The panic is arriving early this year. Back in the good old days–say, two years ago, when the last of my children suffered the ordeal–a high-school student applying to college could procrastinate all the way to New Year’s of senior year, assuming he or she could withstand the parental pestering. But things change fast in the nail-biting world of college admissions. The recent trend toward early decision and early action among selective colleges and universities has pushed the traditional deadline of January up to Nov. 1 or early December for many students.

Times are tough and tuition costs are sky rocketing. Now more than ever, college applicants are in need of financial aid in order to attend school. In this week’s column, our experts will tell you whether requesting aid can affect your chances of getting into the school of your dreams.

Q: Are applicants who need financial aid evaluated differently?

A: Need-blind admissions depends on the college.

Stacey Kostell, director of admissions, University of Illinois—Urbana-Champaign

Whether your financial situation is considered during application review actually depends on the college. At Illinois, we do not take ability to pay into the review. However, not all institutions are considered need-blind, meaning ability of pay may be a factor. Many universities, including Illinois, follow the same review process for everyone and the members of the review committees do not know the financial status of anyone. Once students are admitted they can then work with the financial aid office should they need assistance.

See all of Stacey’s expert admissions advice.

[Get 5 hints to compare financial aid award letters.]

A: Avoid being a borderline admit.

James Montoya, vice president of higher education, The College Board

The evaluation process is likely to be the same, but financial need may influence whether an applicant is ultimately admitted and funded or placed on an admissions waiting list, a financial aid waiting list, or even denied admission. Applicants in the bottom portion of the admit pool—&"borderline admits&"—with high financial need are most vulnerable. Applicants with high financial needs who possess strong academic credentials and/or special talents are better positioned to receive financial aid. While you likely can’t change your family’s financial situation, you can work diligently to be a strong college applicant.

See all of James’s expert admissions advice.

[Consider taking these 6 steps to boost your financial aid.]

A: Colleges like rich students.

Suzanne Shaffer, founder, Parents Countdown to College Coach

Unfortunately colleges love to attract wealthy students. Why? Because they consider them better prepared because of their advantages and they use them to underwrite the college costs for those who cannot afford to pay. Students who need financial aid might get passed over when compared with one who does not. This is especially true with the more elite colleges where admission is extremely competitive. Don’t let this discourage you, however, if you don’t fall into the &"rich&" category. There are plenty of colleges that give out huge amounts of financial aid to deserving students.

See all of Suzanne’s expert admissions advice.

[See which colleges claim to meet full need.]

A: The answer is: &"It depends.&"

Hannah Serota, college counselor, McLean School of Maryland

Most of the wealthiest colleges, those with enormous endowments, take pride in making sure that admissions decisions are completely separate from financial aid decisions. For those colleges, all applicants are evaluated without regard to ability to pay.

But that is not the case at the majority of colleges. Most institutions must work hard to remain within their financial aid budgets. For these colleges, something called &"preferential packaging&" comes into play. Highly desirable students, those who exceed the institutional averages in test scores and/or grades tend to be packaged more favorably with more scholarship and less self help (loans and work study).

Middle-of-the-pack applicants may be given slightly less scholarship and more self help. And those who find themselves at the bottom of the accepted student group may find their financial aid packages to be mostly self help with little scholarship aid. What this means is that your financial aid package from a reach college may not be as attractive as the package from one of your target, or well matched, colleges. If you are looking for generous scholarship aid, you need to look at colleges and universities where your academic profile is strong compared to that of the average admitted student.

See all of Hannah’s expert admissions advice.

[Learn more about improving your college admissions odds.]

Visit the Unigo Expert Network for 15 more answers about need-based admissions and to have your own questions answered.

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By PAMELA GOULD

Parents of Spotsylvania County students taking dual enrollment classes will get a rebate soon and a reduced tuition rate in the future.

The Spotsylvania School Board has voted to refund 75 percent of the tuition families paid for fall semester classes at Germanna Community College.

The decision was made to bring Spotsylvania students dual enrollment fees in line with what other area high school students pay.

I think this will increase enrollment, School Board member Linda Wieland said at the Nov. 14 work session where the board approved the change.

We hope that it will, said schools Chief Financial Officer LaShahn Gaines.

The dual enrollment program, approved by the state in January 2005, allows high school students to take college courses and simultaneously earn college credits and credits toward their diplomas.

Gaines presented the board with data showing that Spotsylvania and Orange County students have been paying 100 percent of the tuition whereas students in other local jurisdictions have paid a fraction of the cost.

Stafford students pay 20 percent of the tuition; Fredericksburg students pay 24 percent and Caroline County students pay about 30 percent, according to data assembled by school division staff.

Except for Orange, the state reimburses each of those school districts 80 percent of the tuition. Orange gets back 75 percent.

Tuition for classes at Germanna Community College is $119 per credit hour, or $357 for a three-credit course.

Students taking a three-credit class this semester can expect to receive a refund of $267.75 next month.

For future semesters, Spotsylvania students will pay 25 percent of the tuition. Thats $29.75 per credit hour, or $89.25 per three-credit class, a little more than the cost of an advanced placement test. Performance on AP tests can exempt students from taking some college classes.

But while board member Marty Wilder supports the tuition reduction for dual enrollment students, he said he doesnt want parents and students to confuse the two programs.

AP is still the gold standard when college admissions officials are reviewing high school transcripts to decide which applicants to accept, he said.

Wilder is chief of staff to University of Mary Washington President Rick Hurley, and previously served in the schools admissions office.

He said the Spotsylvania school division had been unable to help students with the cost of AP tests and dual enrollment tuition lately because of the tight economy.

Wilder suggested the division monitor enrollment in both AP and dual enrollment courses to see how they go in the future to make sure AP classes dont see a drop-off.

The tuition refunds to families will cost taxpayers $126,914. The refunds are to be paid for with unspent funds carried over from the last fiscal year that the Board of Supervisors is expected to release to the school division in mid-December.

Pamela Gould: 540/735-1972 Email: pgould@freelancestar.com

A few years ago, I wrote a piece in the TAB depicting the challenges facing high school seniors in the fall. As they scramble to complete their college applications, including one core essay and several supplementary ones, they must also keep up with their classwork. Sad to say, crunch time for seniors has only worsened since then despite our best efforts to soften the impact. For many seniors, the entire process of college admissions has become sheer madness.

The culprit? Ferocious competition for a limited number of places in college. This is not to say that our country lacks a spot for every graduating senior who wishes to attend college. What has happened instead is lots of students set their sights on the same limited number of institutions. Sometimes, highly regarded universities receive five, ten times more applicants than the size of their freshman classes. Many students despair of being accepted anywhere (almost everyone does get in somewhere).

In response, some seniors apply to a preposterous number of schools. These days the majority of applications travel electronically. It works this way: students register online at a site like Naviance, which specializes in processing common application forms. They then post their information and essays at the site. Finally, they ask teachers like me to post a letter of recommendation on their behalf as well. So far this year I have written nineteen such letters, almost all for students that I taught during junior year. In a while I will undoubtedly receive a few requests from my seniors to do the same.

Once the requisite forms have arrived, a few clicks of the computer and the forms are on their way. Additionally, students must pay an application fee ranging from $50 to $75 per college. That fee apparently proves no obstacle to some students; for example, one student of mine this year applied to 16 different colleges. Barbara Brown, Newton Souths director of college counseling, informs me that the school record for the most applications sent is 30! No wonder college admissions officers find themselves drowning in applications and college essays. Newtons high schools must send out thousands of transcripts as well.

In contrast, when I applied to college, my high school sent no more than four transcripts per student. My strategy, shared by all my friends, consisted of applying to one reach school, where the odds of my being accepted seemed low; two schools that afforded me a reasonable chance; and one safe school, in my case a state college that would surely accept me. Four schools! In the course of my junior and senior years, I visited none of them and knew little about them beyond their reputation. Somehow, in the end, it all worked out.

Of course, in the mid-60s my annual tuition bill ran to about $3,000; nowadays, a student attending any private university will probably pay upwards of $50,000 a year, sometimes much higher. Even state college tuitions have shot up though they now seem a bargain in comparison.

Consequently, parent-consumers spend much more time perusing their childrens choices. Who wouldnt want to get value for such an investment? Some families go further, hiring private college admissions advisors to help their seniors choose schools, write the essays, and otherwise strategize on how to gain admission. Costs for such counseling can run into thousands of dollars.

In recent years more and more seniors complete their applications by Nov. 1, opting for either Early Decision or Early Action. Early Decision requires students to commit to that college should they be accepted. Early Action has no such requirement; thus, some students apply Early Action to six or seven colleges. I still fail to understand how anyone, colleges or seniors, benefits from Early Action. One year a student who gained acceptance to a prestigious school via Early Action requested that I send letters of recommendations to seven other schools, including Yale and Stanford. Why? I asked since he had assured me that he would attend the first school. He responded, Because I am curious.

Is it any wonder that hundreds of seniors at our local high schools are walking around right now feeling a bit stressed out thanks to the college admission process? Their parents might be pondering a second mortgage as they debate whether to pay the exorbitant tuition costs upfront or amass a formidable debt. Many Newton families earn too much money to qualify for college scholarships but too little to pay out-of-pocket.

Meanwhile, we teachers and guidance counselors bravely soldier on, helping our seniors with the college process while keeping them engaged in their schoolwork. Ideally, high school should be an end in itself, not just a means to an end like college admissions. In reality, the entire community suffers from an advanced case of college madness.

Bob Jampol teaches English at Newton South High School

Reecy Aresty, a college admissions and financial aid adviser, is the author of ‘How to Pay For College Without Going Broke.’

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November 22, 2011

As thousands prepare recommendation letters, essays and financial aid forms, guest host Tony Cox gets advice on how parents and students can succeed in navigating the college admissions process. Cox speaks with Joy St. John, director of admission at Wellesley College.

Copyright © 2011 National Public Radio®. For personal, noncommercial use only. See Terms of Use. For other uses, prior permission required.

TONY COX, HOST:

Now we turn to an issue that many high school seniors and their parents will be spending their holidays fretting over. College admissions. It can be a daunting process, getting all those essays, recommendations and financial aid forms ready in time for December and January deadlines, and getting into college can be especially tough for students who are the first in their families to walk that path.

We wanted to spend some time talking about how parents and teens can navigate the complicated college admissions process, so we have called on an expert to help us out. Joy St. John is the director of admissions at Wellesley College, a liberal arts college outside of Boston. Joy, nice to have you.

JOY ST. JOHN: Thank you for having me, Tony.

COX: There are so many areas to approach. Let’s begin with this one because you are already reading some early decision applications and I understand that the most common questions that you are getting from parents and students right now, about money, which is a no-brainer, I would think – what is your advice for helping families figure out what they can and cannot afford?

JOHN: Well, yes. Certainly over the last several years, families have been increasingly concerned about cost and their ability to finance a college education for their child, and we very much focus on talking to parents about looking at real costs versus the sticker price.

So sometimes what can happen with families is that they can focus just on – well, what is the published tuition cost to attend an institution, not thinking about the full cost of attendance and financial aid options that are available to them.

So a great example is at a school like Wellesley, our total cost of attendance is about $54,000 when you include – not just tuition, but also books and expenses. And – but if you look at the students who are enrolled at Wellesley, about 58 percent of those students are receiving financial aid and the average grant or scholarship portion of those financial aid awards is over $36,000.

So although our cost is high, because we are able to offer generous need-based financial aid, our real cost to families can often be lower than they expect.

COX: Now, you mentioned student loans. I want to get to that some more with you. We’re talking with Joy St. John, director of admissions at Wellesley College.

You mentioned, as I said, student loan. There are a lot of issues with that. So how do you figure out what is safe and what is affordable with regard to student loans?

JOHN: Well, the way that student loans are packaged in financial aid awards very much differs from institution to institution. So at a place like Wellesley, we’ve really been conscious about keeping our loan costs – our loan levels low for students and managing student indebtedness in a way that we think serves students well. And so we’ve done things, for instance, like eliminate the student loan component of a financial aid award for students from families with incomes of $60,000 or less. And we’ve also created a cap on the maximum loan amount that can be packaged for an individual student so that no student should graduate with more than – with any, any more than about $12,800 in student loan debt.

But it very much differs from institution…

COX: Well, let me stop you there. You said no one should graduate with more than $12,000 in student loan debt. Is that correct? Did I hear you correctly?

JOHN: This is from Wellesley.

COX: From Wellesley.

JOHN: Yeah. So at about $12,800, so about $3,200 per year, so this very much differs from the national average, where students on average are graduating with debt of over about $25,000.

COX: Right. That was why I was going to ask you that, because how realistic that is for students going to most universities, state or private, these days.

JOHN: Right. Well, so I’m just using that as an example to explain why it’s really important for families to do research to figure out what the loan policies are for the institutions that they’re considering. So a great way to do that – most colleges now have a financial aid calculator on their websites, and actually it’s a federal requirement for colleges and universities administering federal aid funds.

So families can go to college websites and take their – the family’s W2 and tax return information and input it into these calculators and the calculators will not only help families figure out how much aid they might qualify for at that institution, but it will also help families figure out, you know, if they’re eligible for $20,000 worth of need-based financial aid, let’s say.

It will also break down for them how that aid will be awarded, so how much student loan would be in that aid award. And these are – there are limitations to these calculators. They are just estimates. They’re only as good and accurate as the information the families put into them and they only really demonstrate first year aid. So for schools that perhaps change their loan amounts from after the first year, there may be some differences. But it’s at least a good starting point.

COX: To get information, right?

JOHN: To get information about schools’ loan policies. And it would be great if, you know, if there was some across-the-board policy that was very easy to understand, but different institutions have different resources for financial aid and they decide to use those resources in different ways. So a calculator…

COX: (Unintelligible) absolutely.

JOHN: Yeah. Is a way to get the specific information.

COX: If you’re just joining us – let me just let the audience know who and what we’re doing. This is TELL ME MORE from NPR News. I’m Tony Cox sitting in for Michel Martin and we are talking about how parents and students can navigate the college admissions process. And we are speaking with Joy St. John, the director of admissions at Wellesley College.

Joy, I want to come back for a second off of the issue of finances, which obviously is a very important one, perhaps the most important one. But you’ve got to get into the school first. And let’s talk about that process for a moment, in terms of applying to schools. What is the most important thing that people should know about what should or should not go into your application?

JOHN: Well, I think most students would benefit from understanding that you need to take care and attention, to think about how all of the pieces of your application sort of reflect upon you. So obviously one of the things that matters most is really something that in some ways is already a done deal by the time you’re applying to college, and that’s your high school transcripts. Right? So the courses that you’ve selected and the grades that you’ve received in those courses.

But then there are also pieces of the application that you have some influence over. Your essay is one and even, to some extent, your letters of recommendation. And so those are the things that students, I think, need to pay particular care and attention in figure – in creating and submitting.

So a great example is in the personal essay, is to think about, you know, what is the question that the school is asking you to answer and what information are you trying to convey? And sometimes students get wrapped up in maybe being very literal about interpreting the essay question. So the essay question may be, describe a person who has had a significant influence on you and describe that influence on you. And they may have to answer that question in 500 words. So it’s very easy for a student to get focused on the person who’s of significance to them and not focus on how that person has influenced who they are.

COX: Influenced them. Right.

JOHN: Yeah.

COX: You know, our time is running short and there are many, many questions, as I said, I had for you. Here’s one and I’d like for you, if you can, to answer it as briefly as possible. What happens if you’re a first timer and you don’t have anybody in your family or in your immediate circle to turn to? Where do you go for advice? Really quickly.

JOHN: I really think that students should look often for community-based organizations that provide some college guidance and college counseling and there are sometimes resources within a school. If a school doesn’t have a very strong college counseling program, there are often teachers who teach more advanced courses who may be of assistance to students as they’re trying to sort of navigate all of these pieces of the process.

COX: That helps very much and I’m sure you would agree that you have to make your deadlines as well.

JOHN: And you have to make your deadline.

COX: Joy St. John is the director of admissions at Wellesley College and she joined us from a studio on that campus. Joy, thank you very much. It was helpful.

JOHN: You’re welcome.

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Many anxious parents, certainly on the Main Line, worry about their possibly unmotivated youngsters chances of getting into a respectable college. Some, having gone through the Admission Game successfully with one son or daughter, think from here on itll be easy to play the system.

Not so, say sages who counsel these parents.

Video plays below:

For one thing, each child is different. And the rules of the game keep changing as schools jockey for status and ultimately tuition money, yours.

Among these experts are former admissions officers who say theyll share some of the secrets of their trade. For example Cigus Vanni regularly offers a four-session workshop series on the subject at Lower Merions libraries.

This time, the night of Oct. 24, the Lower Merion School District contributed to the discussion with a very dynamic, charismatic speaker, a treat for the gathered parents in Lower Merion High Schools auditorium.

Peter Van Buskirk is the former admissions officer of Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster, a 25-year veteran of the game, and a dad.

With a speaking voice that almost didnt need the mike, and animated, running to and fro across the front of the room and liberally using a whiteboard to teach his points, Van Buskirk spent about the first hour of his two-hour presentation inviting parents into the world of college admissions officers, sharing with them the Pyramid of Selectivity, enrollment models, or the ratio of applications and acceptances (and the fraction of acceptances colleges expect will actually come to the school), the scale of academic standards and of course other criteria, as shown through the choices one makes in high school, that might make an applicant your son or daughter stand out and thus get an offer.

That done, the presentation then went over the qualifications of four applicants to a fictitious college, Easton University, which Van Buskirk swears is not Franklin and Marshall College dressed up. Continued…

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Posted at 09:10 AM ET, 10/24/2011
The many myths about college admissions
By Jenna Johnson

A dean of admissions once told me that a big part of his job is to simply dispel myths and rumors about the application process — an especially difficult task in the Washington region, where talk of college prep often starts at birth (if not earlier). He wasn’t joking. It’s true.

Last week, Valerie Strauss (author of the Post’s Answer Sheet blog) and I sat down to compose a list of seven myths about college admissions, which was published in today’s paper.

A quick recap of the myths we picked: 1) It’s best to set your heart on one school and really go for it. 2) The tuition price listed in brochures is what everyone pays. 3) The admissions department adores you. 4) It’s best to crowd your application with a volume of extracurricular activities. 5) It’s better to have a high GPA than to take difficult classes. 6) Essays don’t really matter much in the end because grades and test scores are so dominant in admissions decisions. 7) Recommendations from famous people can give an applicant a huge boost.

Let’s keep the list going past seven. I asked my Facebook and Twitter followers to share their advice, and here’s what they suggested (reframed in the form of a myth):

There are only three accepted topics for your essay: The person you most admire, volunteer work in a third-world nation or great insight about a current event. (HT to Smith College in Massachusetts, which advises applicants to write heartfelt essays.)

9) As long as you run spell-check, there’s no need to proof-read your essay. Plus, college officials don’t care about typos — and they love when you shorten words so your essay reads like a text message.

10) Admissions staffers are super impressed when you use big words, even if they aren’t used correctly. (HT to Lehigh University in Pennsylvania and its list of hot tips for applicants.)

11) If you don’t get accepted, it’s game over. You will never ever attend that institution.

12) There’s no need to visit campus because all colleges are the same.

13) All student loans are the same, so don’t read that fine print. You have four years to learn about interest rates and deferment, so don’t worry about it now.

14) Only apply for massive scholarships worth thousands. It’s a waste of time to apply for awards only worth a couple hundred bucks.

What is myth No. 15? Tell me in the comments section, or on Facebook or Twitter.

By Jenna Johnson
 | 
09:10 AM ET, 10/24/2011

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Posted at 08:53 PM ET, 10/27/2011
Grandpa Jay good, parent Jay bad for college search
By Jay Mathews

Peter Jennings, a veteran college counselor at the Concord Academy in Massachusetts, sent me a thoughtful proposal for more involvement by grandparents in the college admissions process. I posted it on my blog, but there was something about it that bothered me.

I have been a proud grandparent for nearly three years. I didn’t mind Jennings’ praising the obvious erudition and sensitivity of people in my situation. “Grandparents have the unique ability to understand the complexity of growing pains while highlighting the special and unique aspects of their grandchildren,” he said.

That’s true, of course. My problem was he didn’t say enough about the ugly but still indisputable reason why we grandparents need to take over the college hunt. If we don’t, it will be left in the hands of the college applicants’ parents, our beloved children, who are terrible at it.

They are too nervous. They are too pushy. They can’t see the big picture. They are compromising our families’ future with all their nitpicking and list-making. With them in charge, there is a risk our grandkids will run away from home and never go to college.

I offer myself as Exhibit A in bad parenting on the college tour. (My wife was also involved in these episodes but she was usually an innocent victim of my excesses, trying to hold me back.) When our daughter Katie was looking at colleges, the trips were tainted from the outset by the fact that I was using her experiences in a book I was writing about college admissions. How exploitative and self-centered can you get? I would never do that to our grandsons.

It got worse. I noticed that the California Institute of Technology was desperate for female applicants. Katie’s science and math grades were good. If she got into Caltech she could meet and marry a future Internet billionaire (or become one herself) and set Linda and me up in a nice beachside condo in Malibu.

So, without telling Katie what I was doing, during a visit to other colleges in Southern California I pulled the car up in front of the Caltech admissions office and suggested she take the tour. She refused. It was a shabby move by me. Now that I am a grandparent, I understand that.

Let’s face it. Parents can be jerks. They see the college search as a test of their success in raising this child. They are too invested in the result. They worry too much about the rank of the school their child will choose.

We grandparents, on the other hand, have lived long enough to know, looking back, that where you go to college has almost no bearing on your satisfaction with your life and work. We know that success in life stems from the quality of our characters, not the age and pedigree of our colleges. The great Billie Jean King went to Cal State LA. The awful Monty Burns (of “The Simpsons”) went to Yale.

We don’t see our grandchildren as often as their parents do, so there is less chance of our offending them. On birthdays we give them what they really want—cash—while their parents try to show devotion with a specially chosen gift that never quite satisfies.

We grandparents occasionally say the wrong thing. But our grandchildren shrug that off as quaint, or as a further sign of our mental deterioration, which only makes them love us more.

Are you a high school junior planning your college search? Do you need someone to drive you around, pay for your meals and never embarrass you by asking stupid questions at the introductory meetings?

Just ask a grandparent. Tell your parents that in this troubled economy they can’t risk taking time off of work. You don’t need their advice, but you will need their money. Let us older, wiser folks help you decide exactly where they will be sending those checks.

By Jay Mathews
 | 
08:53 PM ET, 10/27/2011

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