Ways for Parents, Students to Revise College Application Essays Together

http://www.usnews.com/education/blogs/college-admissions-playbook/2015/06/08/ways-for-parents-students-to-revise-college-application-essays-together

College application essays are intended to provide insight beyond the impersonal numbers of test scores and academic transcripts. Recommendation letters can provide a third-party perspective, but the essay is a student's best chance to speak directly to the gatekeepers of higher education.

A great essay can lead to a coveted acceptance letter, but a great essay involves careful planning and execution – including substantial editing. This revision process is one area where parents can be of help to their students. If this is your first time applying to colleges with a student, here are several editing tips to keep in mind. 

1. Develop a timeline that includes editing days: A strong essay cannot be written and revised in a single day. It is essential that students begin their essays well ahead of schedule in order to allow ample time for revisions and reconsiderations.

Starting two to three months before the earliest application deadline is not unreasonable, nor is beginning the summer before senior year. Since college applications generally fall outside a high school student's class load, parents are key to ensuring that there is ultimately time for essay editing.

With a due date that is several months away, your student may be tempted to postpone work on his or her essay until the last possible moment. You can avoid this by setting realistic goals together,including a timeline for finishing an outline, a draft, a first round of revisions and a final essay. Students can check in with their parents to provide updates on a weekly or biweekly basis.

2.Flesh out the details: My mother loves telling the story of how, when I was three, she left me unattended for "just a minute." In that minute, I managed to not only find a spectacular mud puddle, but to lead my younger brother in a full-body art project that involved squeezing as much mud as possible through a nearby window screen.

When I was 17 and working on my college applications, I would have never considered using this story in an essay – it was just a way that my mother had a good laugh at my expense – or so teenage me thought.

Consider, though, the plight of the admissions officer who must read thousands of variations on, "I demonstrated leadership by becoming treasurer of the junior class council." 

Imagine, amidst a sea of such essays, a personal statement that opens with an anecdote showing that this person is capable of self-reflection, and that he or she possesses a sense of humor, an early aptitude for leadership​ and a developed sense of self-expression.

The goal during revision is for parents to help ensure that college application essays move beyond the simple recitation of events. Once your student settles on a thesis, think of small stories that illustrate that argument. The "big" narrative – the tournament victories, the scholastic achievements​ and the test scores – will already be in the application.

It is the small moments that make for wonderful stories. These are the same moments that might not occur to a student looking toward adulthood, such as showing kindness to a stranger, offering to share a treasured toy or displaying an unexpected feat of willpower.

3. Focus on audience: College application essays are written by high school students, but they are read and evaluated by adults. Thus, the challenge is not just to write a meaningful essay, but also one that speaks to the intended audience.

A well-crafted essay that avoids slang and other forms of teen speak can demonstrate maturity and superior writing skills. One way parents can help with the revision process is to act as a filter.  In other words, they can highlight expressions that perfectly suit the tone of a college application essay, or identify those sentences where different phrasing could make a far more effective point. 

4. Always remember to strike a balance: Both too little and too much parental involvement can harm a student's final draft. A student's college application essay is his or her opportunity to speak directly to a school, so parental suggestions should be limited to more general observations.

For example, parents can point out places where the purpose of the essay is unclear, or underline paragraphs where the wording is awkward. Be sure to praise the sections that work, and discuss why they work. Do not restructure an entire introduction or conclusion.

Parents need to remember that college application essays are their child's chance to shine. By the end of the revision process, you should have learned something about your student. If you have, this is a great indicator that the complete stranger who will ultimately read this essay will learn something too.

How To Lose Your College Financial Aid

http://www.forbes.com/sites/nataliesportelli/2015/06/08/how-to-lose-your-college-financial-aid/3/

When deciding which college to attend, students consider factors such as academics, prestige, location, and size. Even though these features are all important when making a final decision, for money-conscious families, a financial aid package is often the deciding factor.

Although seeing the right number on paper can be exciting for students and parents alike, there are almost always strings attached to the award. Financial aid can help students afford college, but it is not free money and families may find that keeping those dollars from freshman to senior year is more difficult than they anticipated.

Financial Aid Fails

In the frenzy of reading acceptances and financial aid letters, families may not consider the conditions under which the money is being offered. “The requirement for maintaining eligibility, so you can continue receiving a financial aid award, is something people don’t pay attention to,” says Mark Kantrowitz, publisher of Edvisors.com and author of Filing the FAFSA.“Families don’t usually look at the award letter in too much detail and often the letters are really confusing.”

Once they get to college, students on financial aid can’t slack off or they could be out thousands of tuition dollars. “The number one way students lose aid is their grades,” says Kantrowitz. To remain eligible for federal and college financial aid, students typically have to maintain at least a C average and be making Satisfactory Academic Progress (SAP), which means that they are on track to receive their degree within a set time frame (3 years for an Associate’s degree and 6 years for a Bachelor’s degree).

Fall below a 2.0 GPA, and the aid can disappear. If students get their grades up, they may regain their aid, however this task may prove challenging. “It can be difficult to improve your grades when you’ve had some other reason to fail courses like illness, injury, and death of a relative,” says Kantrowitz.

Outside of the classroom, students must maintain a good record to keep their aid. “You cannot be convicted for sale or possession of illegal substances if you’re on federal aid because you can lose your eligibility.” Upon release, most eligibility limitations are removed, but if the charges were for a drug or sexual offense, access to aid could be limited.

When accepting a financial aid award, students and their parents may not consider the possibility of a worst case scenario and fail to look into the strings attached to their package. “Families may not pay attention to disclosures because they may not be in the financial aid packet, but they are always in the college course catalogue,” says Kantrowitz.

What’s Not In The Letter

Students and their families should be aware that the initial number they in their award letter is not guaranteed for all four years. Financial aid is awarded on a yearly basis so if circumstances change, financial aid will change. That means that aid can fluctuate based on what families report on the FAFSA. If parents make more money one year, they may see a decrease in their package. If they make less another, they may see more.

Financial need is determined by subtracting Expected Family Contribution (EFC) from Cost of Attendance (COA). But EFC is not actually a number. “It’s not a dollar amount, it’s an index of eligibility,” says Paul Wrubel, cofounder of TuitionCoach.com. “Colleges aren’t under a moral obligation to give you a specific amount of money.” That’s why, he says, financial aid offered at one college can be drastically different than at another, even though the FAFSA is identical. So, EFC can be very expensive speculation.

When first receiving notification of an award, families may not understand what kind of monetary support the school is actually offering. Colleges are free to adjust financial aid packages during matriculation, frontloading the grant money and then later reducing it and replacing it with loans. “When you accept an award and there is grant money involved, you should do whatever it takes get a letter saying that if a student progresses normally you should get that grant money every year,” says Wrubel. “If you don’t secure grant money then you’re just eligible for more student loans.” Students can be in danger of graduating with loans they didn’t know had if they do not clearly understand what kind of support the school is offering them.

Financial aid letters can also offer work study compensation as part of the package. However, that money has to be earned. Students get paid for hours logged during their work study and that is considered part of their EFC. If they do not work the set amount of time, they will not earn the total amount of work study compensation offered. Often, too, they may find these paychecks go towards personal expenses that arise, rather than their tuition bill.

When Financial Aid Doesn’t Work

Often, financial aid packages aren’t enough to cover all the costs of going to college. “Typically financial aid covers tuition and room and board, but sometimes miscellaneous expenses aren’t covered,” says Felicia Gopaul, a certified financial planner who started the College Funding Resource. “Things like transportation or a new computer are costs students and parents don’t necessary know about upfront.” These fees as well as extra charges for certain classes or printing are other add-ons that may arise.

Students should also be aware that they can amass interest on loans in their financial aid packages. If they don’t pay interest on their loans during school, it will go on their loan balance and they will have to pay the extra charges after graduation. “Most of the time students just ignore the interest on their loans because they can defer making payments on them while in school,” says Gopaul. “They don’t understand the impact it will have on their finances if they let interest accrue.”

On top of everything else, students may not be prepared for the personal and fiscal responsibility that comes with taking on loans associated with financial aid. “There is an inclination with some students to live beyond the student lifestyle because oftentimes they think of student loans as free money and sometimes take out more loans than they need,” says Gopaul. “They continue to live like mom and dad are supporting them and not necessarily understand that those are costs that they’re going to pay back.”

Although financial aid can support a student’s dream of attending college, it can also present a number of hurdles and make false promises of college’s true affordability. If they don’t do their research, students and their parents could be paying the price of their financial aid long after they receive a diploma.

How to Deal With Your Teen’s Anger

https://www.teenlife.com/blogs/articles/how-to-deal-with-your-teens-anger

When your cherubic, smiling little person seems to transform into a rampaging angry ball of hormones overnight, it can be hard to handle. While it is common for teens to direct their rage towards the people they feel safest with (that’s you), it is often very difficult for parents to deal with.

Why Teens Get Angry With Parents

Teenagers are dealing with hormones and rapid mood changes, and it is usually mom and dad who bear the brunt of teenage angst and anger. Instinctively, teens know that parents are invariably going to take whatever is thrown at them, which provides them with the perfect battering ram to vent their hostility at the world. To make matters worse, most of us are pretty ill-equipped in knowing how to deal with strong emotions such as rage, and often feel powerless and useless.

There are many underlying causes for anger in teens, such as fear, frustration, sadness and embarrassment. Anger is often triggered by a sense of not being in control, which is a very common reaction for teens who are becoming increasingly mature and ready to face the world, yet are still tied by the constraints of parents.

How to Cope With an Angry Teen

The fundamental rule of dealing with an angry teen is to stay calm yourself. Easier said than done though, right? As the parent you need to be in command, and if you are not in control of your emotions, the situation can quickly spiral. You need to show your teen how to react under times of stress, and if you are furious, hostile, accusatory, or issuing verbal attacks, you are sending entirely the wrong message.

As with toddlers, pick your battles. If something isn’t life-threatening, don’t try to enforce it just for the sake of it. You will also quickly get a good idea of your teen’s anger triggers, and approach these subjects with caution-- and only when you are in the right frame of mind yourself.

If you feel that things are starting to become fraught, then you need to give your teen space; tell them you will leave the room for 30 minutes while they calm down and that you will return to discuss the matter later. Similarly, don’t force the issue when your teen is angry, as this will only magnify the intensity. Giving your teen- and yourself- a breather and the opportunity to calm down will help diffuse a tense situation.

It is also important to recognize the difference between anger and verbal aggression and violent behavior. If you are frightened of your teen, or they have lashed out and physically hurt you, then you will need to seek help. Intense anger and violence are often symptoms of other underlying issues and should be addressed with a medical professional.

Helping Your Teen Deal With Their Anger

Anger is a very scary emotion, for the people on the receiving end and especially for the teen experiencing it. Intense rage in teens is often debilitating, eliciting a sense of being powerless or out of control; it can also bring with it extreme guilt and feelings of self-disgust. Nobody wants to shout and scream at their parents and the wake of anger can leave them feeling confused and upset.

You should explain that anger is a normal emotion and that they shouldn’t feel guilty; however, it is not okay to rage at someone. If you allow it to persist unchallenged, kids will receive the subliminal message that it is acceptable to act in this way, which will only deepen the problem.

Therefore, make it crystal clear that although you empathize with their anger, and get why they are upset, repeated angry outbursts and threatening or aggressive behavior will never be tolerated. Although they often seem to rebel and fight against your rules at every turn, teens need strict boundaries more than ever, so ensure that you enforce consequences, such as loss of privileges, if it continues.

Always talk about their anger and explosive emotions when you are both calm, and try to explore if there is an underlying reason behind their outbursts. Look at positive ways in which teens can healthily relieve their anger, such as through sports, creative activities, or playing loud music; each child will be different, so whatever helps them de-stress is what you need to get them to focus on.

Remember that even enraged teens want their parents’ approval (although they’d never admit it in a million years). It’s not easy dealing with someone who is hostile at every turn, but the message you need to send loud and clear is that you love them, even when they are cross.

College Admissions: Advice to The Class of 2016 From The Class of 2015

From: http://www.golocalprov.com/lifestyle/college-admissions-advice-to-the-class-of-2016-from-the-class-of-2015

Students receive a myriad of advice throughout the college admissions process from parents, counselors, teachers, coaches and other adults. However, the best advice (and most likely to be followed) often comes from their peers. So, I polled my seniors who are graduating this year and asked them “What one piece of advice would you give the Class of 2016 about the college admissions process?” Here are their answers:

• Always go on separate info sessions and tours from your parents because they are way too opinionated. The search is about your preferences, not theirs. 
• Write your essays during the summer!!!
• Don’t believe all the rumors you hear about admissions. Most of them are not true.
• Pay close attention to each campus you visit and really see whether you could envision yourself there for four years. 
• Write great essays that talk about personal growth, situations you have learned from, philosophies, and challenges overcome. These core ideas can be modified to cover a multitude of extra essays on the Common App. 
• Get your applications in for all early action deadlines. Having at least once acceptance before Christmas really relieves stress.
• Remember not to let up in school once you get into your first college. There's nothing more stressful than when you think there's a possibility of getting your acceptance taken away.
• Don’t think of your college search as the end-all. College shouldn’t be what you have worked so hard for these past 4 years—consider college just a stepping stone to making a difference in the world. In the future, no one is going to care where you went to college, they’re going to care what you did during/after. College isn’t the goal, it’s a way of reaching your goal. For me, this realization gave me a lot of perspective. 

Wise words of wisdom from the Class of 2015. Congratulations to all the graduating seniors!

Building a College List: A Free (cheap) Resource

From: http://www.thecollegesolution.com/building-a-college-list-a-free-resource/

Creating a college list can be intimidating.

And it’s no wonder since there is a lot riding on drawing up a solid list of promising colleges and universities.

Getting it wrong can lead to students being miserable at their schools. It also is a reason why so many unhappy undergrads end up transferring to different institutions.

In extreme cases, creating a poor list can also lead to the same fate as an unlucky teenager in San Diego during the most recent admission season.

The teenager applied to some University of California campuses as his “safeties.” Right there that was a mistake. The UC campuses, including Berkeley, UCLA, and lesser known ones like those in Davis, Irvine and Santa Cruz should never be considered safety schools!

This teenager also applied to his “dream schools” that included a lot of prestigious brand-name institutions back East. He didn’t get into a single one.

He is now working with a college consultant to find schools – at this late date – where he could start in the fall. Believe it or not, there are many schools that are still accepting applications because these institutions did not meet their freshmen admission goals. You can find some of them at the college openings list on the website of the National Association for College Admission Counseling, but there are others that are still accepting applications, but they don’t want to be on a public list.

I am mentioning all this because I wanted to share a wonderful free (for a few days anyway) resource to help you as you pull together that all important college list.

Michelle Kretzschmar at DIY College Rankings (an excellent website packed with lots of helpful advice and resources) has created an ebook that can help entitled,Creating College Lists: Your Guide to Using College Websites to Pay Less for a Better Education.

Michelle released the ebook on Amazon today and it will be free to download through May 25. I’d urge you to check it out and also spend some time on her website.

Here is a description of the book that Michelle provided me:

This book does something that no other college search book does, it shows you how to use college websites to create a better college list. After reading the book you’ll know:

• How to start a list of colleges to research when you don’t have any idea of where to go
• How to expand your list of colleges to research when you do have some idea of where to go
• How to quickly find out what is distinctive about a college
• What are the critical elements of a college website that you MUST pay attention to and why
• Where to find a college’s Net Price Calculator and what to look out for
• What kind of tools are available for you to follow colleges

This book is for anyone who wants to start researching colleges but just doesn’t know how to start.

50 College Gems With Bargain Tuitions, SAT Optional Policies And Openings

From: http://www.forbes.com/sites/schifrin/2015/05/27/50-college-gems-with-bargain-tuitions-sat-optional-policies-and-openings/

It’s been about a month since the deadline passed for Class of 2019 freshman to submit deposits securing a space at colleges they have been admitted to. Yet nearly 350 colleges have reported to the National Association of College Admissions Counselors that they are still accepting freshman and transfer applications because their pool of prospective applicants wasn’t adequate enough to fill all of their open class seats.

You can blame this annual phenomenon on the glut of institutions of higher education that continue to subsist, thanks to largely to government subsidies, easy credit and aggressive enrollment consultants.  Regardless, with some careful research you will find that among these needy colleges are educational gems, that, because of factors often out of their control — like location (rural schools are hard sell for most teens) or niche (gender-specific colleges are less popular) they can’t seem to drum up enough viable prospects. In a few rare cases the student shortfall has to do with their choosing to spend more on educational costs—like faculty salaries—than on things like direct marketing or lavish campus perks.
As Forbes has done for the last two years we’ve taken this list of 345 “space available” colleges and cross referenced it with Princeton Review’s listing of The Best 379 Colleges 2015 Edition. The result is the table below which contains 50 of excellent colleges ranked by reported SAT scores as a reference for intellectual rigor. You will note that the vast majority of these colleges are extremely generous with institutional grants, otherwise known as tuition discounts.
This year’s top school is St. John’s College, founded in 1696 first as a preparatory school for colonial Virginia’s College of William & Mary. Later in 1784, thanks to backing from four signers of the Declaration of Independence, it received its college charter.   Today St. John’s actually has two campuses for students to choose from, one in Annapolis, Maryland and the other in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Like Brown University and Sarah Lawrence College, St. John’s is a school for self-directed intellectuals who don’t want to be fenced in by rigid core curriculums or vocational style pre-professional roadmaps. There are no tests, majors or minors, electives or textbooks. The college’s rigorous interdisciplinary course of study revolves around reading, discussing and writing papers based on the Great Books of Western Civilization in areas ranging from literature, philosophy and politics to mathematics, science and music.
In some ways St. John’s approach is a throwback to the way elite colleges approached learning  a century ago and the way higher education still exists to an extent at universities like Oxford and Cambridge. Over four years, students and their faculty “tutors” discuss, seminar-style, the works of more than 150 greats, from Homer, Pascal and Adam Smith, to Tolstoy, Mozart, Twain and Einstein [see full list]. Says the schools promotional video, “There are no departments in the human mind…we ask poets here to study mathematics and we ask physicists to learn music and philosophy.” Despite its name, St. John’s is non-denominational, SAT optional, and offers generous grants to 70 to 80% of its incoming freshman, cutting listed tuition and housing costs, on average by $25,000 to $30,000 per year.

Indeed there are many test optional liberal arts colleges still looking for freshman for the fall. Wheaton College in Norton, Mass reports that it gives discounts to 91% of its incoming freshman, with an average grant of more than $23,000. Wheaton has an 11 to 1 student faculty ratio and 47 majors ranging from Theater and Dance, to Physics and Russian Studies. Norton is rural, but the campus is located an hour away from two urban collegiate hotbeds, Boston and Providence. Recent claim to fame: freshly minted American Idol winner Nick Fradiani is an alum who graduated in 2008 with a degree in history.

Other excellent SAT optional schools on the list include Washington & Jefferson College in Washington PA,  Juniata College in Huntingdon, PA, Knox College, located about an hour west of Peoria, Illinois and Green Mountain College, nestled in Vermont’s ski country.  Vermont neighbor Marlboro College, located halfway between Bennington and Brattleboro, is a school that tends to rank high on all of the “alternative” college listings.  With 300 undergraduates, think tiny classes, an emphasis on developing writing skills, one-on-one tutorials with professors and  a quirky, intelligent self-directed student body.

It is no surprise that some of the larger public schools, often with rolling admissions, still have plenty of space. Among them are the Universities of  Oregon, Arizona, Maine, Idaho, South Dakota, West Virginia University, New Jersey Institute of Technology and Washington State University. These lower cost public universities tend to have “all-in” list prices between $20,000 and $30,000 per year. Still, they feel compelled to offer discounts to the majority of freshman enrolling. For those getting rebates, the average tends to range from $2,000 to $8500 per student per year.  By contrast, most of the private-not-for profits on the list offer freshman discounts of up to $30,000 per year deducted from higher stated tuition prices.

Despite several excellent  urban options including University of San Diego,  Baltimore’s Goucher College , Oakland’s Mills College and the University of San Francisco, you will find that a common theme running through the list of institutions still desperately seeking applicants and offering steep tuition discounts, is that many suffer from what 18 year old’s might describe as being “in the middle of nowhere.”  For many high school teens  potential off-campus activities including nightlife and internships weigh more heavily than the actual quality of education. It also stands to reason that universities set in thriving cities have an easier time attracting the best professors.

The one exception to the “middle of nowhere” problem in 2015 was Baltimore, Maryland. The civil unrest and rioting that erupted in the city in the aftermath of the killing of Freddie Gray occurred in late April,  just as high school teens were getting ready to send in their deposit checks. This probably affected Goucher’s enrollment, as  well as that of University of Maryland,  Baltimore campus and Loyola University. Still, Johns Hopkins University, took in a record number of applicants this year and admitted only 12%.  It will be interesting to see if Hopkins admissions yield (the percentage of accepted students that actually enroll) falls from its recent 37% level and whether this elite institution will need to change enrollment strategies given Baltimore’s higher profile, among high crime cities.

COLLEGE/LOCATION	NUMBER OF UNDERGRADS	PERCENT GETTING GRANTS	MIDPOINT SAT 1600
St. John’s College/Annapolis, MD	457	72%	1280*
St. John’s College/Santa Fe, NM	383	81	1275*
University of Fla.**/Gainesville, FL	35,895	32	1265
University of Tulsa/Tulsa, OK	3,488	87	1265
Marlboro College/Marlboro, VT	302	94	1230*
Michigan Technological Univ/Houghton, MI	5,942	92	1215
St. Mary’s College/St. Mary’s City, MD	2,034	58	1215
U of San Diego/San Diego, CA	5,905	72	1215

Knox College/Galesburg, IL	1,458	94	1213*
U of Maryland-Balt./Balt., MD	12,684	50	1210
Truman State/Kirksville, MO	6,200	98	1205
DePauw U/Greencastle, IN	2,366	96	1200
Saint Louis U/St. Louis, MO	14,877	88	1200
Washington & Jefferson/Wash. PA	1,466	100	1195*
Penn State U/State College, PA	41,535	32	1195
Wheaton College/Norton, MA	1,639	91	1194*
Loyola Maryland/Balt., MD	4,008	65	1184*
Juniata College/Huntingdon, PA	1,693	100	1183*

U of San Francisco/SF., CA	7,118	65	1170
Goucher College/Balt., MD	1,538	88	1165*
Hofstra Univ/Hempstead, NY	7,587	92	1165*
William Jewell Col/Liberty, MO	1,148	100	1162*
Wagner College/Staten Island, NY	1,839	99	1160
Ripon College/Ripon, WI	953	95	1155
Mills College/Oakland, CA	1,022	99	1145
Loyola U New Orleans/NO. LA	3,553	97	1140
NJ Inst of Tech/Newark, NJ	8,127	47	1140
Wittenberg U/Springfield, OH	1,971	98	1140*

Lake Forest Col/Lake Forest, IL	1,620	99	1130*
U of Redlands/Redlands, CA	3,939	93	1130
Eckerd College/St. Petersberg, FL	2,653	95	1120
Ohio Wesleyan/Delaware OH	1,865	99	1120*
Univ of Arizona/Tucson, AZ	34,144	72	1107*
Drew University/Madison, NJ	1,878	96	1105*
Alfred University/Alfred, NY	2,020	100	1100
University of Maine/Orono, ME	9,893	71	1085
Bellarmine Univ/Louisville, KY	2,970	100	1080

Evergreen State/Olympia, WA	5,189	73	1080
Le Moyne College/Syracuse, NY	3,074	100	1075
University of Idaho/Moscow, ID	11,534	65	1070
Guilford College/Greensboro, NC	2,764	91	1065*
Rider Univ/Lawrenceville, NJ	4,967	97	1040
Green Mountain Col/Poultney, VT	672	96	1035*
West Virginia U/Morgantown, WV	24,670	60	1035
Westminster Col/New Wilmington, PA	2,710	100	1035
Washington State U/Pullman, WA	25,835	49	1030

Virginia Wesleyan/Norfolk, VA	1,589	97	1026*
U of South Dakota/Vermillion, SD	9,977	62	990
Catawba College/Salisbury, NC	1,325	97	985*
Angelo State U/San Angelo, TX	7,851	51	960

All data derived from IPEDS database, college websites, collegedata.com. *Has a test (SAT/ACT) optional policy. ** Only accepting transfer students.