Panel of Experts

We invite you to join ePrep’s partner, GetCollegeFunding.org, for a special webinar they’re hosting on Tuesday, December 30 that will walk you though everything you need to know about filling out the 2009/2010 CSS PROFILE form!

Register for the Webinar Here!

The 2009-2010 CSS PROFILE form is available. This form is used by about 200 colleges in order to qualify for financial aid. PROFILE schools include the 8 Ivy League colleges, Stanford, Duke, USC, MIT, Cal Tech, and the 5 Claremont Colleges. If your student is applying to at least one PROFILE school, you should complete this form. With the current economic downturn it’s more important than ever for families to submit their PROFILE forms as early as possible.

This WEBinar will walk you through Step-by-Step the process of completing and submitting the PROFILE form. You will see screen shots of the online process and learn valuable tips. Here are just a few of the topics that will be covered:

- Registration with College Board for the CSS PROFILE form
- How do these schools assess Home Equity?
- What information is required about other family members?
- Past and future income declarations
- Explanation of any “Special Circumstances”
- What are “Section Q Questions”?
- What is “IDOC” that is required by some of these colleges?
- What about the Non-Custodial PROFILE form for divorcees?
- What about trust funds and UGMA/UTMA accounts?
- Where do you enter 529 accounts?
- What about rental property?
- What about business owners and their company assets?
- What happens AFTER you submit the PROFILE form?
- and more . . .

Join Tom and Lawrene Bottorf, Founders of GetCollegeFunding, Inc. as they address all of these topics in a 90-minute interactive presentation. You’ll be able to ask questions via a “chat” format and receive answers real-time from them throughout the presentation.

And you’ll receive a link to the recorded WEBinar the day after so that you can refer to it as you’re completing your PROFILE form!

There is a $20 fee for this event.

If you’re are college student applying for financial aid, you’re going to have to get through the FAFSA form. We invite you to join ePrep’s partners at GetCollegeFunding.org for a special webinar they’re hosting on Monday, December 29 that will walk you though everything you need to know about filling out the 2009/2010 FAFSA form!

2009-2010 FAFSA Form: Step-by-Step Instructions

Webinar Registration

The 2009-2010 FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) form will be available online January 1st, 2009. There are more changes on this year’s form than previous years. And with the current economic downturn it’s more important than ever for families to submit their FAFSA forms as early as possible.

This WEBinar will walk you through Step-by-Step the process of completing and submitting the FAFSA form. You will see screen shots of the online process and learn valuable tips. Here are just a few of the topics that will be covered:

- PIN application and retrieval
- FAFSA data entry
- Signing the FAFSA
- What financial aid becomes available as a result of the FAFSA?
- The FAFSA only handles 10 colleges?
- How do you submit the FAFSA before your ‘08 taxes are done?
- What about making changes or corrections?
- What’s the SAR and why is it important?
- Does home equity count “against” you?
- What about trust funds and UGMA/UTMA accounts?
- Where do you enter 529 accounts?
- What about rental property?
- Does an ex-spouse’s income and assets enter in?
- What about business owners and their company assets?
- What happens AFTER you submit the FAFSA?
- and more . . .

Join Tom Bottorf, College Funding Columnist and Founder of GetCollegeFunding, Inc. as he addresses all of these topics in a 90-minute interactive presentation. You’ll be able to ask questions via a “chat” format and receive answers real-time from him and the staff at GetCollegeFunding throughout the presentation.

And you’ll receive a link to the recorded WEBinar the day after so that you can refer to it as you’re completing your FAFSA form!

There is a $20 fee for this event.

A few of my private-tutoring students recently asked me whether colleges today are strongly considering the financial need of applicants when making admission decisions. My response: With college endowments plummeting across the nation, I don’t see how most schools can ignore the financial need of applicants. After all, colleges and universities are businesses.

When I recently asked Peter Van Buskirk of The Admission Game to comment, he offered to share a blog he recently posted on his website. His blog post appears below:

How Should You Check the Financial Aid Box?
The line on applications for admission that makes parents shudder most is the one that reads, “Do you plan to apply for financial aid—Yes or No?” As eager as one might be to check “yes” with the hope of receiving some type of assistance, there is a growing reluctance to do so for fear that checking “yes” might compromise the student’s chances of gaining admission.

This conundrum hits close to home in the current economy when even families who live in relative comfort are suddenly faced with uncertainty regarding cash for college. As the need for some type of assistance (merit scholarships, loans, campus work study) becomes more acute, so does the angst with regard to how that expression of need might be interpreted in the admission process.

Will institutions discriminate in the admission process with regard to a family’s ability to pay? Sure. However, they are not likely to do so based solely on the response to the “Yes/No” question. Rather, they will discriminate at the back end of the process when they have a full view of all the candidates they like as well as the respective financial needs for those candidates. It is at this point when they can see the big picture that they determine how to use available funds to leverage the enrollment of the students whom they value most.

Discriminating against students solely on the basis of who checks “Yes” to the financial aid question would be foolish. Roughly one-third of applicants for admission who check “Yes” indicating that they intend to apply for financial aid either never apply—because they realize they don’t need it—or they do apply and demonstrate that they don’t need it! Discriminating based on a “Yes” response means an admission committee will arbitrarily eliminate one-third of its applicants—many of whom would not have required institutional assistance.

So, what do you do? First, respond honestly. If you think you need assistance, say so. By acknowledging the possibility you enable an admission officer who is interested in your candidacy to track the progress of your financial aid application. If anything is missing, late, or incomplete, s/he can let you know in a timely fashion. And second, trust in the fact that colleges that value you for what you do well will admit you and give you what you need financially in order for you to enroll.

What you DON’T want to do is scheme the process. Don’t pretend to be “rich” by putting all of the money you have saved for college into your first year in order to improve your chances of getting in—and then expect to receive financial aid in subsequent years because you’ll be so darn poor you need it! Colleges budget financial aid for years two, three and four of your enrollment based on the expectations of year one. If you look “rich” when you apply, they expect you to be “rich” in the years that follow. If you plead poverty after your first year without evidence that something catastrophic (serious illness, injury, death, or loss of employment) has affected your family’s financial picture, don’t be surprised if the response of your financial aid officer is simply, “That’s your problem.” This is when families—and students in particular—start borrowing beyond their means to stay in school.

I would like to offer a couple of related thoughts. One, if you know you don’t require institutionally funded need-based assistance but anticipate applying for a Guaranteed Student Loan (Stafford) or you hope to secure a part-time job on campus, be prepared to complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) as institutions will use that to determine your eligibility for federally subsidized programs on their respective campuses.

Two, if you would like to be considered for any merit scholarships offered by a college or university, look for evidence that the school in question may actually offer such awards. If they do, find out about the eligibility criterion and protocols for placing yourself into consideration for an award. Most schools will have separate evaluation processes in place to determine merit scholarship recipients apart from the “Yes/No” question discussed previously.

Finally, when in doubt about what to do, check with the financial aid officers of the school(s) in question. It is better to move forward with good information than to discover too late that you have misinterpreted the process.

Special Note! The Best College Fit Membership program is about to launch! Watch for details to learn more about how you can go inside the college planning process with me to find and get into the schools that best fits for you! www.theadmissiongame.com

The College Board recently announced plans to administer a PSAT for eighth-grade students starting in 2010. The test would be administered with the hope of identifying talented students before they begin high school. Some critics say there’s already too much pressure on kids to do well on standardized tests. Read the Los Angeles Times article by Gale Holland and decide for yourself.

College applications require a lot of information that is ultimately useful to admission committees as they determine whom to admit. As a result, applicants routinely–almost mindlessly, complete forms that ask about home, school, family, extracurricular activities and unusual educational experiences. After all, it is usually easy to imagine where each piece of data might be useful to admission officers as they put your candidacy into a broader context.

Occasionally, however, there will be a question that gives the applicant reason to pause–a question that seems to have little bearing at all on the student’s personal qualifications. One such question asks applicants to “List the names of the other colleges to which you have applied.”

It turns out that this request and others like it show up in other places as well (interviews, meetings with alumni, recruiting sessions with athletic coaches, etc.) during the application process. Is seems innocuous enough; however, the savvy applicant is left wondering, “Just how will this information be used? Why do they want it and do I really need to give it to them?”
The answer is quite simple. Admission officers are pretty savvy about collecting information that can be used to predict the likelihood of your enrollment. This is particularly important in institutional environments where improving the yield on offers of admission and becoming more selective are criteria used to measure the success of their admission operations. As a result, admission officers are constantly trying to calibrate the yield on their offers of admission. The more they know about where you are applying (and likely to get in), the easier it is for them to determine the likelihood that you will enroll at their college if admitted. While the information you provide has no bearing whatsoever on the strength of your credentials, it can influence the status of your application if a college suspects that you are likely to pursue other options.

When you think about it, there is really nothing good that can result from providing such information. Therefore, I counsel students to leave the space blank. Unless you want admission officers to know where you are applying, keep that information to yourself. The same is true when the topic comes up conversationally. Give them only what you want them to know about your interests and intentions.

An interesting variation on this theme is found on the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) application–the form you must complete in order to qualify for financial aid administered by the state/federal governments and–in some cases, the colleges themselves. You see, the FAFSA will also ask you to list the colleges to which you have applied in order of preference. This information is required to complete and submit the FAFSA–and the resulting need analysis as well as the reported data will be forwarded to the colleges listed on the form. It is not uncommon for admission officers to cast side-long glances at such lists as they make their final determinations about whom to admit.

When asked for this information on the FAFSA, consider the implications of your response. You can list the schools in order of preference or you can confuse the issue by listing the schools in alphabetical order. While the ordering of schools on the FAFSA will not affect your eligibility for financial aid, just remember that it might have a bearing on how admission officers assess the likelihood of your enrollment.

The thing to remember about this whole discussion is that it is important to get on–and stay on–the “radar screens’ of the colleges that interest you. By making sure the authenticity of your interest in a college is clear and undeniable, you force admission officers to make decisions based on the strength of your academic and personal credentials.

For more advice from Peter Van Buskirk on college planning, visit TheAdmissionGame.com.

Today at approximately 5:00 EST, each of the eight Ivy League schools will post acceptance notices for regular decision students. While students can still wait by their mailboxes to see if they receive a fat or thin envelope, most will go online today and hit “refresh” on their browser until the magic web page appears. We wish everyone the best of luck in the admissions process. Here’s a link to a discussion on College Confidential tracking the admission announcement dates of many colleges.

Whether they realize or not, high school seniors are entering one of the most critical phases of the admission process. This is the time of the year when admission officers watch to see what students do when it would seem the spotlight is no longer on them. They want to see how students respond down the “stretch run” of the senior year.

Consider, then, the mile race. It is an apt metaphor for your high school experience. In order to complete the race, you need to make it around the track four times. Winning requires that you endure the grueling pace and still have what it takes to sprint when the race is on the line.

Let’s suppose, then, that your race has gone exceedingly well through the first three laps. You jumped out to an early lead and have maintained a strong pace. With only one lap to go, you are by yourself. You can’t even see the competition! This is a critical stage of the race because you begin to ask yourself, “Do I really need to work that hard in running the last lap? Should I save myself for the next race and spare the inevitable agony that otherwise comes with a sprint to the finish?”

The question you really need to ask yourself, though, is: “What have I won?” The answer is simple. “You haven’t won a thing!” You may have a “feel-good” feeling about where you are in the competition, but the race isn’t over. Moreover, changing your approach with a lap to go could prove costly as other runners are bound to be pushing hard to catch up.

The same is true of your high school experience in which each year is like a lap of the race. Each year was important academically as it prepared you to step up and meet the challenge of the year that followed. In all likelihood, your Junior Year really put you to the test as the work was harder and the expectations were greater. But you made it and that may have been cause for celebration in itself!

Having done well through your Junior Year may have left you feeling good about your prospects of graduating and getting into the colleges of your choice. Nonetheless, you need to ask yourself, “What have I accomplished? How many colleges have accepted me?”

The Senior Year is the all-important “last lap” of your high school experience. If your objective is to not only graduate but to get into colleges that can make choices among hundreds if not thousands of compelling candidates, you need to be attentive to how you are finishing the “race.” Even now, in mid-March of your Senior Year, the outcome of the race has yet to be determined. And, believe it or not, admission officers at selective institutions are waiting and watching to see who among the competitive applicants will sprint–or stumble–when the race is on the line.

So, stay focused academically. Continue to get the most out of your high school experience–even when it would seem that doing nothing is a viable option. In doing so, you give admission officers every reason to be excited about you as you sprint to the finish!

For more advice from Peter Van Buskirk on college planning, visit TheAdmissionGame.com.

On the evening of March 11, 2008, I had the opportunity to attend “The Admission Game” lecture by Peter Van Buskirk in a local high school auditorium. I attended for both professional (ePrep) and personal (I have three children) reasons.

In short, Peter did a great job. He essentially created an interactive environment that allowed all participants to experience the admission process from the college or university’s point of view. The experience was truly enjoyable and eye-opening.

Visit The Admission Game for a list of Peter’s upcoming events. I highly recommend “The Admission Game” program. It is both informative and engaging.

A question that seems to circulate among high school Juniors at this time of year as they make course selections for the Senior Year sounds something like this: “Is it better for me to take a course in which I know I can get an ‘A’ or should I take a harder course and risk getting a lower grade?” And the answer is: “Take the harder course and do as well as you can–why not shoot for the ‘A’?!”

There are two perspectives to consider here. One revolves around the college admission process and what colleges want to see from you academically. Generally speaking, the harder it is to get into a college the greater is the likelihood that its admission officers will be checking to see if you are continuing to stretch yourself academically. Because they are choosing from among thousands of well-qualified candidates, they can afford to use the strength of an academic program as a competitive credential or “filter” in deciding whom to admit.

Here’s another way to think about it. If highly selective colleges know that they are setting the competitive “bar” at a certain level in their own classrooms, they will be looking at your record to find evidence that you can meet that “bar.” What confidence do you give them in your ability to do so when you have chosen to compete at a comfortably lower level in high school?

That doesn’t mean you should register for every high level course you can get in order to compete for admission. Rather, you need to know your capacity to tackle challenges and make a conscious effort to move to the next logical level of rigor for you in each academic discipline. Don’t over-reach your capacity! The key, then, will be to focus on colleges that will value you for your experience in those courses.

The second and often overlooked perspective on selecting courses has to do with your ability to prepare yourself for the next level of rigor in college. Wherever you go to college, you are likely to find academic expectations that exceed any you encountered in high school. If you have continued to step up academically through each year of high school, the step into the college classroom will be one for which you are prepared. On the other hand, if the academic challenge you give yourself in your Senior Year of high school is not that different from the one you experienced as a Junior, then the step up to college will be much more awkward if not painful.

The bottom line with regard to course selections–and your eventual college selections–is this: Do what makes sense for you. Take stock of where you are on your learning path, set your college sites reasonably and build a strong foundation through your coursework in high school that will propel you into a successful experience in college.

For more advice from Peter Van Buskirk on college planning, visit TheAdmissionGame.com.

The University of Pennsylvania recently announced that Eric J. Furda will serve as the school’s undergraduate dean of admissions starting July 1, 2008. Mr. Furday is a graduate of both the University of Pennsylvania (BA, International Studies) and Teachers College at Columbia University (MA, Education). For more on Mr. Furda click here.