Parents of the High School Class of 2017/College 2021

[v.t.]

I wish we were using this year or net years income for this fafsa- using my 2015 income is killing me, my EFC is well over 15,000 using 2015- use 2016 its 1700 LOL- I got killed when they changed the fafsa dates!!

We are in the same situation. Last year all was good, DH lost his job in Jan. when the company sold. He did not start back to work (consulting, not full time) until mid-August. I did go back to teaching mainly for insurance, so our income has drastically changed. We are going to fill out a change of circumstance with each college. I doubt it will help but it is worth a try.

 

[aprilgail]

What was it about @aprilgail?

They pretty much hit every topic from narrowing down colleges, how many they should apply to (about 8), talked about early action and how many colleges take 50% of the amount of kids they can accept just from kids that apply early action/decision. Then they talked about touring colleges, questions to ask, financial aid, making sure college has a good support system for your child etc. They said it should be posted on college board in 1-2 weeks for people that didn't join the webinar to see it.

 

[aprilgail]

We are in the same situation. Last year all was good, DH lost his job in Jan. when the company sold. He did not start back to work (consulting, not full time) until mid-August. I did go back to teaching mainly for insurance, so our income has drastically changed. We are going to fill out a change of circumstance with each college. I doubt it will help but it is worth a try.

I did that for the summer program she did at brown, they covered 100% of the class and I just had to pay room and board.

 

[robinb]

They pretty much hit every topic from narrowing down colleges, how many they should apply to (about 8), talked about early action and how many colleges take 50% of the amount of kids they can accept just from kids that apply early action/decision. Then they talked about touring colleges, questions to ask, financial aid, making sure college has a good support system for your child etc. They said it should be posted on college board in 1-2 weeks for people that didn't join the webinar to see it.

Great! I'll look for it in a couple of weeks. I'll be checking for SAT scores anyway.

 

[aprilgail]

Great! I'll look for it in a couple of weeks. I'll be checking for SAT scores anyway.

when are those expected out?

 

[robinb]

when are those expected out?

I heard 3 weeks from the test date but that doesn't stop me from checking anyway.

 

[disneyeveryyear]

Just know that those outside scholarships may reduce your child's debt, but won't always reduce your oop college cost--unless you are paying for 100% if the tuition, fees, and room and board costs with no other financial aid. At DD's college, it said in her financial aid package that any outside scholarships would apply toward her Federal loan first. If the scholarship amount exceeded the loan amount, it would then reduce her work study and then her school scholarship (through the endowment). Only if the amount exceeded the total of these would the scholarship(s) reduce the cost of attendance, or the difference between the total tuition/room and board costs and her total financial aid package. DD attends a private liberal arts school. YMMV. Prior to spending hundreds of hours filling these applications out, however, I would VERY carefully read the financial aid pages of your child's top schools and/or ask questions during Open Houses or campus visits.

We are also in the middle of college visits and will not qualify for any "need" based scholarships, but she qualifies for "merit" scholarships. I was told that receiving outside scholarships will not affect "merit" based ones, only "need" based ones.

 

[aprilgail]

What was it about @aprilgail?

Oh and they also had admittance people saying what they look for etc- like they don't look for a ton of extracurricular things, they look for one or 2 you are passionate about and longevity at the 1 or 2 things.

 

[robinb]

Oh and they also had admittance people saying what they look for etc- like they don't look for a ton of extracurricular things, they look for one or 2 you are passionate about and longevity at the 1 or 2 things.

That bodes well for my DD. She's swims a LOT and doesn't have time for anything else.

 

[aprilgail]

That bodes well for my DD. She's swims a LOT and doesn't have time for anything else.

For my daughter too- she has been volunteering at the same charity since before she even knew she was volunteering LOL-I volunteered there (still do) and she used to come along with me from the time she was a toddler when I went so she would just do what we were doing there. When she was 3 her picture was in the local paper as she was packing toys into big bags that people were donating at the charity. She has been volunteering there ever since! She got the prudential spirit of community award and the gold presidents volunteer service award for her hours there. She doesn't do sports of any kind but she does a lot of community service-she also volunteers at a cat rescue helping socialize ferals for adoption but that is only an hour a week and at charity that is in our town that sends boxes of food home with kids during school breaks that get free lunch because many of those don't have enough food over breaks but that is only a few hours right before each break- most of her time goes to the main charity.

 

[Mickeyluver37]

Oh and they also had admittance people saying what they look for etc- like they don't look for a ton of extracurricular things, they look for one or 2 you are passionate about and longevity at the 1 or 2 things.

I hope this is true. I'm worried about DS not having really done any clubs. He's done Football since 6th grade, and Baseball since he was probably 4, but isn't looking to play either in high school. However, Travel baseball has taken up a LOT of his time (and that of the whole family) since he was in 3rd grade!

 

[v.t.]

I know when we were scoring DS's EC it specifically ask if they were officer of a club, President and captain of a team sport. He is captain of the tennis team so that did not count. We are hoping drum major makes up for it but I doubt it. If they only knew how physically demanding band is......

 

[bjscheel]

DD doesn't have much to speak of for community service or leadership roles so I feel like she won't get that many outside scholarships. When I look at the list that the State of Iowa puts out for scholarships, I guess she would have been a lot better off being active in 4-H and livestock because 70% of them have those items as requirements. Oh well too late now! I didn't want to be the family having the kids doing everything and running everywhere like one of DD's friends has done. Free time is valuable for kids too. Maybe her artistic talent that she had time to work on at home will get her something

The college we visited for track sent her a pretty nice offer yesterday, but it doesn't matter because she didn't like it at all and it's still expensive. Still nice to know she was offered it.

 

[mamacatnv]

We are in the same situation. Last year all was good, DH lost his job in Jan. when the company sold. He did not start back to work (consulting, not full time) until mid-August. I did go back to teaching mainly for insurance, so our income has drastically changed. We are going to fill out a change of circumstance with each college. I doubt it will help but it is worth a try.

same boat here I ran a quick EFC on one of the calculators and its 25% of our current Gross income due to hubs working last year and not this year, he has not been able to find anything and only gotten 1 real interview for a "real" job, not short contract, in the past 2 years. It certainly sucks, there is no way I can fork out 25% of our gross income for DD to go to college.

Thanks for the tip on change of circumstance, I did not know something like that existed.

 

[aprilgail]

My daughter got a decision from one of her "safety schools" today- she is accepted and they gave her a Distinguished Scholar Scholarship of 24,000 a year. Financial aid package will be given later since we just submitted FAFSA last weekend.

 

[IDoDis]

Just know that those outside scholarships may reduce your child's debt, but won't always reduce your oop college cost--unless you are paying for 100% if the tuition, fees, and room and board costs with no other financial aid. At DD's college, it said in her financial aid package that any outside scholarships would apply toward her Federal loan first. If the scholarship amount exceeded the loan amount, it would then reduce her work study and then her school scholarship (through the endowment). Only if the amount exceeded the total of these would the scholarship(s) reduce the cost of attendance, or the difference between the total tuition/room and board costs and her total financial aid package. DD attends a private liberal arts school. YMMV. Prior to spending hundreds of hours filling these applications out, however, I would VERY carefully read the financial aid pages of your child's top schools and/or ask questions during Open Houses or campus visits.

I had also read about that and was concerned that the school would reduce her merit scholarship or lottery scholarship because of the outside scholarship money, so I called the school to ask. They said they don't take anything away and she could stack her scholarships. The only case where it would be reduced was if it was a pell grant and the extra schoarships ended up giving her a refund after tuition and fees were paid for. That wasn't the case, so DD did get refunds back each semester. The bad part was those refunds counted as income and there was a "kiddie" tax" on her income over $6k ( she had income from a job that year) and the tax rate was on DH's and my rate, not DD's rate. This happened because her scholarship money exceeded her tuition and fees.

So I have a question- how would they even KNOW you got scholarships? All the ones that are given out at my daughters school like from the PTA and the Alumni are just checks written out to the student themselves, not to the college.

You are supposed to report all scholarship money to the school. Failure to do so could revoke all current and future scholarships. I doubt the school would find out about small scholarships of $250 or less.

 

[Poohforyou]

Oh and they also had admittance people saying what they look for etc- like they don't look for a ton of extracurricular things, they look for one or 2 you are passionate about and longevity at the 1 or 2 things.

This is very true. I have a few friends that are either alumni interviewers or college admission counselors and they've told me the same thing. They want a student who has passion for what he/she does outside of school and shows longevity in whatever it is. Quality over quantity.

 

[Poohforyou]

1st acceptance letter came in the mail!!

If any of your kids are at all interested in a school with rolling admission I highly recommend applying as soon as possible. This isn't dd's 1st choice but it's a school she'd be very happy attending.

 

[Arkansan]

We are also in the middle of college visits and will not qualify for any "need" based scholarships, but she qualifies for "merit" scholarships. I was told that receiving outside scholarships will not affect "merit" based ones, only "need" based ones.

Now that you said that, I am remembering that it did say that the loans and then work study would be reduced, not the scholarship. However, my point is the same. Unless you can pay the cost of attendance-scholarship(s) out of pocket, the total price doesn't not decrease with outside scholarships. Only the amount of debt decreases. (Which is not necessarily a bad thing, just something to be aware of.)

 

[Mrs. Ciz]

Grrrrrrrr!!!!! I don't even know why DD bothered take the Oct SAT. She didn't send her scores to schools because she wanted to see them first. I told her to go back and send the score reports right after she took the test because she's applying to 3 schools Early Action. I didn't think there would be enough time to see the scores and then send the reports by November 1st. She didn't do it! Today she tells me her counselor told her to do exactly what I told her to do. So we log on to College Board to send her scores. They will only let us send her March scores since the Oct test isn't scored yet. There is no option to send the Oct scores until after they come out, and then it may be too late for the EA deadlines. So we paid $72 ($12 for each college) to send her March scores. If the Oct scores are good, we'll have to pay another $12 per college and possibly rush fees to get them to the 3 EA schools.

I didn't have this much trouble when DS applied to colleges. He did the 4 free scores and was done. He did mess up the registrations twice though - wrong date, wrong test - and I had to pay change fees.