College Planning
Your children and their education is a known future investment. With so many factors to consider in the college admissions and funding process you must begin planning early to ensure a successful outcome. Without proper planning many opportunities for admission and scholarships can be overlooked resulting in financial repercussions that can be costly for some families, and devastating for others.
As parents, you are going to be faced with the task of helping your child with college planning in a time that is very different from when you went through this process. However, your kids still need guidance. Children today are often increasingly independent, yet many lack the maturity, perspective, range of knowledge and understanding of potential consequences to be able to make informed decisions.
With thousands of questions that can vary greatly depending on your child’s profile and your family’s financial situation, here are some of the common questions you should ask early in the process.
- What is the cost of college projected to be for my child?
- How much could we potentially qualify for in need based aid?
- How much could my child qualify for in merit based aid at some colleges?
- What type of college would be a best fit for my child?
- What are the top careers and majors my child should consider?
- How much can we afford to pay towards college on a monthly basis?
- Considering our finances, what is the optimal way for us to pay for college?
- How much will college impact our overall wealth and can we reduce the impact?
- Should I have my child take out student loans so that they have “skin” in the game?
- What is the best way to approach this process emotionally and financially for our family?
College planning includes four major areas:
Student Development
This is the career exploration, academic major selection and profile building process that begins when your child starts high school. College admissions personnel will review your child’s GPA, standardized test scores, accomplishments and extracurricular activities starting from their freshmen year of high school. So it’s very important that, starting from the 9th grade, your child begins to develop a successful, well-balanced high school career and CV/resume that will look attractive to colleges.
College Admissions Applications
The key to your child getting accepted to their top school choices requires a focus on several key areas; From strategizing the final list of schools and selecting the (best fit) majors, to completing the applications, and the notoriously difficult to write, essays “About Me”. There’s only a short amount of time to get everything done and a lot to cover during the application process. Organization and strategy are critical as this is not a process that you want to leave to chance.
College Funding
With the cost of college attendance ranging from $20,000 to $70,000 per year, per child, and rising at a rate of 6% to 8% per year, it’s very important that your family adequately plan for this investment. Most of the families that we work with can find a way to pay for college, but at what cost? Financial aid is increasingly available to only the neediest families. This leaves many middle income families paying the full cost of college for their children and many affluent families not only paying for their own kids but also assisting their roommates financially. Proper planning can help determine the real costs of college, your children’s return on your investment and the availability for both aid and strategies to reduce the overall financial impact.
Test Preparation
Probably the largest determinant of admissions eligibility today, as well as the availability of merit-based financial aid, is your children’s scores on standardized tests; e.g. ACT and SAT. Over the years, we have cultivated the best resources for test prep that actually work to improve your children’s scores. While some of the larger test preparation organizations may be popular, cost-effective, and even have great reputations, they tend to move scores from poor to average or slightly above average rather than from average to excellent. For higher net worth families, particularly at better schools, high scores are imperative to be a competitive applicant and are critical to differentiate the child for potential merit-based financial aid.
College Admissions Planning Program
Our unique College Admissions Planning Program provides guidance for your college-bound child to help understand their future options, compare the differences between them, and make educated decisions.
In order to do this we provide:
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Applications Support Program
Our Applications Support Program saves countless hours of time for parents and their child. The application process entails many different action items that often need to be completed or submitted in a particular order.
Our applications support program includes:
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College Funding Program
Our College Funding Program will allow your family to maximize your opportunities for financial aid and create a confident strategic college funding plan for your child.
Our services in this area includes:
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Test Preparation
Our College Standardized Admissions Test Preparation Analysis will help evaluate your students current testing skills and performance. Further, we are able to make recommendations as to whether or not the scores are high enough, given their targeted schools, and if not, how best to raise them.
Our services in this area includes:
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