From our University’s family to yours, we wish you the very best this holiday season.
(FYI: Illinois Wesleyan will be closed from the end of the workday today through Tues., 1/1.)
Hope to see you in 2013!
Though we haven’t had much of a winter here in the Midwest, the subsequent season has nevertheless arrived: financial aid season. As you navigate the financial aid process and perhaps even begin to receive need-based aid packages from your colleges, you might be curious about one of the scarier forms of aid—loans.
The word itself might send a slight shiver down your spine as most of us have heard a horror story or two about students graduating with mountains of debt. It’s important to know that these anecdotes are very much the exception to the rule. With that said, different colleges approach loans in very different ways, and it’s important to analyze each financial aid package closely and communicate with admissions or financial aid representatives to make sure all of your questions get answered.
Here are a few of the most common college loans:
Any discussion of college-related loans must begin with the Stafford Loan, which is essentially the federal government’s college loan program. Any family that files the FAFSA can obtain a Stafford Loan, and this loan is in the student’s name. Families qualifying for need-based aid can take advantage of the Subsidized version, wherein interest on the loan is deferred to a period after college; the current interest rate is 3.4 percent. Non-qualifying families can still obtain the Unsubsidized version in which interest does accrue during college; the current interest rate is 6.8 percent. Students have a six-month grace period after college before monthly payments begin, and this grace period extends through additional schooling such as medical or graduate school.
While the Stafford Loan is not right for every family, it is a manageable loan (students can borrow up to $3,500 freshman year, $4,500 sophomore year and $5,500 junior and senior years, plus an additional $2,000 of Unsubsidized money) with a modest interest rate and can be very helpful as your family seeks an affordable college payment plan. College, like an automobile or home, is a significant investment, and taking a moderate loan in order to help make that investment doable is, in the estimation of most college professionals, very reasonable and even advisable.
As the name suggests, this loan is in the parent(s)’ name. Your parent(s) must apply and qualify for a PLUS loan, and there is no standard limit on the amount. The interest rate is currently 7.9 percent fixed. While a PLUS loan can also be very reasonable, some schools will include a large PLUS loan in a financial aid package before a family has even applied and qualified. This is a dangerous practice; before you commit to attending a specific institution, make sure you understand each component of your financial aid package.
I once worked with a student who received a package that included a $20,000 PLUS loan, leaving his family with no “out-of-pocket” cost. For this reason, the “amount due” on his package was listed as $0. Without entirely understanding the situation, the student informed me that he had received a full-ride to this school and was under the impression that he would pay nothing while in college or after graduating. In reality, the college was implicitly encouraging the family to take out $80,000 in loans. IWU does not include PLUS loans in financial aid packages, though we are happy to help you explore this as an option if you feel it might be beneficial.
Some colleges will include their own loans in financial aid packages. The current interest rate on an IWU loan is 8 percent, but you should check with each individual college to see if you have been offered or are eligible for an institution-specific loan.
While college loans may often get a bad name, it is these very loans that could enable your family to breathe easy with each monthly or semesterly payment. Don’t hesitate to contact your colleges to learn more about each specific loan and find out whether it’s right for you. Loans can sometimes seem scary at first, but in the end a loan might be one piece of the financial aid puzzle that helps make college an affordable reality for you and your family.
Your status may vary at different colleges as you read this: perhaps you’ve been admitted to a couple, you’re awaiting decisions from others, and you’ve submitted the financial aid paperwork to some but not all. You might feel like an entertainer with a few plates spinning, a couple balls in the air and a flaming sword that isn’t going to swallow itself. But much like entertainers often garner the help of assistants to accomplish their many tasks, you have admissions counselors waiting in the wings to help you through the final act of the college search process.
As you begin to pare down your list of colleges and try to navigate the financial aid process, one of the most important things you can do is remain in contact with your designated counselor at each college. S/he can update you on scholarship programs, let you know which financial aid forms have yet to be received, help you schedule the all-important spring visit and provide you with all of the information you and your parents need as you select the college that is the best fit for you.
With this in mind, many admissions staff members will be eager to reach out to you instead of simply waiting by the phone or computer. After all, once the plate falls to the ground—rather, once the financial aid filing deadline passes or all of the visit days are a thing of the past—it’s too late. At Illinois Wesleyan, counselors call the admitted students from their territories every 4-5 weeks to see if they need any assistance and answer any questions they have. However, there is also a “contact card” included in IWU’s acceptance packets that allows students to indicate if they prefer more or less contact, email instead of phone, etc. Feel free to be up front with the admissions counselors at your schools if you prefer a different method or frequency of contact over these next few months. We certainly don’t want to be a bother to you; we simply want to make sure you have everything you need as you make this important decision.
While the financial aid process will be one of the most important aspects of the spring for many students, visiting your top college choices can be extremely helpful as well. The importance of stepping foot on a campus you’ve never seen is relatively obvious, but returning to a campus can be beneficial as well. Sitting in on a class in order to get a feel for the academic environment and staying overnight with a student to experience the social culture can both help immensely as you work toward a confident college decision. Your admissions counselors will be happy to help you set up a visit that includes all of the elements you deem important.
So if the phone rings or your email inbox chimes with a message from one of your colleges these next few months, please know that we’re not trying to pressure you to make a decision prior to May 1 or chatter away annoyingly about our college without your specific needs in mind. We just know that you and your parents might need a little help with all the things you’re juggling!
As Chris Kawakita mentioned in the previous post, applicants will receive decisions from colleges at various times—even as late as April. Your mailbox is sure to be exhausted from the workout it will receive over the next few months, and as you may have already learned, the Waiting Game isn’t always as fun as its name would imply.
But the time between submitting applications and discovering those exciting packets in the mail doesn’t have to be all about waiting. There’s plenty you can do to advance your college search process and enhance your chances of admission.
Schedule college visits. Are there any colleges to which you’ve applied that you haven’t had the chance to visit yet? It’s always important to get a firsthand look at the school where you might be spending your next four years. Plus, at some selective schools, a formal visit plays an important role in the admissions process. By visiting now, you can get a better sense of your top college choices as the calendar approaches spring, aka Decision Time.
Inform your college choices about recent achievements. Were you recently elected president of a club at school? Did you increase your ACT score but forget to send it to all of your colleges? Did you set a personal record for brownies eaten in one sitting? (Actually, we don’t need to know about that one.)
You may not be able to update your application on your own, but you are welcome to call or email your designated admissions counselor at each college to which you applied with those updates. By the way, don’t hesitate to make more significant changes as well, such as your desired major—most colleges are more than happy to make updates to your application.
Finish up the semester well. Chris outlined this earlier: You might figure that once you’ve hit “submit” on your application that your ongoing high school courses won’t much matter, but some of your colleges might play a Waiting Game of their own—that is, they may wait to make a final decision until they can see how you performed in your seventh semester of high school. In this case, your seventh semester might even be the most important one of all.
Begin the financial aid process. The main financial aid form—the FAFSA—cannot be filed until after January 1, but you and your parents can begin to get some of the necessary financial documents and information in order. You can also utilize financial aid calculators on various sites or on individual schools’ websites in order to get a sense of how much need-based aid you might receive. Some colleges also accept or require the CSS Profile in addition to the FAFSA, and this can be submitted prior to January 1.
Stay in touch with your admissions counselors. Even if you have already visited a college and don’t have any recent achievements to mention, staying in touch with your designated counselors can indicate a level of interest that admissions offices love to see. It’s always a good idea to confirm that all of your application materials have arrived, and feel free to ask your counselor if there’s anything else you can/should be doing in order to maximize your chances of admission.
Scientia et Sapientia.
This Latin phrase is our motto at Illinois Wesleyan University. It means “knowledge and wisdom.”
What’s the difference between knowledge and wisdom, you ask? Well, an all-knowing wise person once told me that knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit, and wisdom is knowing not to put it in a fruit salad. And so this entry is about applying the basics of what you know about the college-application process—the types, deadlines, and requirements—to what may be new information for you as to what colleges do with all of that information, so that you can ultimately make the wisest college choice.
As Brandon discusses in the previous entry, there are three primary college application processes: Early Decision (ED), Early Action (EA) and Regular Decision (RD). Each of these options comes with its own pros and cons, and most college-bound seniors have a good grasp of what these styles entail by this time of year.
Another way that processes differ is by their application deadlines. Generally speaking, the more selective a college is, the stricter they will be with their deadline(s). Take, for example, a certain famous Ivy League college in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Harvard has an Early Action deadline of November 1, and a Regular Decision deadline of January 1. A year ago, a record-setting 35,000 students applied; a record-low 6.2% of them received acceptance packets in return. Any guesses as to how many of their applicants who missed their deadlines were admitted? The (probable) answer: A number that can be counted on no hands. Speaking of hands, specifically the other hand, there are a great many schools in this country that admit a majority of their applicants, and so their application deadlines tend to be more guidelines or suggestions. Like application types, application timelines are of a language that many college-bound seniors are conversant in at this point.
The application requirements are a greater mystery—not so much what a college requires, but rather what a college does with all that is required. Grade-point average and standardized test scores (ACT, SAT-I) attach numerical values to a student’s name, and most colleges use these values to compare an applicant’s grades and scores to their admissible range of GPAs and ACTs. The values may be enough to get a student’s foot in the door (or gate, perhaps—college admissions officers are often called gatekeepers), but colleges may be looking at other factors, including level of extracurricular involvement, third-party validations from teachers or counselors (often through letters of recommendation), personal essays, personal statements, and interviews. And some schools make unique requests: Dartmouth College requires a peer evaluation; Rice University requires its applicants to fill out a box on page 5 of their Common Application supplement with something that appeals to them. Add to all of that the extra consideration many institutions give to the children of alumni, students of underrepresented populations, those from geographically diverse areas, student-athletes, and those talented in the fine arts—it’s no wonder the college application process seems so cryptic.
This puzzle, however, is not without a solution. And knowing what questions to ask an admissions counselor is a wise step toward unlocking the mystery of the college of best fit.
1) Are my GPA and ACT score in the admissible ranges for your college? If so, where on those ranges do I fall? If not, how far off am I?
2) What are your criteria for admission? Are you able to rank in order of importance those various factors?
3) In what ways do admitted students stand out in your application review process?
4) Based on the information you have already about me (e.g., GPA, test scores, extracurricular interests), can you give me an idea as to where I stand in your pool of admitted students?
5) Any suggestions as to how I can improve my chances of being admitted to your institution?
Ever wanted to fight your way through rush hour traffic, gulp down a combo meal from the same fast food joint you stopped at the day before and frantically search for brochures lost amid the chaos of your untidy trunk?
No? Well, fortunately, that’s our job! But don’t worry about us—we love the rigors of the helter-skelter fall travel season because it allows us to meet with bright, enthusiastic students on their home turf.
From mid-September through mid-November, your high school will likely host dozens, if not hundreds, of visits by college representatives, and there is almost sure to be at least one night during which a local gymnasium, atrium—heck, maybe even the parking lot if it comes to that—will be filled with tables staffed by admissions professionals eager to assist you as you gather information about your myriad college options.
Aside from experiencing a college campus firsthand, taking the time to attend a high school visit or college fair is one of the best ways for you to learn about an unfamiliar college or gain a greater understanding of a college you’ve already begun to research. Here are just a few of the ways you can take advantage of a college representative’s visit to your area:
You have many college options and lots of information to gather as you embark on this exciting journey. Don’t hesitate to take advantage of the opportunity to meet with college representatives when they’re in your backyard! (Not literally.)
We look forward to seeing you this fall!***
*Not true.
**Also not true.
***Especially true!
Seven is an important number. It tells us how many dwarfs hung out with Snow White. It signifies the points a football team earns for a touchdown and an extra point. And three of them in a row on a slot machine will likely result in a bucket full of coins.
For seniors this fall, seven marks the number of semesters they’ve been in high school. And while there are many grains of truth to the sentiment that the junior year is the most important year in the eyes of colleges, the senior year—spanning the student’s 7th and 8th semesters—cannot be a slacker’s paradise for the college-bound set.
“But wait,” you say. “Don’t most colleges review the classes I’ve taken and grades I’ve received through that ever-so-important junior year? What difference does my senior year performance make?”
Good questions, hypothetical student. Here are seven reasons—plus or minus four reasons—why your senior year, and especially your 7th semester, matters.
A quick review: Your junior year was as important as advertised, but no more so than your senior year. Should your performance meet your potential in your crowning year, you’ll be in seventh heaven; should you become slothful—one of those seven deadly sins—you may find yourself left with a bucket full of regrets.