In - Your Guide to College Admissions from The Princeton Review

Aid Questions Juniors Should Ask

Financial aid is crucial in most students’ college decisions. Even those who are admitted to their first-choice college often go elsewhere for financial reasons.

Fortunately, you can take steps to ensure that your college decision is about “fit,” not finances. According to College Admissions Partners, the best way to get adequate aid from colleges is to ask the right questions when you assemble your school list. These questions include the following:

• What percentage of my need will you meet?
• What is your packaging policy?
• Do you offer merit-based aid?
• How is financial aid determined after the first year?
• What is the average debt at graduation of those students who take loans?

Click here to learn more about these and other important aid questions to ask.

A Student’s View: AP Exams

Jennifer Angelo is a high school senior and a contributor to The Princeton Review’s IN blog.

Last Friday at my school was the registration deadline for AP exams. It was chaos as everyone—including yours truly—had waited until the last minute to sign up. I had been stalling because I wasn’t sure which exams I wanted to take.

I’m in five AP classes this year, so I had the option of taking five different exams. However, the exams aren’t cheap (they cost almost $90 each), and they all require a lot of preparation.

Some people say that, by taking the exams, you can place out of college classes and save money. However, even if I place out of some classes, chances are I will still be in college for four years. As I don’t plan to attend a college that charges tuition by the credit, I don’t think APs will save me much money.

Given the above, I decided that I wasn’t going to take all five of my APs; it was my goal to decide which of the five would be the best investment of my time and money.

In making this decision, I ended up with three considerations—one personal and two practical.

Productive College Visits

Spring is a popular time for high school juniors to visit college campuses.

Unfortunately, some ambitious students visit too many schools and get “visit burn-out”; after the umpteenth campus, they retain practically nothing from their visits.

To get the most out of your springtime visits, the Campus Overload blog suggests opting for quality over quantity. It also suggests doing plenty of campus-specific planning before you arrive.

Click here for additional college-visit tips from Campus Overload.

Before You Accept an Aid Offer

If you’ve already received one or more offers of admission, congratulations—your hard work has paid off!

For most, the next step will be to sort through financial aid offers. Approving aid isn’t the same as committing to enroll, so you’ll want to approve all of the aid offers that meet your needs.

To help you determine whether a particular offer is satisfactory, MyCollegeCalendar.org suggests the following steps:

• Make sure the offer is renewable (i.e., not just for your freshman year).
• Identify any academic-performance requirements for scholarships or grants.
• Determine the effect that any private scholarships will have on your aid offer.

Click here to learn more about each of these steps.

College Admissions Videos

A new site for college-bound students, BigFuture offers over 100 videos with advice from admissions experts and current undergrads. Topics include:

• How to start a college search.
• How admissions officers use the essay.
• Choosing a major.
• Spending a semester at a community college.

BigFuture is a collaboration between the Education Conservancy, a nonprofit org, and the College Board, the company that writes and administers the SAT.

Click here to learn more on The Choice.

The Week Before Decisions

If you’re a college-bound senior, you’re well aware that most admissions decisions will arrive next week.

What you might not know is how you’ll get through the next nine days without totally freaking out.

Montgomery Educational Consulting recently offered several tips for the stressed-out applicant, including the following:

• Get outside.
• Read a book for fun.
• Do schoolwork.
• Laugh and smile.
• Relax.

Click here to learn more about these and other tips.

“Buyer Beware” of For-Profit Colleges

Compared to the alumni of non-profit colleges, the alumni of for-profits have lower salaries and less satisfaction with their degrees, says a new report out of Columbia University.

The study’s authors says there is “a lot more variation in for-profit colleges.” While you can assume a non-profit school will meet a certain standard of quality, you cannot make the same assumption with a for-profit school.

Students considering a for-profit college would be wise to do extra research to confirm that its former students are still happy with their investment.

Click here for more info from U.S. News.

Students Don’t Know Their Loans

Most undergrads are in the dark when it comes to their own loans.

Two-thirds of students surveyed by the non-profit Young Invincibles were unaware of critical info such as their expected monthly payment or interest rate. A similar number were unfamiliar with the differences between private and federal loans.

If you end up borrowing for college, the onus will be on you to make sure you understand your loan. Make sure you read the fine print, and ask plenty of questions if anything is unclear.

To learn more, check out this article on the Huffington Post.

Three Growing Trends in Admissions

More rejections. Longer waitlists. Earlier applications.

According to the Huffington Post, these are the biggest trends in college admissions.

While these trends are somewhat discouraging, the reality isn’t as bleak as you might think. The increased prevalence of rejection letters and waitlists can be attributed to the fact that the average student today submits a greater number of applications than the student of the past did. The number of students applying to selective colleges has not increased.

Click here to learn more about admissions trends on the Huffington Post.

Dual Enrollment vs. AP

I recently wrote a post on the advantages of dual enrollment classes for high school students.

For some students, a dual enrollment class at a college might be a better experience than an AP class at their high school. However, APs do offer one significant advantage. Specifically, their standardized end-of-year exams make it easy for other schools to determine how well a student has mastered the subject matter.

A student with a high score on an AP exam is very likely to get credit for it when he or she enrolls as college freshmen. On the other hand, a student who has completed a dual enrollment class might have trouble getting credit for it if his or her new college is unfamiliar with the institution where it was offered.

Click here to learn more from College Admissions Partners.