<p>I have begun drafting a list of advice to students beginning the college application process. Please provide additional suggestions.</p>
<p>College Search</p>
<p>Try to find at least one school at which you have the potential to be awarded merit scholarships. Be realistic because admissions have been getting more competitive each year. One way to maximize chances is to find a school where your SAT scores and GPA are higher than their reported range for 25-75% of their admittees.</p>
<p>Make sure you apply to at least one safety school you would be very happy attending. If you only apply to match or reach schools, there is a chance you may not get into any.</p>
<p>Include a school or two that you love, but are afraid you cant afford. You may be pleasantly surprised by merit scholarships or financial aid. But have frank discussions and agreement between parents and student as to what the parents can afford so there is no disappointment later.</p>
<p>Many colleges prefer to accept applicants who show strong interest. Some colleges believe no visit means little interest. If you are not planning a visit to one or more colleges on your list, check with your guidance counselor as to whether you should make the extra effort to visit.</p>
<p>Staying Organized</p>
<p>Make a master chart of all the schools in which you are interested. Fill in the chart with information from college websites, including deadlines (for applications and financial aid), admissions office address and phone number, financial aid office address and phone number, application requirements, college visit information, etc.) You can keep it simple or get very elaborate with your charts (e.g., information on AP credit, majors offered and their requirements).</p>
<p>On the same chart or another, keep track of what you have done to meet application deadlines and requirements. Check off each item when complete, and note how you submitted it (mail or on-line). Keep track of which teachers wrote which recommendations.</p>
<p>Follow up with your teachers to be sure they sent in your recommendations.</p>
<p>Review your deadline list frequently.</p>
<p>Keep a list of which schools confirmed that your application was complete, and follow up with them if you do not receive confirmation.</p>
<p>Early Decision</p>
<p>Do not apply early decision unless finances are not a concern. Otherwise, you may find you cannot afford the school even with the financial aid they may offer you. Not all schools meet 100% of the need, and they can meet need with loans and work study.</p>
<p>Housing</p>
<p>Is housing guaranteed beyond the freshman year? </p>
<p>What are the areas surrounding the college like in the event the student will live off-campus?</p>
<p>Financial Aid</p>
<p>Does the college meet 100% of need and what is the proportion of grants to loans?</p>
<p>Start working on financial aid applications early, even before you get your W2's. Look over all the questions to see what kind of information you need to gather. Dont rely on FAFSAs or CSS Profiles list of what youll need because they are not comprehensive enough.</p>
<p>If parents own a business, have them do their business tax returns earlier than may be their usual practice. This information will be required on the financial aid forms.</p>
<p>Check the due date for financial aid forms for each school to which you have applied. Some are incredibly (January!).</p>
<p>Check the website for each school to which you have applied to see what other forms they require (e.g., a certification that student is not filing a tax form, copies of tax returns, etc.). Note: due dates may differ for different forms even within the same school.</p>
<p>Register early for the CSS profile (by December 31).</p>
<p>If you plan to fill out the FAFSA on-line, get your FAFSA pin number early because it takes several days to process your request. </p>
<p>Do not leave the financial aid forms for the last minute. You will end up missing the deadline because these forms are very complicated and take a long time to fill out.</p>
<p>The FAFSA can only be sent to six schools at a time. After the form is processed and you receive your SAR, then you can amend the FAFSA to have it sent to additional schools.</p>
<p>If you need to amend the FAFSA after submission due to new information or mistakes, make sure you amend it for all the schools, not just the first six to which you had it sent.</p>
<p>Not all schools use the FAFSA or CSS profile. Some have their own forms. So confirm for each school which forms you need.</p>
<p>Applications</p>
<p>Look through all your applications early and note:
questions you will need to research before answering
letters of recommendation: how many and who from (e.g., does it specify science or math teacher?)</p>
<p>Do not begin with the easiest applications. Prioritize your schools by due date. Then prioritize by your favorites. That way, if you do not have time to fill out all your applications, you will at least be able to apply to your top choices. </p>
<p>Some applications are due very early. Others are due very early for priority consideration. Make sure you look them over by the start of school at the latest so that you can get everything done on time. It takes a lot of time to gather teacher recommendations, transcript, guidance counselor recommendations, and of course, essays.</p>
<p>Get your applications in early. That way, there is time for you to be notified by the school if anything got lost or is missing. The closer to the deadline, the longer it takes for the schools to process incoming mail and notify applicants of missing documents.</p>
<p>Have your SAT scores sent to the colleges early. It takes a long time for the College Board to process your request.</p>
<p>On-line applications:</p>
<p>Dont forget to print before sending!</p>
<p>The network can go down from the sheer number of students sending applications on the last day or two, so send yours early.</p>
<p>It takes about three times longer than you would think to fill these out, so do not wait until the last minute. </p>
<p>Paper applications:</p>
<p>If you mail your application, be sure to get a tracking number or receipt. That way, if it gets lost, you will have proof you mailed it.</p>
<p>After submitting your applications</p>
<p>Check with each school to make sure they received everything. Do not assume anything even if you used certified mail and have a receipt.</p>
<p>A lot of schools maintain websites for applicants on which inform applicants of materials received. Many also inform of application decisions on these sites. Some have separate sites for financial aid application status. </p>
<p>Essays</p>
<p>College applications come out very early, even as early as the spring or summer. So check to see what essays they require, and work on them over the summer.</p>
<p>Youll be in the best shape if you have a draft of all your essays before school starts in the fall. At a minimum, have the essays completed for the common application before school begins. Once school starts, it is very hard to focus on writing essays.</p>
<p>If you decide to use the same essay for more than one school, scrutinize it to make sure it answers the exact question being asked. If not, change it a bit. </p>
<p>Make sure you do not include the wrong schools name in your essay. </p>
<p>Make sure you spell the name of the school correctly (a big beef over at Johns Hopkins).</p>
<p>Think about what you really want the college to know about you that they will not find out from the rest of your application. Find a way to slip it into your essays.</p>