Scholarships

Can You Shrink Your EFC?

My last college blog post focused on a dilemma that many families face. When parents calculate what their Expected Family Contribution is, they discover it’s far higher than they anticipated. If you missed the post, here it is: Is Your EFC Too High? Today I want to stay on that topic and share an email […]

29Nov2010 | Lynn | 0 comments | Continued

Is Your EFC Too High?

Is your EFC too high? I have been hearing from families of high school seniors who have calculated their preliminary EFC or Expected Family Contribution and are now panicking. They can’t believe how high their EFC is. Your EFC can provide a decent idea of what a college will assume you could pay for one […]

28Nov2010 | Lynn | 1 comment | Continued
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Why State Universities Aren’t Always a Bargain

If you’ve been a regular visitor to my college blog, you know that college price tags are meaningless. A $50,000 college, for example, could cost some families less than a $25,000 school. More families in my state of California are beginning to realize this. I bet that’s why expensive private schools such as Whitman College, […]

15Nov2010 | Lynn | 1 comment | Continued

Answers to College Recruiting Questions

I’ve gotten questions lately from parents whose children are being recruited by college coaches. I wanted to share the questions because it might help other families who are or will be navigating the Byzantine world of college athletics. I talked to Karen Weaver, my go-to-expert on college athletics. Weaver is the director of athletics at […]

28Oct2010 | Lynn | 0 comments | Continued

10 Things That Many High School Counselors Don’t Know

I am sure that I ticked off a fair number of high school counselors yesterday when I wrote this post: Why High School Counselors Don’t Know Much About College I wanted to follow up with a list of things that the typical high school counselors doesn’t know. This list could have been much longer, but […]

18Oct2010 | Lynn | 0 comments | Continued
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Why High School Counselors Don’t Know Much About College

I spent yesterday afternoon giving a workshop for some families about how they can increase their chances of finding wonderful schools for their teenagers while shrinking their costs at the same time. The parents, whose teenagers attend both private and public suburban schools in San Diego, were shocked that they hadn’t heard about any of […]

18Oct2010 | Lynn | 0 comments | Continued

Should Rich Students Get Merit Scholarships?

Should colleges continue to give merit scholarships to rich students? The vast majority of colleges and universities in this country dispense money to rich kids through merit scholarships or grants. The higher-ed world isn’t proud of this practice, but it’s pervasive. I ended up talking about this phenomenon this weekend when I was visiting my […]

10Oct2010 | Lynn | 2 comments | Continued
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What is Your EFC?

Do you know what the term Expected Family Contribution or EFC means? Most of you probably don’t so I’m going to devote the next couple of blog posts to explaining what an Expected Family Contribution or EFC is and why it’s so incredibly important. If you file for financial aid, you will obtain your EFC, […]

12Sep2010 | Lynn | 1 comment | Continued
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Case Study: Applying Early Decision

Yesterday I shared an easy way to to obtain early decision statistics from individual colleges and universities. Here is the post: Finding the Success Rate of Applying Early Decision As I promised at the time, I want to delve into the specifics of a high school senior, I’m going to call her Sarah, who wants […]

9Sep2010 | Lynn | 4 comments | Continued

How Generous Is This College?

How can you tell if a college or university will cut the price for your child? You can get an idea by looking at a school’s Common Data Set. If you don’t know what a Common Data Set is, you’ll want to read the posts that I wrote last week on this valuable document: Researching […]

5Sep2010 | Lynn | 1 comment | Continued