The Insider: College Admissions Advice from the Experts

Do the college admissions and financial aid processes have you feeling a bit helpless?  Does it seem that your child’s college career, future earnings potential, and overall happiness in life is left to the random whims of inscrutable admissions and financial aid officers?

How will receipt of an outside scholarship affect my financial aid offer?

“Average” college students in search of scholarship dollars received a bit of good news last week when the website, College Humor, announced the start of their $5,000 “Average Student Scholarship Contest.”  While humorous in nature, the scholarship is, indeed, real — no laughing matter for students in search of ways to finance a college education.  But the scholarship is only one of many geared towards students who might not necessarily find themselves at the top of their class.  Here to weigh in on other sources of aid for the “average” student are a few of our college finance experts:

College Coach Expert, Cynde Quinn, explores the “7 steps for scholarship success.” To find out how you can start earning money for college, read her blog post in today’s USA Today.

Applying for financial aid can be a bewildering process, and it’s all too easy for overwhelmed parents to make seemingly small mistakes that end up costing them thousands of dollars.  In a recent Wall Street Journal article, Rachel Louise Ensign, with assistance from the nation’s leading college finance experts including College Coach’s own Alex Bickford and Robert Weinerman, details some of the most common mistakes in college finance.  Examples include:

While most scholarship applications are filed in the senior year, is there a way students can get ready for them any earlier?  Similarly to how an early PSAT can help prep students for the SAT, the scholarship search process also has a route for preparing for those scholarship applications early on.

If you’re the parent of a high school senior, you’ve likely completed the FAFSA by now. And if your child applied to any private colleges, you may have also completed a CSS/Profile.  So congratulations!  The most difficult part of the financial aid application process is over.  You can now sit back, relax, and let the money roll in, right?