About This Time of the Year...

Read about the college process. Talk to school counselors at high schools and colleges. Make your own timeline. Purchase a large calendar and mount it in an easily seen place in your home. Look at it often with your student. Do not depend on your student to check ahead and remember every date. Work together to keep up with requirements. Getting your child into college is a family affair.

Parental definition:
FAFSA stands for the Free Application for Federal Student Aid. The application is for federal, state, and college financial aid. The form needs to be completed in January of your student's senior year. You will have to estimate your taxes for the past year. If your actual tax return differs greatly, you can notify the schools you are dealing with at that time. The sooner your FAFSA report is completed and returned, the sooner your student is considered for scholarship and financial aid awards.

The FAFSA gathers information about your family's income and financial situation in order for the government to determine how much aid your student if eligible for.

Warning: The government rarely awards the student as much money as a family needs to help with financial expenses.

A Book to Help:

The Campus Life Guide to Christian Colleges & Universities from the editors of Campus Life Magazine (Broadman and Holman Publishers, 1998).

ChristianColleges.com now has a Christian Colleges Simple List Booklet Order Your Copy TODAY!

Getting There...

Jan, a mom from Montana, tells us about planning for her daughter's college education...

First Steps for Finding The Right College
(part 2)

Next, take a few moments to sit down with your child to discuss and list his/her preferences. In state or out? City or country? Large campus, mid-size, or small. Majors? What about extracurriculars (participation in these might even help generate financial aid)? And finally, if the school preference is religious (which your visit to this site indicates that it is), what denominations are acceptable to you both?

Perhaps you noticed that I haven't mentioned cost. The reason for this is that most parents have an unrealistic concept of what kind of education their child will be able to finance. In general, private colleges have a higher "sticker price" than public colleges. However, when the financial aid package is finally in place, the cost to attend a private school is often comparable to the cost to attend a state-run college. Alumni and other benefactors "back" private colleges. These donors contribute funds for grants and scholarships, which are awarded for a wide variety of reasons. Public colleges have limited funds to award per student by comparison.

So in the beginning, allow your child to dream, with the proviso that the best financial aid package may mean choosing a different college that is a tad less than their perfect dream. He/she should ideally find at least three, and perhaps as many as seven, colleges to consider. And for the Christian student, time spent in prayer as each is considered may be the determining factor.

Priority List in hand, fire up the computer and head for www.ChristianColleges.com! Click on the hyperlink to a college of interest and browse their website. Take note of the items on your student's list. If the school piques your curiosity or theirs, click on the Admissions Department's e-mail hyperlink and request more information. Provide them with your home address, telephone number, student's name and date of graduation. Be sure to request a college catalogue. Often you can get a sense of the college's spiritual tone by reading the offered course descriptions. Another item to request if available is the college video.
Remember that this is a PR piece, and as such will only provide a glimpse of the best they have to offer.

If your teen has selected three or more colleges of interest, take note of the entrance requirements. Your son or daughter will need to keep these things in mind as they monitor their grades and course selections in high
school.

If your teen is already a junior or senior, he or she should be preparing for the SAT and/or ACT tests. There are excellent software programs available for this purpose that are a worthwhile investment. My youngest daughter improved her ACT score by 4 points using a software program, which translated into a $1,500 per year academic scholarship. Visit the ACT website at www.act.org and find information about the SAT at www.ets.org.

Hopefully you have begun this process during the first two years of their high school career. Now, sit back, read the incoming mail from your contacted colleges, and ponder what things the Lord has in store for your teen's future!

...to be continued