Panel of Experts

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.

The College Board recently announced that, starting next fall, it will be offering a 2-hour standardized assessment test to eighth graders. The test, which has been named ReadiStep, will consist of three multiple-choice sections: one in reading, one in math, and one in writing.

To learn more about ReadiStep, I recommend this nytimes.com article by Sarah Rimer.

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.

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 Associated Press reported today that a survey conducted at St. Lawrence University in New York shows that students who don’t subject themselves to sleep depriving all-night study sessions may end up with better overall GPA’s. (more…)

Taking high school AP courses can help you stand out in the eyes of College Admissions departments and can help you prepare for the type of course work you will encounter in college. So should you jump in and apply for AP classes? Well, yes — but only if (more…)

Performance based contracts are nothing new in the field of business, but with the explosive cost of college tuition, such contracts increasingly popular between parents and their children. Let me explain through a personal story.

A few years ago, I received a panicked phone call from my father. It seems my little brother, who had just finished the fall semester of his freshman year at the University of Richmond, had received a couple “D’s” on his report card. My father was threatening to pull him out of Richmond - for which my father was paying nearly $35,000 per year - and to make him attend the local community college. My father’s logic made sense. Why should he pay so much for college if his son (my brother) was not applying himself? (more…)

As a junior in high school (or parent of a junior), what should you do to begin analyzing how to pay for college? What college financial aid process should you follow if you’re just now getting started? Earlier in our talks with Don Betteron, director of financial aid at Princeton University for thirty (30) years, ePrep focused on what parents of younger children can do to prepare for college tuition. Today’s prepcast discusses what high school juniors can do to determine their estimated family contribution and seek help from their college financial aid office. Typically, most junior and senior students are so focused on college applications and SAT test that they fail to consider their ability to pay for the colleges on their wish list. Join us as Don talks about now to use an online financial aid estimator at finaid.org and what to do with the information.

For those looking for more in our series on Financial Aid, we encourage you to review our previous ePrep financial aid posts:

The 16 Things You Should Know (or Do) Junior Year in High School
The 15 Questions You Should Ask About a College’s Financial Aid Program
The Price Tag: You Can Always Say “No”
Paying for College: Pre-High School Savings and Financial Aid

(more…)

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