What is and isn’t an asset on the FAFSA? Here’s a quick “is it or isn’t it?” for you ..read more

What do the University of Alabama, Harvard, Pepperdine and Yale have in common? At least one student from each won a Rhodes Scholarship this year ..read more

You applied early decision and you expect to hear back from your college in mid-December, after which you're expected to accept pretty quickly. And the FAFSA doesn't come out until Dec. 1. How do you know if you should accept when the college won't be able to calculate your financial aid award? Your financial aid award has two pieces: Institutional scholarships and grants-- those coming from the college itself Federal funds which can include Pell grants, work-study and student loans Most colleges that offer Early Decision use the CSS Profile or their own institutional forms. This allows ..read more

There are loads of great reasons to take advanced classes in high school: additional rigor, intellectual challenge, preparing for college, diving deeper into a topic. One of the most common reasons students take these classes, though, is to get college credit while in high school. If college credit is one of your goals, then you need to know what colleges do with your AP, IB, dual credit and other courses. Colleges may offer one or more of the following, dependent on the student’s exam results: Credit towards the student’s major General education (elective) credit Advanced standing (acce ..read more

No matter how simplified the FAFSA gets, elements of it are still confusing. The CSS Profile, on the other hand, keeps getting more complex, so it just gets more and more confusing. Here are a few tips to make filing go more smoothly-- and some pitfalls to avoid. Apologies for the laundry list format! Set up your IDs ahead of time. Both the student and the parent need FSA IDs in order to file the FAFSA. You can create those now on the FAFSA website. If your student has taken the PSAT or SAT, they already have a College Board account; this is what you will use to file the CSS Profile. If they h ..read more

The college rankings are here! Right in time for students to apply to the best colleges! But wait, which college is best? US News & World Report and Forbes say Princeton is best university but the Wall Street Journal and Niche say MIT. Meanwhile the Princeton Review lists Featured colleges first so you'd think Christopher Newport University is best., and the Associated Press is all in on the University of Oregon. What's a student to do? College rankings present a huge opportunity for families and students if they’re willing to figure out how to use t ..read more

The FAFSA’s Student Aid Index gets a lot of attention, but net cost is what you should pay attention to ..read more

A common question I hear is, "I know that scholarships are out there, but how do I get them?" There are several parts to this: how do you apply, what are you applying for, where does the money come from, and how do you get the money? First, taking a step back, there are three primary types of scholarships: Need-based financial aid Institutional merit scholarships Outside scholarships This post is about need-based financial aid. I'll cover the other two in different posts so that you can eat your breakfast and go about your life today instead of just reading an over-long blog post. How ..read more

Here's a suggestion: instead of focusing on which college your student should apply to or go to, think about why you want them to go to college. Why college opens doors ..read more

UTMA accounts are great for a lot of things. Financial aid isn't one of them. Here's what you need to know if your student has a UTMA ..read more