Eric Dobler is the president and founder of Dobler College Consulting. Follow him on Twitter.

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Eric Jan 08, 2012 No Comments
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Looking For A Good Sale?

With the holiday shopping season in full, chaotic swing, you don’t have to look hard to find a sale. I open my email to find advertisements from one store telling me I can get 40% off one item if I shop before the end of the day while another one tells me that I can use their HOLIDAY code to get 35% off all items. Another one offers a staggering 65% off everything in their store. I guess they felt their offer of %50 off, which was sent to me just two days earlier, didn’t drive enough business their way.

With the federal mandate that colleges and universities publish a net price calculator on their website, students can now find similar sales. The net price calculators are supposed to allow you to enter some information about you and your family’s finances to see what the school will actually cost you. Of course, it’s not as simple as just opening your inbox to see today’s great deals. Some schools have made it quite difficult to find their calculators and others have made the process a little daunting and time consuming by requiring that you enter financial information about your family.

Despite some of these difficulties, at the end of the day, this is a step in the right direction. Being able to see what a school may actually end up costing you is valuable information. A school’s price tag should be one of the most critical factors in how a student develops their college list – understanding how a published tuition price can be reduced only allows your college list to be more realistic. You may find out that a school you originally thought you could not afford is now within reach, after running their net price calculator. In my opinion, it is worth the time to find the calculator and enter some information. Wouldn’t you agree?

Here’s a tip on making the process easier: If you’re having trouble finding a school’s calculator, just Google the school’s name and net price calculator. I did this myself with ten randomly chosen schools and each time the search results produced the school’s calculator without fail.

Have you had any experiences with net price calculators? Use the comment form below to share your story!

Eric Dobler is the president and founder of Dobler College Consulting. Follow him on Twitter.

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Eric Dec 11, 2011 No Comments