_*Unparallel Love in the Universe*_ 
The presentation okay let’s start with a short prayer father this is the day that you have made we shall rejoice and be glad in it father you are the man the father that owns a cattle on a thousand hills there’s nothing too great for you so Lord as we talk about finances and
Preparing for college we know that you are the source and we rely on you to provide for your children Lord we ask that you open doors and only you can open and Lord that by your mercy and your grace you will close doors that are not meant for our children to go through
We thank you for your mercy and your Grace lead guide and direct us in Jesus name amen Amen on the next slide interesting data this is data that was recorded based on the four things we’re talking about tonight B grants loans and scholarships if you look at the data you
Guys want to know about B and Miss gr is going to lead that conversation grants you are very interested in loans y’all want feeling and I don’t blame okay and then we have scholarships and you see by far the highest interest his scholarships all right let’s talk about
I’m uh let’s talk about proverbs 169 a man’s mind plans his way as he Journeys through life but the Lord directs his steps and establishes them Proverbs 169 I don’t mind sharing with you that my adventure to this point in time is a little different than what I
Had planned when I was a teenager I thought I knew what school I was going to what my career would be who I was going to marry how many kids I was going to have the 1.5 dogs I was going to have I thought I had everything laid out but
God orders our steps and as great to be planning and to have plans but we need to submit to God’s plan because his plans are all always better than ours if you can go back second scripture is in red which means Jesus Christ spoke these words for which one of you when he
Wants to build a watchtower for his guards does not first sit down and calculate the cost to see if he has enough to finish it so we need to plan we don’t want to get to college get a college acceptance and then say okay now
How we want to pay for it we want to learn learn how on the front end to front load to where when our kids get these acceptance letters then it’s not a scramble to the finish line for their finances amen Roi return on investment how many have
Heard that term before yeah that’s a valuable term okay now I’m an educator so this a dollar bill so it’s not 100 don’t get too excited right but this is a $1 bill would you be interested if I could show you how to turn this into a lot
More how many be interested in that that’s called return on investment and this is what our children are this is what our children do when they go to college and get a college degree okay now I found a tremendous website that does Ro Roi for us it calculates Roi okay it’s called
Free.org and it calculates College return on investments otherwise known as rois if we can click one time we will see an example of that I know it’s kind of hard to see here you’ll see it better when the presentation is sent to you but if you go to that website what pops up
Close out on that first screen and then you’ll be able to see all of the data that has been put together for over 30,000 college majors there over 12200 p Fe of information if you look I know it’s hard to see but identifies the name of the school I thought it was
Appropriate to go ahead and get Texas ANM uh here so this a screenshot of some of Texas A&M’s Majors okay so you have the majors listed the school listed and then what’s so valuable it gives you return on investment when they are 25 years old and return on investment when
They’re 45 years old so all this data years and years worth of research is going to be calculated on this website listen when you get the link please explore and have a good time looking at Roi another reason you want to do Roi is not just the school but also the major
Because there are some Majors that are dying so you don’t want to get involved with a major where the job outlook is poor because then you go to school for 4 years sometimes more than four years and then there’s no job available for you in some ways you may have kind of wasted
Some years and much money of your life okay so this is a great website so please when you get home and get this uh link go to it and explore next slide please now I do want to let you know college is not for everyone college is
Not for everyone there are other routes to get to where God has intended for you all right Apprentice apprenticeships or internships you can start these as early as high school and then of course in college as well and these can help springboard you into a career without
Having to get a fouryear bachelor degree a master’s degree or even a doctorate that’s one alternative right another is community college now full transparency when I was growing up and younger and I graduate from high school Community College was basically an extra year of high school it’s not
That way anymore ACC now has four bachelor’s degrees built in all right so ACC is a tremendous Community College option where you can actually get a bachelor’s degree in certain areas and then also sometimes we all need a year or two to figure things out and Community College is a great opportunity
To not only get college credits but also to go ahead and get yourself maybe more sure maybe get some more Direction in what you really want to do so Community College is a great option and then also the military our youngest son is in the
Air Force and he went to the Air Force because he’s like Dad I don’t want to come out of school on x amount of dollars for a 4-year degree right so what our son is doing he’s in the military and he is actually taking classes online courses uh through
Liberty University his goals to graduate not only with a bachelor’s degree but with a master’s degree and perhaps a doctorate degree and it’s all on the military’s dime so I do want to let you know that going straight to college might not be an option for everyone and
Might might not be the best option for everyone keep your options open College vetting parents students V your college can I tell you something don’t decide to apply to a college because you like the football team unless you are a superstar football player and you’re trying to be recruited
To play football don’t go to a school just for a couple of Saturdays out of a year because the school has a good football team or basketball or filling the black okay now what I love about this next site is called college score card is actually gives a score card on schools
Colleges and universi this is a way for you to vet your schools so when you go to this website of course you type in the name of your school and then you click on view school then when you click on view schools will give you a score card on these following criteria
Cost graduation ratees return rates which is retention now retention when I was growing up was a negative term right it means that you got held back in the in the same grade but this retention is talking about re enrollment like they continue to attend the that school and
Then we have something called student debt data which is very important all right and then we have typical earnings so this school scorecard the college score card is a very great way for you to vet your colleges and universities now if you came to college night back in September I gave you a
Nstep cap that means college application process all right now you’ve done that You’ already submitted everything the nine steps of the cap already done now what the college send you an application letter on that acceptance L you receive it and you celebrate now it’s the school
That you really want to go to you going to celebrate if it’s your safety School you might Applause a little bit all right if it’s your res School you calling on the name of Jesus right you receive it and you celebrate you notify the school to inform them that you’ve accepted their
Offer now the next step step four is one that you have to do you do not want to burn any Bridges keep your options open there may be a school that you got accepted to you said no to them in year one and you go to another school you
Don’t really think it’s a fit when you get to that school and then in year two you thinking about transferring well if you burn the bridge to that previous school it might be harder for them to say yes the second time around so step four is very important thank all of the colleges
Thank them thank all of them that accepted you and notify them of your decision to go somewhere else don’t leave them hanging okay number five you submit your Financial deposit which secures your spot number six you receive the school’s financial award offer seven you accept the school’s
Financial award offer and then eight you might have some miscellaneous documents or things to turn in okay this is a now what phase now our goal is that the one on the left is you throughout the entire college application process you got accepted you like thank you Jesus you’re like we had
The money through scholarships or other means thank you Jesus and you go and you be an excellent student and be all that God has called you to be on the right hand side different scenario this is a student that may not have gotten into the school they want or
Watch this they may have gotten into the school they want and then after the celebration they get the Financial offer and say oh oh my goodness how are we going to afford to go to school all right our goal is something that you hear tonight would not allow you to be
What you see on the right but throughout this process this is what we want for you so listen receive and get the one at least one nugget that is for you tonight thank you how are you all doing this evening so I am going to just kind of walk us through
This piece right here and then we’re going to have our representative from Texas A&M come up and then I will close us out I will walk us through our um scholarship piece um and so one of the things that Mr Jones wanted to make sure
That we shared with you guys was kind of been talking about the cost of attendance uh and so when we get you a little bit later in our programming tonight I’m going to walk through really what you’re getting from your schools knowing exactly everything that is going
To cost you when you look at tuition when you look at wom board when you look at fees and then just general living expenses and then kind of flush that out against what kind of offers you’re receiving from your school um net price again talking about our out
Of pocket expenses and then tonight we’re also going to walk through the FPA many of you guys are well aware of the delay that we’ve experienced um this year with the FASA it’s normally released on October 1st uh the date that we have been given by the Department of
Education is December 31st so that is already a 3mon delay four month delay uh and then that puts us one of the other pieces one of the components uh that we might talk about a little bit later is that one of the objectives that the Department of Education had was for
Parents and families to be able to directly upload and download their information from the IRS and as you guys might imagine uh the IRS is heavily heavily encrypted and they have found difficulties with that process which is the reason for the delay uh and fact the difficulties were so much so that we
Will not be able to do that immediate transfer of information that we once did in the past uh and that is going to take several weeks for us to move it back and forth because it’s going to be a manual process and so because of that it’s really
Important that we stay on top of our dates and know our dates and we will talk to that just just a little bit um scholarships I most of you guys probably have these pieces together but grants are going to be pieces that are just given so it’s not based on Merit it
Could be based on federal aid it could be based on school funding the school truly just wants you to be there but there’s not a merit that’s associated with it it’s simply going to be money that that school or that the US government says we would like for you to
Have in order to be able to attend school school scholarships are going to be those pieces that are Merit based uh and so for some of you they might be based on academics uh for others of you they could be based on supports but one
Of the things I will stress to you and I will stress you again when we get ready to talk later I hear so many families say oh we’re not going to get any money we’re not going to get any scholarships I am telling you that I have seen the
Kind of money that our students generate one I have talked with so many admissions officers we’ve had Mr Jones and I have had the opportunity to be oneon-one with many different schools and folks want our students I don’t know how else to put it and so I went to one
School in the spring of last year and the closing remark that their vice president left me with was if you have students that apply and their offer doesn’t look the way they want it to look please reach out to me and we will see what we can do so I need for you
Guys to understand please don’t close any doors do not assume that my student is like oh my student is an average student especially if you’re looking in Texas Brentwood Christian School is known the character of our students is known and so folks want to have our
Students be in their midst so I want you all to keep that in mind do not just dismiss and think that that is not going to happen um the next piece that we want to talk about oh yes absolutely so our office of academic advancement one of
The things so I’m a parent I’m a parent of a senior out one of the things that I know you guys have to be experiencing is it feels like there is an influx of information it’s coming from everywhere you’ve got information coming from schools you got information coming from
Us you’ve got information coming from for multiple people here at school uh and trying to track all of that information whether it’s National scholarships whether it’s local scholarships one of the things that we have done um this year in the office of academic advancement and you guys our
Seniors most definitely will see this um each week is we have a database and we keep it all in there so if we find uh websites that we find to be useful Just for information about college in general we put those links there when we hear about scholarships those links are there
If we hear about college days are coming up are there going to be college tours that are in the area anything that you might want to know whether it’s summer programming whether it’s intern opportunities it is all in that database so that you got one place I can send it
To you today and you’re like I’m up to my eyelashes I can’t deal with anything else but when you guys are ready to really go through and dig into the process you do not want to go through 100 emails to be able to find the email
That Mrs Booker sent back in the fall so we keep all of that information in one spot so it’s a great repository I cannot tell you uh I I just not even tell you how much I think you guys should use it and go to it especially when you start
Your scholarship search um because we’re keeping it all there and then loans of course money that’s being borrowed um from the federal government and you guys are probably aware the piece that this is this is the piece that it all possible we want to be able to try to
Avoid um your students you’ve made an investment by having your students be here for however many years that you have uh our teachers have made investment in your students and our students perform and so our students have made an investment in themselves to be able to recruit the money that you’ve
Invested into their education so sometimes there is a gap particular if we’re going to some of the private uh colleges and universities that might have a higher tag on them but I just want you all to keep that in mind our objective and our goal is going to be
For us to find scholarships whether they be institutional or whether they be noninstitutional be able to send our students a off um one other piece um that has come up and this is uh specifically in talking about college access uh loans and so this is an alternative loan and
It’s specific to students in Texas I highly encourage you all that when you are looking at your Loan offers just keep in mind and really look at the interest rates um I know that a lot of parents the reason we put this in is that parents have expressed interest in
This from a high level when I look at it the interest rate is slightly higher than some of those that might come from your federal funding uh but certainly go in and take a look and it kind of walk through the criteria I won’t walk you through each of these because you guys
Have the slide you will have the slides but I encourage you and I will encourage you over and over again education knowledge is power um for when you’re looking at your schools know what your deadlines are know what their requirements are we’re going to dig a
Little bit deeper into that when when I come up to talk about scholarships um but again we’ve got the links here to be able to link to that application if those are some some of the areas that you find you want to go ahead and prob into and then your student a index
Calculator uh and so that is going to be determined that is what when we’re talking about the FASA that is going to be determined uh when you turn that information in for FASA one other piece and some of you may be familiar with this one is as well your CSS profile it
Does depend on your school um whether or not they’re going to want a FASA or they’re going to want to have that uh that that college um that CSS profile but we will talk about that we’ll talk about what schools might require it um but just so that you know when you get
This index is basically telling you how much the government feels that you are going to be able to pay on your child’s education you may or may not agree with that uh for some of us we’re going to get our our sais back and it’s going to
Say you should be good to go you’ve got it uh for most of us we will look back and we say I don’t think I’m good to go I don’t think I’ve got it I do not want anyone to panic we do not want anyone to
Panic if you get an sa SI back and it is showing a huge tag for you what you what you should be able to afford to pay again want to go back to we have made investments in our students you have made investments in our students and our
Goal our objective overarching and this office here at school is for you to be able to recuit that investment and so in this point I am going to introduce this gr I appreciate you being here so much because I know that you are traveled to be with us is
This right on all the way all right howdy everyone can everybody hear me awesome um so my name is Sophia I’m one of the regional advisers here at Texas A&M um in the Austin area so if you have any questions about Texas A&M any questions about applications things like
That um I am the go-to person um this is my information so if any of your students have applied or are thinking of applying to Texas A&M um I am the number one person that you’re able to contact and then we’ll get into the FAA
All right so as we know that FAA has been delayed um this information that I’m sharing with you is all the information that we’ve had in the past um all the information there are going to be a lot of changes for this year um and so all the information that I’m
Providing to you is just based off of what we’ve had in the past and what Tex A&M has been providing students with um so in general just um the FASA um that stands for free application for federal student aid um so looking at different kinds of requirements for
Eligibility for that um and the um couple of things um that the FAFSA has is there going to be a couple of requirements for students so we’re going to go over the FAFSA we’re also going to go over tasa and then also ifsa um so I’ll go over all those different kinds
Of things so if we go on to the next slide um this this is how um the federal government goes through the eligibility um so when you are filling out the FAA um a couple of different things that you can do these are going to be all the
Different steps all of these steps are also in the website um so pretty much I kind of just copy and pasted everything on here um so um this is just going to be a couple of things so the first one is just going to be um if you are
Qualified for the faf set so um when you are looking at the f PSA um a couple of things that you’ll think um you’ll look at is going to be um if you graduated high school or if um you are equivalent for things like um already graduated
High school so like a GRE um and the second slide will show um that you will also have to be enrolled when you are applying to the FAFSA enrolled or admitted to a college um and then the third is going to be having a valid social security
Number number um if you do not have a valid social security number um if we go to the next slide there are going to be all of these different kinds of um qualifications that the um FAO will look at to see if you are eligible to fill
Out the FAA um so um one is going to be if you are Auda citizen um the second is um going to be c um if you have a green card um um and then um also if you have a rival depart uh depart uh departure record um if you
Have immigration status um and then also if you have a t visa so these are going to be all the documents that you will um need to have if you do not have a Social Security number if you have um any of these documents then you are eligible
For the FAA and we go on to the next slide um and then um after all of that all you’ll have all of those different documents with you um and then you’ll also be utilizing um the um there’s going to be another couple of different requirements that we have that’ll show
What kind of documents that you’ll be using when you are filling out the FAA um then once that all is filled out then you’ll sign it um and then um also um have satisfactory um academic progress in college or any career school that you’re going
Into all right so this is how to apply for the FAFSA um so you will have to create an account you are able to create an account currently um but you’re not able to fill anything out as nothing has been um released quite yet um what you’ll do
Is you’ll create that password have that password every single person who is filling out the FAA or is a contributor to the FAA will have their own account so your student will have an account and then also the um contributor will have an account so either a parent or a
Guardian um and every single person will have that account and utilize that account um this FAA so FAFSA um is not a scholarship this is um aone um so it’s not a scholarship application um so a couple of different things also with Scholarships in general sometimes scholarships will also require
Looking at the fet um so so um at Texas A&M there are going to be a couple of scholarships requiring where we do look at the students FAA um some of them um do not require the FAFSA so that’s why we really recommend thatu um students
And parents really fill the FAFSA out as um it may help you with all the other kinds of scholarships that um other schools also have go to the next page all right so the faet is all online it used to be um on paper um so everything is online what
You’re going to need um when you are filling out the FAA is the driver’s license um and then also your income tax return in information um so for this coming year you’re going to need for 2022 um tax return information um and then also bank statements investment records all those different kinds of
Things um and then also if um you have things like um students assets parents assets personal assets all those different kinds of information um and then you’ll have that all with you another thing that you’re able to do on the FAA um there’s going to be a worksheet that you’re actually able to
Download and fill out prior to actually filling out the FAA um so that is one thing that you’re able to do um and use that worksheet throughout your process when you’re filling everything out um you’re able to download that worksheet um that’s going to be all the different
Kinds of questions um that you might be asked on the FAA um so definitely fill that out fill out that worksheet um and you’ll be able to fill everything out um and um a lot easier um as you’re going through the faasa online all right um there are a couple
Of changes to the faasa so one of the changes when you are looking at the FAFSA sometimes this is a a large question that does come up um who is my par parent when I fill out the faasa so on the faasa website this picture will
Pop up and it will help you determine who you are going to put down as your parent or legal legal guardian um so these are going to be the different questions that you might ask yourself um so this is very important to really um know when you’re filling out the FAA and
Also when you’re filling out the worksheet as well and who should be making an account um along with the student when filling it [Applause] out all right and this is the website for the FAA you’re able to go on to the website right now I’m it’s not going to
Um let you actually start the full facet process it’s going to show um when it’s going to be out for um um 2024 to 2025 um and that date says December 31st um hopefully it will um come out on that date all right um so here are a couple
Of different Financial um Aid resources that we have um so there are students who do not um meet the FAFSA requirements there is also going to be um the ifsa which is going to be for international students um so that is international student financial aid application and then
There’s also um for Texas residents who are not citizens um are um also able to apply for Texas application State financial aid so that’s the taspa um and all of those forms are going to be available um on College forall texans.com um so all of that information you’re
Able to use on there um get all of that kind of um fill all of that out all right so now I’m going to kind of explain the differences between um the um Tesa and the ISA um so the Tesla is um is classified if you are a Texas
Resident but do not qualify for um the FAA and um with this um if you are looking at all the different requirements that you need for um the FAFSA but you do not fill out any of the um either one or two of those requirements for the FAFSA then you
Might be going under the taspa um so that is if you are a um resident um in Texas um so this is what you’re going to fill out um you um should not fill out the FAA and the tasa so be sure before you actually fill out either of the two
Make sure that you have all those requirements and all those documents that the FAA is asking for you um and then also make sure that you have all that information for the Tessa um if you are qualified and eligible for the Tas file all right and the second one is
Going to be the Issa so this is for international student financial aid application um so this is for international students to qualify for um Grant Aid um this is all based on financial need um this um eligibility so a couple of things is um if you are on
An F1 Visa um there you are unfortunately not eligible um but you are able to apply for the subsequent years um after and then also students with J1 visas as well um are not eligible um but with the ifsa for international student financial aid application um this is um really for
Students um who are who are international students coming in um to Texas and applying um to to um colleges in the US all right so important things to note um so some of those important dates so um like we’ve mentioned before um really getting to know when those dates are so
December 31st is when bapa says that they’re going to be released and then also getting to know what dates your um colleges that you’re applying to what those deadlines are going to be so specifically for Texas A&M our priority date is March 15th so you um once that
FAA is out be sure to definitely fill all of that information out and send that over to Texas A&M or any of the those other schools that you’re applying to so really make sure that you have all those different deadlines lined up so that you’re able to fill all that information
Out all right um so this is um the um student aid report you are able to list up to 10 schools um to send the fet over to those schools um and all that information is um the fast information is going to be where you are able to
Then um once we receive all that information then we’re able to put a financial aid packet so that we can create one for you um and then put all of that information in and financial need that you um are requesting into your financial aid packet all right um so this is going to
Be how the information is used um so universities historically used um cost of attendance minus um the expected family contribution which then equaled the financial need um now that is going to be changed um if we go to the next slide um this is going to be the fastet
Changes that happen um so we talked about the S um the student aid index um so that is how we are going to utilize that um when looking at students aids for um the financial Aid packet um all of that information is going to be on
The website so you’re able to um look at that there’s also going to be a um estimator um where you’re able to um plug in all of your information and see what that estimates to all right um because you are using um the taxes from um prior years um so from
2022 if any kind of exua circumstances um arise in between that year of 2022 and until now or when you’re filling out the FAA you are able to send in documents to um um when you are um filling out the FAFSA so um you’re able to send all of that
Information um to FAA um as they will read that and um put that into consideration when um looking at your financial aid pet all right so specifically for Texas A&M this is going to be your investment this number is for one year so it’s a full
Year um this is an average of a full year so at Texas A&M on average it’s going to be about 30 to 31,000 so um this is on average with all the different kinds of factors that you might think of um so tuition fees are going to be ranging from around um 122
,000 to 13,000 at Texas A&M um and things like housing and meals um loans um all those different kinds of things are on average um so um with Texas A&M housing um specifically students don’t have to live on campus um at Texas A&M in their first year so that might vary
Um so that um the 13,000 um will vary based off of if you’re living on campus if you’re not living on campus what specific dorm you’re living at there are going to be some dorms that are more expensive than others all those different kinds of things if you’re not
Living on campus are you um how are you doing all of your meals um if you are living on campus things like different kinds of meal plans of what those prices are so really make sure that this is really just an average this is not um
This is an average of just the full year so it might vary for every single student right thank you everyone thank you okay so I’m very excited um if there are topics that really get me going I’m going to bring over my water just in case my mouth be dry it is
Talking about scholarships I mentioned this before but I cannot cannot mention it enough make sure that you are applying make sure that your students are applying uh in the college app process um St students are often times the driver and I encourage that to be so
Here’s my piece of advice for my seniors like we’re already in the think of it but for those of you that have Juniors and sophomores and so on I encourage you emphatically have your students start doing their college apps in the summer um common app which I highly recommend
They will give their essay prompts probably around the second week of June have them start working on those essays in the summer because when they get into the school year it is busy it is busy busy busy especially you’ve got students who are taking heavy course loads they’re involved in extracurricular
Activities and so ideally if you can get that portion taken care of during the summer when you come into fall our Focus can be here our Focus can be on looking at scholarships so a couple of uh different types we’re talking about we did a lot of the deep based uh funding
When we were talking about the ca uh but now we’re going to be talking about that miror piece uh one of the things I want us to really keep in mind is when we’re looking at like our institutional scholarships um most most of us most of us will get money from schools but
You’re probably not going to get a tool ride on the institutional side and that means from your college or university so for instance I’ll use a University of Texas uh University of Texas the expected cost for the year is around 31,000 even on a strong offer you might
Be sitting at St for instance 20,000 or 25,000 so that means that we’ve got a gap that we’re still going to try to cover I do not want anyone to be panicked if you if you get your offer back and you thought oh man I thought she was Kill it I thought her
Standardized or his standardized test scores were here and their grades were there and they were sitting here as far as their rank that is somewhat in the norm and we’re going to as we walk through this we’re going to talk about um we’re going to talk about that a
Little bit more but I do want you to keep in mind when you’re looking at your institutional funding when you’re looking at your Merit your scholarships some of those you’re going to get your offer right away so you’re going to get your acceptance letter and you’re also
Going to get an offer for marit and those are usually your schools that have a standardized table so when you’re going in and you’re looking at colleges for your students know what type of process they have for their scholarships and for their financial aid um if they
Have got a table you can pretty much go in and look at the grid and know exactly where your child is going to set if their GPA is sitting here and their rank is sitting there or it can be a combination of GPA sat act and then
Where they’re ranked but for those you have a great idea of where you’re sitting and you can take that into and have that in your when you start your application process the second piece of this is a holistic review for the holistic review those are typically typically going to be the schools where
You know you’re going to have an essay there may be another application that is going to come through and those are typically going to be offers that come a little bit later uh in the process some they might do a combination of both you might get a flat amount up front and
Then you could see another offer letter coming a little bit further into your process um and so this is a lot of information that we’re trying to manage and we’re going to talk about what is the best way for us to keep track and manage all of this information um the
Next thing I would encourage us to do is make sure that we know our process I’ll give you the perfect example Texas Tech Texas Tech your application for admission you can go all the way until May you up until May you could still be applying applying to Texas type for
Admission however there for in order to have priority funding their due date was December 1st that is a huge gap and so what does that mean when you’re when you’re going in it’s easy for a student to go in and think oh man I’m good I’ve
Got all the time in the world I do not need to get my application done until sometime in March and that may very well be accurate but if the priority deadline for scholarships is sitting in December that means you need to have your application in by December because they
Not going to look at your scholarship application until you’ve actually applied and accepted uh to their school and so making sure that we’re tracking and we’re aware of all of those dates uh some of them it’s going to come as part of the application so when I send my app
In they automatically do an evaluation and they say here you go here’s your offer and then we might have something else for you to look at in the spren um others it is going to be a completely separate application U that you need to go through once you have actually been
Accepted but making sure that we’re tracking those dates uh another piece that I want to talk about is standardized testing how many of you guys were here for a college night okay so this is this is some of a new crowd so I want to share this with
You many many schools I’m going to even say probably most schools are going test optional with regards to standardized test so meaning your acts and your SATs um even even ID leagues are are going that direction I encourage you one if you’re looking at your schools that are
Highly selected do not hesitate to reach out to them and find out what that score needs to look like so to find out from them what would they have sitting at their 50 to 75% rate and then the second piece of that is you need to know admissions might be test optional but
Scholarships may not be and so you want to keep you want to make sure that you keep that in mind so the way that you apply to make sure that you don’t cancel yourself out for something later on so some schools say I’m test optional and
I’m test optional all the way I’m test optional for admissions and even when I’m doing my assessment for scholarships others you will see a cave output on that and so that lets you know how much you need to be digging into that that standardized test SC for and the other
Piece that I will say and I can’t help but to say it I know this is not what we’re talking about tonight even if the school you’re applying to is test optional take the test take the test take the test and seek to get the strongest score that you can get on the
Test because even if it is test optional for admissions when they get ready to start placing your child in classes and this could then end up being extra money uh because you’re having a new remedial classes if they do not have a standardized test score they are going
To either have them tests coming in to find out where they’re going to place them uh and then and now we’re going to be setting on it whereas we could have had maybe about a year to work on that score to get them a score that would keep them
From needing to do any remedial forew work so I highly highly encourage to take the test doesn’t mean you have to use it in your admission process if you know that 50 that 50 to 75 range is outside of your score don’t submit it um
But I would keep that in mind and do not hesitate to reach out to our office um I had a parent that called and she her mindset was like gosh I just don’t know do I subit this score do I not submit the score do I submit the score her
Child had a 31 on the ACT and she was like I don’t know I don’t know if that’s going to be good enough for youut and I just picked up the phone and called him I’ve got someone who’s got a 31 do you think they should go test optional or do
You think they should submit and he was like emphatically you need to submit if you’re over 29 I will go ahead and submit so do not hesitate to reach out so that we can do whatever we can to kind of just strengthen that application
File I had to do that okay so now and moving over knowing what’s covered so when you get your offer uh when that offer comes in uh I’ll use the example it might be an offer and that offer is going to be $125,000 over 4 years what does that
Include for some it will very specifically say this is for tuition and it might even go in and say this is for tuition and this is for any summer tuition that she might take or he might take but in keeping that in mind know especially when you’re looking at that
Wording for the piece that comes in on your automatic scholarships that lets you know that this is kind of where they kind of tar and ear marking or requiring that money to go and if it’s if you got a really large offer to begin with and it’s sitting and it’s covering a great
Deal of tuition we’ll talk more about this but you might have some negotiation room if you’ve got a gap that you still need to be able to cover go ahead you can go you can go a couple more so outside outside opportunities I talked a little bit already about the um
Office of academic uh advancement our opportunities link that we send out please don’t snooze on that please be sure be sure be sure to check it because everything I get I add to it everything Mr Jones gets he adds to it whenever I hear about something if someone mention
Something the passing I say shoot me an email and I add it um I add it to that file so make sure that you’re checking that out U one of the things that I would do when you’re looking so we talked about the piece that is going to be institutional so what you’re
Receiving from the schools that you have app app to um the next piece of that that I would highly encourage is to use a concentric approach when you are actually applying for your outside scholarships and I would start local first there are so many local opportunities whether it’s with your
Parents employer whether it’s going to be through a credit union whether it’s through the Alumni Association for the school that you’re interested in fraternities sororities all types of Civic organizations but I I don’t just say this because I work here I have a student here I would put our students up
Against any student anywhere and so particularly if you are applying for scholarships that where your competition ring is going to be here in the Austin area or Travis County Williamson County your odds are so much better when you’re competing against you know 100 200 people versus when we’re looking at
National scholarships where we have thousands doesn’t mean that you don’t apply for those but sometimes we just kind of dismiss them because they’re not may not have as large of a of a tag on them but I encourage you start in that Circle start in that tight ring and then
Move out and then as far as just the resources these are also already listed on our link uh on in our database but I encourage you to use these and stay up up to date on them one of the things um I attend a lot of webinars with college
Board and they give so much information but they just do awards every month for 40K and when I see the faces that are appearing on those 40K Awards all it is is just registering it doesn’t it doesn’t do anything you may win you may not but I encourage you every
Opportunity when something comes out pursue it uh in our home our requirement is we’re looking at three a week that’s my task for you I would like for you to find three things to apply for every week because certainly the more things you apply for the more opportunities you
Have and trying to do it in a cren situation is stressful so if you just know Saturday mornings I’ve got three things I’m going to apply for and we can simplify this process and we’re going to talk about ways to simplify okay so right here here’s our game plan so
We you’re good so here’s our game plan uh one of the pieces I’m going to flip back and forth here store and save every essay you WR I for those of you the seniors that I have in the room almost every single college that you apply to
It is kind of a tweaking of almost the same question often when that college board prompt comes out in mid in mid uh uh June go ahead and take a look at what those prompts are because typically those are going to be your same or very similar um scholarship prompts and just
Drop it into a Google doc just have them all there so when you get ready to apply for a scholarship and they want to know how have you shown leadership here’s my scholarship essay now you’ve got to tweak it you’ve got to do some adjustments to it but the idea
Is that we are not going to reinvent the wheel every single time when you’ve got especially those colleges that kind of require the um some short answer pieces cut and paste all of that stuff and put it into your Google doc um so that you can pull on that same information over
And over again because our students are busy they’re involved in a lot of activities and there is no point in us working and touching on something twice so our objective is going to be everything that our student writes every detailed answer that they give for something we have got that stored and
We’ve got it cataloged somewhere um the other piece that I would encourage especially when we’re doing essays is for your for you now I’m talking to students for you to take the time to make sure you understand what is being asked uh if they are asking you a
Question and you’re about to expound on an essay take the time to really make sure you understand the question if they’re giving you options and particularly now I’m talking about your common app prompts if they’re giving you options go ahead and brainstorm for every single one so that you can find
The piece that is going to seem most dynamic for you when you are doing essays because many of the larger scholarships are typically going to require an essay um I attended a session um earlier this year and it was with college board uh and it was with college
Board and they had quite a few admission officers that were on the call as well and the piece that they are looking for you do not have to go back and rehash your grades you do not need to go back and like tell us what’s on your
Transcript already they want to know you they want to know how you are going to come onto their campus and how you’re going to be transformative in their campus and so when you are particularly when you are applying for scholarships I encourage you go onto that school’s website look at their mission statement
Look at their Cornerstone and foundational pieces and somehow or another make sure that you work that into your essay work that into your essay as you were talking about you and and stop and think about it I don’t mean to do it from a from a disingenuous
Standpoint but to stop and take the time to understand how you and the things that you’ve done and who you are how it ties to their mission and and foundationally who they are um because that helps you to solidify in your mind that indeed this is the right school for
You as well can you click on that link so for me I I encourage and this will be shared with you guys I highly encourage you to just have a spreadsheet where you track all of this information know where your student is applying know when their due dates are coming know
When their their scholarship or financial aid due dates are sitting there know what the responses are and if we scroll over just a b where we’re going to start tracking I I keep it all in there so like if you’ve got if your student has already set up their logins
And their passwords know their logins and passwords when they’re going through the college app process that’s all them but when we’re starting to talk about funding that’s us thing and so you want to be able to kind of help them to um to manage that and so one is like knowing
Your information so when you get in know exactly what you’re going to be looking at with tuition room and board in your costs and then when you get your offers like like hey you might get this offer for you know $100,000 but we still got a
$100,000 Gap to cover but this is what you’re documenting and you can now have a just a visual right off the bat to know how close you are and what you’re going to be looking at from uh from an annual standpoint and then what you’re
Going to be looking at over um over four years and then just a running tally just for for you to be able to know um but I encourage you guys to have something where you’re tracking all this information if you think that you’re going to be able to keep it in your
Hands a lot it is a lot but you can do it and the whole objective is for us to take the very organized and very deliberate if I’m being very honest a very organized and deliberate approach I encourage you all to track the scholarships that you apply for uh so if
You decide hey I’m going to do two a week or I’m going to do three a week write them down so that when we come to Spring and you’re ready to start following up I see some of you guys taking pictures I promise we’re going to
Send this out so you can just take take your time we were going to send out this entire Pres presentation and we’re also recording the presentation in case there’s something that you want to go back to um but again the idea that I encourage you to do is just to be
Deliberate deliberate to track track your information if you’re applying to one school or maybe even if you’re applying to two schools um it might not be as important for you to try to track all the different funding so that you can start trying to make your decision
But you will need to make your decision you’ll need to make your decision looking at what certainly Tak into account what the cost is going to be by all means just like Mr Jones said you got to count the cost of you’re going to to build a building and certainly to
Know some things are going to be non-renewable so it might be a first year scholarship you want to know that you want to know that going in that’s all going to be a part of your evaluation and your assessment okay we can go back and then we can go back into
Thing and we can go to the there we go at the next slide here’s the other piece uh I encourage you you can go back you can go back to that last I just want to talk with your financial aid officers if you have got a school and this is the
School that you’re absolutely set on and you have been accepted and you have been made an offer but that offer is just not exactly where you need for that offer to be pick up the phone and call them call them and reach out to them and have a
Conversation let them know this is the school that I really want to attend this is where I see myself when I look at who you are and I look at who I am and what I want to accomplish this is what I see
But when I when I got my offer I I don’t know if this is something that we’re going to be able to have that conversation with them because there is no reason not to go back I I’ve heard it too many times of being able to negotiate your offer it doesn’t mean
That you will always be able to do it and certainly the stronger your results are you know the stronger position you have to be able to do that you get to be more in the driver’s seat so I encourage you if you get an offer you’re like gosh
It’s just a little bit off before you decide I don’t think it’s going to work be sure to go back and have a conversation with them be next so the next piece that I want to talk about is a uh college scholarship service profile your CSS profile um for
Some of your schools and this is something for you guys to know I encourage everyone to complete their fastup um you may be thinking that you are not going to get any need based Aid and you may be absolutely right but I cannot tell you how many schools do
Require even if it’s not for all of them or for some of that some of their scholarship consideration they want it in hand uh and so you want to make sure that you get that filled out and that you’re not behind the ball trying to get
It done and although you cannot go in right now and start working on your FSA you absolutely and they encourage you to I attended a boot camp a few weeks ago go ahead and get your student ID set up get your student ID set up get your ID
Set up get your spouses m mom and dad will need an ID um and depending on the family situation there may be like a step parent who also needs to have an ID and the student will need to have an ID and one of one of the requirements um
That they put on that is that you cannot throw out the form for anyone else so I cannot fill out the form for Ernest Ernest cannot fill out the form for me Juliet cannot fill out the form for me I cannot fill out that portion but when it
Opens on the 31st we already know that it’s been delayed the idea is that we want to make sure that we are ready to go and it does open so we don’t have any other delays and we’re not waiting for anything else um but when we’re talking
About the U the CSS profile uh this is something that is offered by college board and so the not all schools use it and we’re going to click on I’m going to show you schools uh particularly in Texas do but for any of you that are applying to some of the more select
Schools uh if you’re applying to any of the IDS um your Vanderbilts your emories your colombias uh all of them are going to require a CSS profile uh and so just so that you guys know uh it is another methodology that is used for determining
Whether or not uh you are what kind of package you need to receive um for the CSS profile it is institution driven so that school kind of makes your own personal assessment uh what we’re talking about the fast of that is totally federal government driven but if
Your school requires it you need to get it turn in and this one strangely enough it has a fee associated with it so it is a part of college board kind of like the SAT and AP it is a $25 fee it is $25 for you to actually fill out the application
And then you’ve got to send it to all of your schools that that require you to have it so um trying to think I think maybe even the University of Georgia does not a lot of Public Schools do and we will look at the public schools in
Texas who do and so if you’re focused in Texas um and and your school doesn’t come on the list I wouldn’t worry about filling it out in but for those that do require it you need you definitely need to get that done um and then so does it
Help so this is just something that I copied uh down from bank rate and so it says Hey creating this profile is important because it has the potential to save you money on your education cost some schools may actually give out their scholarship so not at all need based but
Those that require that CSS profile that is going to be their basis for how they dist distribute their scholarships and they may also make adjustments to where your tuition actually sits based on this so again if your school requires it it’s all about going in and looking at what
What financial aid requirements are needed and do that when early on when you’re going and looking through your process make sure that you do not miss an important deadline and one other thing that I will mention is um when you’re doing your college apps we de but when you’re doing your college
App don’t wait till the last minute only because there may be some requirements and some caveats that sit there and so you’re thinking oh man December 1st all right I’ll start working on it on the 30th and then December 1st we’ll get it finished but sometimes there will be
Additional links that they’re going to send to you to finish completing that application or to finish completing that scholarship application and they’re usually don’t come right away like I’ll even use the example of Texas A&M you can gohe and complete your application but they also require you to do self-reporting and that self-reporting
Link takes about 24 uh to 48 hours to come to you and sometimes it can take even longer than that so talk wait until the last minute try to make sure that you go in and I’m saying that specifically for your scholarship PS if you’ve got components and we had one
Just last week if you’ve got components that have to be filled out make sure that to try and go in and do that a little bit early uh and then can you click on that link for me these are just the institutions that are in Texas if you
Will go up to um to institution State third column thank you and then go to Texas these are your schools and Texas that will require a CSS profile from you and for those of you who can’t see I’ll read them because I saw this went it
Will be bor uh it will be R the story of thank you it’ll be rice SMU St Edwards TCU and Trinity so if you’re applying to any of those schools if you have friends that you know are fine to those schools make sure that they are aware to go in
And complete their CSS profile because that is typically going to be a requirement not just for them to do a junal assment but it’s going to be a requirement for their scholarship Pie as well okay you can exit out of there go to the next
Slide so thank you all thank you all for coming here tonight I know there is a lot on campus we were trying to 7:00 the I there is lots and lots and lots that is going on on campus tonight there is a boys varsity basketball game I’m not
Sure if the girls uh soccer game has wrapped up but if you have a few more minutes I encourage you grab Christmas cookies grab a water and head out to any of those activities I have put our information here on the board you might get home and you’ve heard something
You’ve got additional questions there are a lot of us here tonight and there’s no way that we’ll be able to get everyone’s questions answered but I want to get your questions answered and Mr Jones does as well so what we can do is if you want to shoot us an email or even
If you want to set up a time for us to meet if you feel like I need to have a few more minutes for us to kind of pour through this please feel free to do that do that at any point but outside there are Christmas cookies and Mr Jones is
Very specific he’s like is there any way do do you think we could do cookies well I thought I said do you think we could do cookies but he was very specific and can we do Christmas cookies so thank you guys thank you all so much for being
Here tonight and this is what I want to leave you with there was a lot of information a lot of information was given out and sometimes it can feel like I’ve got it I’m absolutely on top of the ball check mark and go Star for me and
At other times it can feel like oh my goodness there’s so much I feel like we’re so behind you’re not so behind wherever you are that’s where we’re going to start we start with where we are and we just start marching forward you you’ve put in the work You’ had your
Kids here your kids have put in the work and I know that God will take care of the rest thank you guys so much for being yes we absolutely can an will you wave your hand y not only did our slides for us tonight without a moment’s hesitation because he
Also I said oh gosh I really think we should record it like if someone’s not able to attend we’ve got folks all over campus tonight and so he has also been willing to kind of do dual Duty so thank you so much an I really really do appreciate
It you I say this Mr Jones I appreciate you I appreciate the passion and the way that you pour into our students and so thank thank you all so much for being here tonight you all have a wonderful rest of the [Applause] [Applause] night don’t leave is that your cup oh
Yes is that no
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