Applying to and Paying for College – tips for parents

Soon, hundreds of students in their senior year of high school will be filling out college applications. This will be my third time around, with each of our sons having chosen different paths from Wilson High School, and I’ve learned a few things through trial and error that I wish I’d known in advance. I started preparing this post months ago, and have added to it frequently as I remembered more tips. Now seems a good time to publish it, with the school year starting and my To Do list officially on Overload. More good information, with professional advice, at CollegeBoard.com.

The first tip is for parents of this year’s juniors, not seniors. Make sure your child takes the PSAT in their junior year, even if they took it earlier. The PSAT stands for Preliminary Scholastic Assessment Test. Many parents and students think the P stands for Practice, because the scores don’t count for application to colleges. What PSAT scores DO count for, is as the National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test. Taking the PSAT, in 11th grade, is the ONLY way to be considered for a National Merit Scholarship, which as the name suggests is money given entirely for scholastic merit, not financial need. Practice questions for test preparation are available free on line. If you are the parent of a kid who tests well, s/he should take the PSAT in their junior year. It’s only offered once per year, so don’t miss it. Test dates for 2007 are Wednesday, October 17 and Saturday, October 20, depending on which date your school chooses. Unlike the SAT, registration is not available on line — your student has to register at school. This is one time when parental prodding and follow-up by checking with the school may be needed and appropriate.

The next piece of advice is for all families with a student considering applying for undergraduate courses. Don’t eliminate or settle on colleges based on sticker price. Many private colleges and out-of-state public schools give significant scholarships to allow a wider diversity of students to attend – diversity in geographic terms as well as income and ethnicity. Cutoffs for need-based aid may be much higher than you think; thresholds for merit-based grants may be lower than most would suspect. Conversely, for Oregon public schools, merit aid may be minimal and need-based assistance given more in loans than grants.

Have conversations with your student to guard them from setting their hearts on a particular school then being disappointed with the financial aid offer… but it can be worth the investment of application fees to find out the actual cost to your family. It may be much less than you think, for some schools that look out-of-reach.

Don’t despair if you haven’t been able to save for college. The way the financial aid grants and loans work, families without savings receive more assistance than those who’ve been able to stow away money for college.

This Kiplingers table of the top 50 best values for private colleges shows graduates of many of the Ivy League universities and ultra-select schools like California Institute of Technology end up less in debt than those attending lesser-known private schools. That isn’t because its students necessarily come from more affluent families, rather that the big names have big endowments, and can give need-based aid as grants, not loans. The average debt of a Princeton graduate is $4,370, while that of a student graduating from Gonzaga in Spokane (still on the Kiplinger’s Best Value list) is $23,113.

I had assumed we wouldn’t be able to afford a college costing over $40,000 a year, with three kids to help through undergraduate and probably graduate courses. Then we saw Princeton’s confidential on-line instant estimator, tapped in figures from our last tax return, and got a pleasant surprise. We found it a good predictor of the need-based aid we receive for Maxwell. Plug in numbers like annual family income of $40,000 with no savings, and that student would qualify for a full-ride scholarship, with the only expectation being student jobs during school and in the summer. Princeton grants (not loans) would pay all tuition, board, fees, books, even travel expenses. That’s for all students with that family income – there are no merit (academic) scholarships at many colleges where acceptance rates are super-low. Even if that $40k annual income household had $40,000 in savings, the expected family annual contribution would be only about $1,000. So if your child has the grades, resume, and desire to win admission to a highly selective program, don’t hesitate to apply to a school because you think you can’t afford it. Look over the Kiplingers’ list, and see which schools provide the most need-based aid resulting in the lowest debt on graduation.

Occasionally, you’ll find other colleges that will tell you up front on their web sites how much aid to expect. Whitworth University in Spokane, for example, sets automatic merit aid levels of up to $12,000 per year based on high school Grade Point Average and standardized college assessment test scores (SATs or ACTs).

[Side note: college websites generally end in .edu, and you have to type in the www. at the beginning rather than expecting your browser to do it for you. For example, www.wou.edu rather than just wou.edu].

There’s also a generic estimator at the Federal Student Aid site, but you have to register on their site to use it. You’ll have to do that eventually anyway, but it’s annoying when you’re at the beginning of your financial research. The federal aid application form, known as the FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid, but you’ll hear it called the FAFSA almost exclusively), has to be completed every year to gain access to grants, loans, and student work programs. Signing up for access to it is more difficult than filling it out once you’re registered.

Check out the Western Undergraduate Exchange. This is a scholarship/reciprocal agreement program, where students living in participating states may attend college at specified schools in another participating state, for one and a half the resident tuition rate. This makes out-of-state tuition more reasonable. There are a finite number of WUE scholarships, and you have to apply rather than getting the fee breaks automatically, but if you apply early it can be a big help in paying for college. It can also help narrow which out-of-state schools to apply to.

And remember local options such as Portland Community College, which many students now choose either for all their courses or to earn basic prerequisites before transferring to a university to complete their degree. This can save huge amounts of money both on tuition and by being able to live at home, avoiding room/board charges. See my post over the summer for a few caveats.

There are two ways to go, regarding college visits. Visiting before applying can narrow the number of schools your student is interested in, saving application fees. It can help them write enthusiastic application essays tailored to their desired school. Pre-application visits allowed Maxwell to take a different class in his senior year of high school, since he eliminated the California state universities from consideration and therefore didn’t need to take the Ceramics class they would have required. Both of my sons knew by being on campus which school they wanted to attend. On the other hand, depending on location, waiting to visit until after receipt of acceptances and financial aid offers can save money on travel, and avoid getting hopes up should those letters not carry the desired content. Either way, I recommend visiting while school is in session – at least summer sessions. Going during a school vacation may save your student from missing high school classes, but doesn’t give the real impression of what the college feels like bustling with undergraduates. And some of the professors may be on vacation, too. We attended a preview day in Spring Break at the University of Oregon, where a substitute attempted to give the archaeology professor’s PowerPoint. The entire commentary for one of the slides: “Er…. this is a pot.”

Once your student has decided which colleges to apply to, double-check course and application requirements. Scrambling to take an extra SAT II Subject Test, or to pick up a required class during the evening, adds stress to a year that’s challenging even when everything goes well. Oregon high schools’ standard curriculum ensures the students have the required classes for Oregon colleges, but out-of-state and private institutions may have additional prerequisites. Standardized tests are only offered a few times per year, with registration closing several weeks before a testing date, so this may be one area where having a parental back-up check might make the difference for a complete application. This year’s calendar is here.

Small local scholarships add up. Employers, unions, and community groups such as the Elks and Rotary often offer small grants that don’t receive many applicants. Your student’s chances of winning these are likely much better than the bigger national prizes where thousands are competing.

If your child attends a public high school, remember each counselor may have several hundred students s/he’s responsible for. Don’t expect them to take the initiative to help yours. Encourage your student to make an appointment soon after the first month of school, to introduce/re-introduce him/herself and talk with the counselor about college options. In-state students have guaranteed admission to Oregon public universities if they’ve taken the required high school courses and maintain the threshold Grade Point Average – one short application form, and you’re done. If applying out of state or to private universities, often application letters from teachers and counselors are required. So it’s really helpful if the counselor has some idea who your kid is. Ask parents with students who’ve graduated which teachers are known to write good letters of recommendation, then encourage your child to ask those who know and like him/her best.

Application “essays” by the student are relatively short, 250 or 500 words, and often done on line. Resist the temptation to interfere. Be available for spelling and grammar checks, encourage printing out and review of a draft version, but let your student’s voice shine.

Figuring out which institutions to apply to, which to attend, and how to pay for it all is challenging for any family with a college-bound child soon to graduate from high school. Much like the rest of life’s choices from then on, in fact. Keep reminding yourself and your student that most colleges can work out well with good effort and support, and that there are probably several options that would fit. Having more information can help make the process as well as the outcomes more manageable and successful, as parents provide support to students in making their decisions.