001So because I think And I hope that he wants to be an There's >> how are you here to learn some more? I don't think he's >> so botherul's a lot trouble. What's the story? >> Facebook. Does it work? I brought you in. So you can do just use your eyes and not use your neck to >> seem topal. I like them. I like it's like Yeah. So you don't So So I don't Good evening. I'm gonna get started. We might have some join us a little bit late. Um my name is Leandrew Chararmms. I'm the lead school counselor for the Kaga School District and I want to welcome you here tonight. Thank you for coming out. Um tonight's presentation is going to be the first half I'm going to walk you through the um
002college application process if you will. So what your seniors are or should be working on right now. And then the second half the presentation we have a guest speaker from FLCC uh John Vanlen. He is um financial aid uh counselor at FLCC. Um although he works at FLCC, today's presentation is really a general overview of financial aid in general. So he'll walk us through that um and all the pieces that are associated with uh financial aid and it changes I feel like every single year. So uh there's always something new that I learn as well when he presents. So, senior year checklist. These are the things I'm going to be touching on this evening um as I I go through my presentation and I'll share with you um conversations that are being had right now.
003Um each senior is meeting with their school counselor um to talk about their plans for after high school and um getting started with that process. So, we're helping students get connected with the common application, which I'll explain um in my presentation as well, and um helping them set deadlines and timelines for themselves through throughout the process. Um I'll show you tonight. We use a software program called School Links. um that is where the students can go in there and research colleges but also it's um uh online program for students to register to uh meet with college reps that come right here on the Kenneda campus. So, I'll show you that this evening as well. Um, because we do encourage students. We have probably 50 to 70 colleges that are coming into Canada this fall to
004do sort of meet and greets with students. Um, so students have the opportunity to see what schools are on those lists and sign up for those. So, I'll walk you through that. Um, and then we're going to talk a little bit about deadlines as well. So, to get started, um, SAT and ACT exams. So, these are what we all know as our college entrance exams. Um, Colleges typically use these as a piece of the admissions process. So, um when students apply to college, there's many parts of their application. This would be considered a piece of the application. Um sometimes students can get caught up in um their results on their SAT and worry that, you know, I'm not going to be able to get into the schools I want. And I try to remind them
005that it is only a small portion. Um and we have found over the years many colleges are going um SAT ACT optional. So, they're not even requiring these tests um for admissions anymore. Um that came out of COVID. We are slowly, so this is the first year. We're slowly starting to see some colleges come back to now making it a piece of the requirements. Um so, there was a handful of schools this year that were optional last year in terms of their SAT, ACT, and now they're making it uh required. So, it is important that students uh look at whatever colleges are on their list to apply to that they look to see um are these exams required. So, if they haven't taken a test yet, um clearly there's one this Saturday, it's too late
006to register for that one, but your child might already have registered and be planning to test this Saturday. There's another opportunity in November. And for these exams, you register right on the assessment website. So for SAT it's um the College Board website and for ACT it's act student.org um and they can go in and register. There's a difference between the tests. They're very different um in terms of the way the questions are asked and how they're scored, but colleges treat them equally in the admissions process. Um I find some students do better on the SAT than the ACT and then others would do better on the ACT versus the SAT. Um both websites have practice questions so the student can go on and um take a look at the types of questions. Typically we would
007encourage students to take each um and then just see which one they perform better on um so they have uh two tests that they could consider using for their part of their application. But again um I wouldn't sweat this too much um especially because a lot of the schools that our students are looking at um are optional. So, college visits um these are um visits should have been happening all through the spring into the summer and right they could be happening right now into the fall. And sometimes when we meet with students, I met with one the other day, she was like well worried because about applying because she hadn't visited yet. And I just assured her that that is fine. You can put an application out to a college and wait to find out
008if you're accepted and then go on a visit to determine if you want to accept that acceptance. So, it's never too late um to visit and we do encourage students to get on campus because it can the feeling that a student might have on campus, the interaction with professors or or um other students on campus can um really set a tone for a student to determine can I see myself here for the next four years um at this school. So, visits are important. Um, and I'm just going to show you really quick if I can. Not super technology savvy, but the school links program I just mentioned to you. All students have an account. So, they can go in. This is um I'm in as a de demo student, but there's a lot of things
009they can do in here. Under explore, under colleges on the left, they could do a search. They could look up a particular college. If someone says, "Oh, you should check out the University of Vermont." Um, they have the major you're looking at. The student can go in here and just look up UVM and learn about the school. But what I want to show you today is as soon as the child walk logs in up at the top under events, you see 21. They can click this and it's going to show you all these schools that are coming into the academy. So this Thursday, UB is going to be here from 10:39 to 11:20. We've got Niagara, RIT is coming on Friday, St. Lawrence. The list goes on and on. So the student clicks it and
010then they can um sign up to attend the event and then the secretary will get that list of who signed up and send the students passes. And all these visits are right in the counseling center in one of our small conference rooms. Um a counselor sits in with the college rep because sometimes our students don't always know what questions to ask, right? So they'll come in, the student will come in. And um the college reps are pretty great at like carrying the conversation, asking the students, "What do you want to major in?" Um and they explain their campus and what they have, everything from clubs, activities, study abroad, all the things that um because their job is really to promote their school. Um but anytime a student has contact with a college rep, it gets
011noted in that admissions office um in their records. So, if your child has their heart set on a school, it's to their advantage to to try to meet with the rep when the rep comes here. If there's a college fair, go up to the table, introduce themselves, because those reps remember that. And the rep that comes here is the rep that's reviewing the candidate go academy applications because they're assigned to to a region, if you will. Um, so they're going to advocate for a student to be accepted to their institution if they feel like they're a strong candidate. But make building those relationships. So that counselor or that admissions rep is key. So again, these are all in here. We have new ones added every day. Um, so the student can click. What I tell
012kids because I know some of our high achieving, well, all of our students for that matter, you know, they might say, "Oh, next uh on October 14th, I want to go see Savannah College Art and Design." and they sign up, but they don't realize come October 14th, they have a pre-cal test during that time. It's okay. They don't have to come visit the college. They could just let their counselor know, I signed up, but I'm not going to make it because your math test obviously takes priority. So, I would encourage them get in, sign up, and then if the time comes and they have a conflict, they can just let their counselor know. So, back to my presentation. Let me see if I can find it here. We have the Buffalo area colleges coming on
013November 4th. So that's uh fair style that'll be in the small gym. I want to say there's 16 or 17 colleges. They're all from the Buffalo area. We just had the Rochester area colleges here a week or so ago. And again, um students are called out. Uh we do juniors for the first half, seniors for the second half to attend. Um, and that's a great way for them to make connections with college reps as well. So, moving on, um, we started this process back in the spring with juniors, getting them researching colleges. Um, and oftentimes that can, uh, generate a a large list of schools to um, explore, but by this time, we want students to sort of narrow that list down. An ideal amount of colleges to apply to, we would say, is between
014five and seven schools. Um, and there's a couple reasons for that. In the end, if you apply to more, you're get into all of them, you're still going to have to make a decision in the end, right? And many of these colleges have um application fees that can range from $50 up to $85 just to apply. Um, so narrowing it down to five to seven is ideal. Um, and then within that five to seven schools, we like to have at least one what we call a safety school. So that's a school that we're pretty sure the student is going to get into. So, their GPA or their SAT scores exceed maybe what the admissions requirement is. Um, they might be end up being a backup school for them. Like, they might not love it, but
015if I don't get into my other schools, I'd be okay going to this one. Um, the bulk of their schools, their five to seven should fall into what we call target. So, that's where their um GPA matches what that college is looking for um in terms of admissions. And then maybe one or two reach schools. So, I had a student say, "I know my grade isn't quite where that school would want, but I still want to apply." And I would say, "Go for it. Put your name in the hat." Because when they post like, "This is our admissions criteria." That's like an average. They accept a percentage above and below that, right? So, I always tell students like definitely go uh shoot for the stars if there's a school you would love to try to
016get into and but acknowledge like it might be a little bit of a stretch. With that being said, like even when we talk about our Ivy League schools, like I'll talk about Cornell for instance. I mean, we have a lot of students in our our um class this year that would have what I would consider the grades to be able to be competitive to apply to Cornell. But Cornell, any IV, they all get so many applications that just by pure um numbers, students don't get in that are qualified because they don't have enough spots in their incoming class and they're getting 10, 12, 13,000 applications. Um so on the school links it will tell you um the p the acceptance rate. So like Cornell might be like a 8% acceptance rate or 10% acceptance rate
017right? So I explain to kids if you if a school has that low of an acceptance rate that makes it competitive right and so then when we look at some other schools it might be a 45 or 50% acceptance rate and then they can go up to like a 75% acceptance rate. Um, so that can tell a student how selective a school is. Um, and then as they're creating that list of schools, we ask them that they keep track of that in school links so their counselor can see what their final list is. So now we're ready to apply. There's lots of options when it comes to applying. Um, and you can see them listed here. So I'll just quickly explain them. Rolling admissions simply means that college does not have a deadline. So when
018they get the application in all supporting documents. So supporting documents are a transcript, a letter of recommendation, um a high school profile. So Candida has a school profile that explains our coursework and our rigor as well as a counselor um report. So those are the supporting documents. When the college gets the supporting documents and the application, they will send that whole package to review and within a couple weeks, usually enrolling schools, I would say it's about two to three weeks, they would get uh admissions decision in the mail. So rolling, no deadline. With that, I tell kids, don't wait. And I say that because even with colleges that are rolling, they fill spots as they get applications. So, if you wait till February to apply, there's fewer slots. So, it's to your advantage always, I
019think, put your name in the hat early so it'll get your application out the door. And in general, our philosophy in the counseling office is we would love for all of our students to have some, if not all of their applications completed by Thanksgiving. Like, that would just be a perfect scenario because we feel like it's off the kids plate. They're not stressed about it. Um, and with that, they would be able to what um is an early action or an early decision deadline. So um not official but a tentative deadline of Thanksgiving is what we like to shoot for. Regular admissions um typically is a January 1st, January 15th, February 1st or February 15th deadline. So if a college has if you apply regular, it's not due till then. Those those tend to be
020the four dates. Um but with that, you're not finding out till March if you got in. So, even with regular, they're not due then, but let's say you put your application in regular and you send it in November 30th, you're still not finding out till March because they're not going to make any decisions until the regular decision deadline has passed. So, um that's um an option for students, but again, we encourage to do earlier. Early action is um the best option if a student has that, if a college has that um and they're offering it. So that allows you to apply early and find out early, but you're not bound to anything with that school. Um those deadlines tend to be November 1st or November 15th for early action if a college offers it. And
021then you have early decision. Early decision is binding. Um you can only apply to one college ed. So really what we tell kids is this has to be your absolute dream school. Like 100% you know this is where you want to go. Um And if you apply early decision, they do have some um things in place where the child selects that on their common app, they have to plug in the parent email because then the parent has to approve it and then the counselor has to approve because we don't want kids just doing an ED because it does commit you. Um when you apply ED, if you get accepted, you're saying I agree to withdraw all other college applications and I will attend your institution. Now, there's sometimes it's asked like, "If I apply ED,
022does it increase my chances?" I I don't know. I really don't. Um ED isn't a terrible option. We have a few kids that have done it in the um each year. It just worries me because we don't have the financial packages, so we don't know what it's going to cost, right? You're making these decisions and we and we're still kind of waiting on um filling up the financial aid. So, um, could you get out of an early decision application if your kid got in and then the financials came in and you couldn't afford it? Yes, you probably could. But that's the only reason I think um that that binding agreement might um be allowed to be broken. So, again, we push kids, we encourage Thanksgiving as as as our sort of candida deadline. Um, and
023early action is is the best option if a college has that types of So um we use two. The common app is the primary application and then there's also what's called the Sunni application. Many of the Sunni schools are also on the common app. So you don't need to do it in two places. Um so if your child is doing some Sunni and some um private schools, we would just say use the common app. Common App is one application you fill out and you put you can list all the schools within it. So they only have to do one primary essay, I'll call it. Um and it can be used for all of the colleges in one spot. So you're not having to go to St. John Fischer's website and apply and then Syracuse University
024and apply. You can do one application. Um, so as we've been meeting with kids, if they didn't have their Common App already created when they came in for their appointment with us, we are sitting down and creating it with them and walking them through, um, how to fill it out. So, um, if your child's had an appointment with their counselor, they probably already have a Common App that they are working on. So, you can ask them about that. Um, if you're only going to do Sunni, you could definitely do the Sunni application. Um, they kind they work the same. you would open the Sunni app and you could put, you know, four or five different Sunni schools in one application, attach one essay and kind of be done with it. Sunni is offering free applications
025October 21 to November 3rd, I think the dates are. So again, going back to that early action suggestion, if your child applies to Sunni between October 21 and November 3rd, the $50 per college application fee is waved. I think up to four or five colleges. I think they there's a limit on how many they can apply to. Um if they have it done before October 21st, I would just pause on submitting until that free app uh window comes to save yourself some money. All right. Components of the application. So the beginning of my talk, I kind of explained the SATs is a small piece of the full app, but you can see here these are all the pieces. um that colleges look at when making a decision uh for admissions. I would say the biggest
026thing that they emphasize is the high school coursework that your child took. Okay? So, what are the courses that they took freshman through junior year? How did they perform in those? That's the best predictor of college success. And they really want to admit students that will be successful at the next level. Um, it's important to know that when we send records to colleges, we do send the senior year list of classes. And if your child applies after quarter 1, their quarter 1 grades go. Sometimes we have kids say, "Oh my gosh, I didn't know that that grade was going to go." And we can't take it off. It's just the way the transcripts go. So, um, and then there's a midyear report that goes in January. So, I try to tell seniors, don't get senior
027itis because it matters. What you're doing matters. We have to send sometimes a college might offer an early action admissions but then they still want that midyear report which we send in January at the end of January which is quarter 1 and quarter two grades and now they see a student's grades have dropped. They could send them a letter saying we accepted you but your grades have dropped. If they don't improve we're going to reconsider our acceptance. We've seen that happen. So I don't know if um that panics the kids enough but we really senior year does matter is I guess my message to students. Um so you can see here their college essay. Some students wrote it in an English class last year. Some are working on it right now. They can access their
028English teacher. We have an English clinic in the back of our library that's staffed every period with an English teacher who is there to help kids with not just a college essay, but any essay or any writing they have to do for any English class. It's a walk-in clinic. So, we tell kids, "Write your essay and then go to the clinic, have a professional proof it, give you feedback, take advantage of that resource that we have here." Um, and the college essay should really tell us, the admissions counselor something more about the child, right? So, um, they want the reader to learn something about them. Um, and whether it's picking up on a sense of humor that the child might have based on what they wrote or a relationship they might have had with a
029family member or whatever the story is. Um, it really want we wanted to tell a story about the student so that um, it helps the reader learn a little bit more other than the grades on the piece of paper on their transcript. um supplements. That one's important because depending on the college, more selective schools will have additional supplemental essays. You'll find those in the Common App when you click on the college um to know. So, I'll use Syracuse uh University for example. So, you have your main college essay that you're going to use for all of your schools, but then Syracuse requires what I call mini responses. So, in 200 words, um, this is the mission statement for Syracuse. Tell us, you know, what this means to you. That's just a generic one, but the
030kids need to know that they have to plan time to answer that those in addition to the essay that they had to write for the main application. So, knowing if a college requires supplemental um essays is important. Teacher recommendations, they should have been asked for last year or early this fall. Um, they we typically tell students to get two. should definitely be a core teacher, um an academic teacher. Um and then the second one could be an additional academic or it could be a coach, an employer, um clergy from their church, um some a club advisor. So that second one could be more of a a character reference while the first one was more of an academic. Um but you definitely can have two academic. Some students will go for three letters and that's okay
031too. Um some colleges put a limit on how many they'll accept. So, some colleges will only accept one letter, but if you have two, that's fine. We'll pick the best one and send it. Um, so they have to ask their teacher in person and once their teacher agrees, they have to go into school links and tag the teacher so that the teacher can um put the letter in there and the kids should know that. A resume is optional um and just kind of like a job resume. It's a one pager, but it's uh what we call an activities resume. So, it would list their name, their address um at the top. But then you've got the different categories. So one category might be academics where they talk about they bullet like if they're an IB
032diploma student, if they are in the National Honor Society, if they um are honored their role, what their GPA is, and then there's an um category you can put like activities or clubs. So if they're in any clubs, if they've had employment, part-time job, community service, athletics. Um, so it's really just a one-page bulleted um to all of those pieces are embedded in the college application because you're going to have to answer those questions in there. But the resume um could be a nice added piece that they could attach. And if they don't have a resume for the college application, that's not a dealbreaker, but they will need it when they apply for scholarships in the spring. That's going to be February or March. They'll get what's called the local combined scholarship packet. and that's
033got like I don't know 75 or 80 local scholarships. So your Kanas Rotary Elks Club gives out thousands of dollars. That application requires a resume. So having one is helpful and they can include it with your college application. Now so I talked briefly about the college essay. You can see a little bit more here. I won't read it to you but the whole tell a story, right? The last bullet, proofread. Have mom or dad proof read or go to the English clinic, have someone lay eyes on it. Um, and also discouraging the use of AI. These colleges have filters. They can pick up if it's not authentic. They send stuff right through the filter and it'll come back. 85% created by AI. So, we try to tell the kids this. It's easy. um it's it's
034an amazing tool that um is now available, but it needs to be used in in a um healthy way, if you will. So, the essay really needs to come, it needs to be their own words, and um I I caution because I would hate for that to look poorly in admissions if it got screened and it came back that it wasn't your child's, you know, own writing. So, so next steps, we students, let your counselor know if you're planning to apply early. So, like I said, counselors have been meeting with uh students. We are we have been down a counselor, as many of you know, for about a month. So, um with that, our new counselor starts on Monday, but prior to that, I had taken on all of the previous counselor seniors. So, we're
035doing our best and we um if your child hasn't had a meeting with their counselor yet to formally do the common app or get it started. We're not going to do the whole thing with them. We get them started. We send them off and we tell them, "Message me back when you feel like you got most of it done so I can sit back down with you and proof it." If they haven't had their meeting yet and they want it sooner than later, they can just send us a parent square. We'll get them on our schedule. Um, and the followup with your teachers regarding recommendations. Many students ask teachers in June. So, it is appropriate for them to go back to that teacher to say, "Hey, I know I asked you in June and you
036said okay for my letter of recommendation. I just want to let you know my deadline that I'm setting for myself is November 1st because sometimes the teachers don't know like they might get asked by 12 kids how do they know what order to write them in? Well, if the student tells them I'm replying early, they'll move that letter to the top and get that one done so that they can meet the deadlines. So, the child can either do that in person or in parent square to their teachers just to follow up and let them know. Um, third bullet, so important, I just mentioned it. Please have your child meet with us one last time before they hit submit. So just so we can lay eyes on the application one last time. It's crazy the things
037we see like they don't capitalize certain things because they're used to writing like they're texting and so we can clean up all those little details before that final submit button is pushed to make sure we're sending the best product. Um complete application processing form in the counseling center. So that is a single page. Once they submit, they have to fill out a form and have you sign it giving us permission to send their transcript because that is their th those records belong to them and we can't send it without your permission. So that final um processing form gives us that permission to release the transcript and then I did put the Sunni free updates on there for you. I'm going to we're going to save questions for the end if you don't mind. I'm going
038to hand it over um now to Mr. who's going to do his financial aid piece. Um, and I'll let you get that started. >> Well, good evening everyone. Thank you again for coming. Uh, my name is John Van Bluren. I've been a financial aid counselor at FLCC for 18 years now. Um, and I graduated from Canadego Academy way back in 1993. Um, so it's always fun to see uh how the academy is shaping up these days. So I do enjoy coming back um and sharing the limited amount of knowledge that I have which tends to focus on financial aid um which is not useful outside of work. So it's fun to come out and be social. Um we we're going to save all the questions for the end. I will stay if you have specific
039questions pertaining to your family's um living circumstances or financial questions so that we don't have to air all that information to everyone. Um so as long as that takes I will remain until all the questions are answered. All right. So types of financial aid we have scholarships uh which can be merit-based or needbased. um they do not need to be repaid. Scholarships and grants are what are considered gift aid meaning again that it does not need to be repaid. Um grants are often need-based awarded prov primarily by the state or federal government as well as sometimes institutional uh grants and scholarships that'll be made available from the colleges themselves. Uh work study is a part-time job generally on or around campus where the student can make minimum or near minimum wage um in and around
040their class schedule while they attend college. And then the type of aid that we have to use and don't often want to use but sometimes must um are student loans which obviously would need to be repaid. So the PEL grant uh is the primary grant from the federal government. There's no set income cuto offs for the PEL grant. A family of four making 52,000 in adjusted gross income would qualify for the maximum and a single parent with two children uh who had an adjusted gross income of $90,000 would still qualify for some PEL. The maximum PEL grant for 2526 is $7,395. TAP is the New York State grant that most folks will be looking at. Uh families net state taxable income of $125,000 or less will qualify for some TAP. uh ranges from $1,000 or
0415,000 $500 per semester rather to $5,665 for the year. Um and you must be admitted and in a degree seeking program to be eligible for state aid. Excelsier is the other common New York State application. Again, the gross income cut off is $125,000. That's a combined cutoff. So, it's both the parents and the students. So, based on the household, um the income would have to be less than $125,000. It is a last dollar scholarship. So, it will pay the remaining tuition amount that is due after PEL or after TAP and other scholarships. Okay. I think what we're going to start seeing is more scholarships coming out that are designated for books or for housing or transportation. And if the scholarship is designated to a specific expense and other than tuition, it would not be deducted
042from the tuition and Excelsier would cover that much more of that expense of that tuition. you do have to sign a contract u with New York State so that you promise or your child promises to live and work in New York State for the same number of years that they received this scholarship. But it is important to understand. Let's say that a student goes to Jennisio for four years and they get the excelsier scholarship all four years but they want to do their graduate work at University of Florida. So they move to Florida for two years and they are allowed to do that because they're still pursuing their education based on the contract that they signed. The assumption is they are going to come back to New York and live and work here for four
043years after graduate school. Now, let's say they get their dream job in Florida and they're just tired of the New York State winners. So, they really want to take this job in Florida. It's everything they've ever wanted to do. It's good pay, etc. They can do that. However, that four years of Excelsier scholarship that they received is now going to become a loan that does need to be paid back to New York State, but it's at a rate of 0%. Okay? So, if your students going into Jio fully knowing, for example, maybe they're going to end up in California or somewhere warmer. I like to think of warmer places. Um but um if they know they are not going to stay in New York and they the Excelsier scholarship is an option for them, they
044can still take it because the only other person or people who are going to loan them interest free loan is in this room probably right now. So it's still worth taking that into consideration even if they know they don't want to stay at New York State. So there are a lot of other scholarships out there and And I'm glad Canada Day was putting you in touch with some of those resources. Um, a lot of colleges and universities also offer scholarships as well and they can be based on either need or based on merit which is this merit being accomplishments of the student and need being a financial need is derived through the financial aid application process. Um, it sounds like Candido's got a pretty good list, but if you are a member of any of
045those organizations or if your children's a member of like Rotary or they're active at their church, it's not going to hurt to ask and your employers or their employers um if there are scholarship opportunities um that they can pursue. Fastweb.com is a free scholarship search engine. Um, I do recommend getting a generic email like a mycolarship search email atgmail.com because that's the trade-off. You will get spam from fast. Uh, but you will get a list or email lists of scholarships that your student can apply for. Okay. Um, one of my former directors who used to work over at Hobart William Smith liked to tell a story that I am officially, you know, just stealing from her now. Um, she would work with a student who would come in every year with a three- ring binder
046of all the scholarships that she had from Fast Webb and she left Hobart without student loan debt. So, if the students willing to put in the time, there are substantial amounts of money available um in scholarships. Student loans. Again, um we don't like them. Uh there's a lot of not nice things being said about student loans in the press. You know, we're all adults. We all have our our our loans, our mortgages, our car payments, etc. Probably some of us still have student loan debt that we're paying off ourselves. Um the student loans are a good way to fill the gap. the the cost the cost of attendance, the financial aid a student's eligible for um and the the expenses that they're going to need covered. Um which can range from transportation, room and board,
047personal expenses um and a lot of times you know books are very expensive unfortunately too. So the direct loan uh the federal direct student loan program is a loan program through the federal government. um they are interest the subsidized loan is interest free while a student is attending but it's based on the student's uh financial need which again is derived through the FAFSA application. The unsubsidized loan does acrue interest while the student is attending school. If the student's working part-time or has a work study job, they can use some of that money to potentially pay down the interest as they go. um what would happen is when they get out of school, any of that unpaid interest gets added to the principal and then they pay interest on the interest they didn't pay while they
048were going to school. So if you're going to school for four to six years, that proposition can become very expensive depending on how much you're borrowing. And a student does need to maintain six credit six credits of enrollment to be eligible for the loan and to be eligible to continue to defer the repayment on those loans while they continue to attend. Um a freshman's limit is $5,500 for a year. Now the parent loan is credit based and it's as the name implies in the name of the parent. So the parent is borrowing a loan to for the students unmet cost. Uh repayment typically begins 60 days after the loan is fully dispersed. So you have a half of it dispersed in the fall and then you have the second half dispersed in the springtime. So
049sometime around January, February, you would anticipate being ready to start making payments on that loan. Um, you can request the deferment of your repayment based on the student's enrollment or if you return to college to pursue additional education, you can defer the loan at that rate as long as six credits of enrollment is maintained. Um, again though, that interests during that time period that that's deferred. So, if you take out a plus loan for four years of undergrad and haven't paid anything on it, your interest is going to be capitalized when the when your student does attending has time. Private student loans, um these are becoming more popular uh depending on your credit strength. Um they're education loans made available from banks and other lending institutions. Um, if you have a strong credit history, uh,
050it is potentially possible that you might have a lower interest rate from a private education lender without some of the protections that do come along with the federal loans. Um, those being that you can defer for economic hardship, unemployment, returning to college later on. U, god forbid you be you or the student becomes permanently disabled or should pass away, the federal loans are written off in those circumstances where the private loan would still need to be repaid. So, the interest rates are going to be based on the credit strength of the applicant and the co-licant. Um, and I generally recommend because students haven't had much opportunity, if the student's going to be the primary borrower, I strongly encourage them to use a co-licant um to try to keep that interest rate down as as low
051as possible. Several of these companies now have what they call a co-licant or co-signer release so that once the students made like for example three years of timely payments they can reapply for another credit check and if their credit is strong then the co-licant can be released from their obligation as a co-signer. All right. So that's the types of student financial aid. Now, the applications, uh, the free application for federal student aid, that's your primary kicking off point. Then the New York State payment application. Um, old people like me would call it the TAP application, but there's a lot more to it. New York State does have other scholarships that aren't as prominent. The Excelsier application, which is good for Sunnis and CUNIs only. Um, and then institutional applications. Um, if you're looking at some
052of those larger universities, you may have to complete a supplemental application or you may have to complete the CSS profile. Um, you'll want to get that information either from the guidance office or from the financial aid office at those colleges. So, what do you need? Um, social security number, date of birth, driver's license. You're going to need your 2024 federal income tax return and state tax return, your W TWS, your asset information, and if you're paying child support, you'll need to know how much child support you're paying or receiving. Okay. So, the 2627 FAFSA is actually already open. They did open it last week. Um, it's been in beta testing since the beginning of September. I haven't heard anything negative. Knock on wood. Um, as more folks start to use this the the site, sometimes
053the traffic causes issues, but we'll see how that goes. So, be patient. You may not necessarily want to jump right in right now. You might want to wait another week and start after the first, but it's available. We now have real time identity verification or authentication, which is fantastic. So, you don't have to sign up for your federal student aid or FSA ID and password three days before you try to fill out the application anymore. So, that's exciting. Um, at least for me, you don't realize yet how handy that is. Um, and the student no longer needs the parents social security number to send them an invitation to contribute information to the FAFSA, which is also super because I still don't know my parents social security numbers in terms of the process. And I think
054Canon Digua does a pretty good job of of getting you guys I think I'm looking at the wrong slide. Um, all right. Go back up here. Excelsier. So, you need to do your FAFSA. You need to do your TAP application. And did I miss the TAP application slide? Nope, I didn't. Weird. All right. So, you do your FAFSA, you do your TAP application, and then you need to complete the Excelsier application. Um, Excelsier generally opens May to June and then it will close as you start to approach the end of August. You can sign up for an email notification from New York State Higher Education Services Corporation or Hesk um and they will let you know when that application becomes available so that you don't miss that two-month three-month window there. U but this hsc.ny.gov
055is also the place where you will be able to complete the New York State TAP application, New York State payment application. Um if you miss it at the end of your FAFSA because when you're done with your FAFSA, it will pop up your it shows you your New York State resident. Would you like to apply for state aid? Now you can click on that link and go immediately into completing that application. Um, if you miss that link or if it's not working on the day that you're completing your FAFSA, a couple of days later, you go to hesk.ny.gov and you can complete it there. This was a slide I started talking about in advance. This is a timeline that we are providing um for you as parents to try to keep your student on track.
056Again, I've always said this candidate was got one of the most comprehensive college application processes that I've seen over the years. So, they've already given you a lot of this information. It's here if you're interested in it, but I'm not going to mess with with their process very much. But generally once you've submitted your financial aid application to the college in October now the financial aid offices are going to start preparing financial aid offers and sending those out to all the students in the winter time. Um then you have to make your acceptance decisions. Apply for the Excelsier scholarship in the spring and then finalize everything in the summer as you're getting ready to drop your student off at school. Now, as I indicated, we're using two-year-old tax information by the time you're applying for
057your FAFSA. And that the concept of prior prior year um really allows them to launch the FAFSA in October so we can do it earlier so that students who want to apply to colleges earlier can have a better idea of what their financial aid's going to look like in a perfect world. That's the concept. Um, the problem is is your taxes from two years ago may no longer reflect an accurate snapshot of your household's income. A lot of life happens in 24 months. So if you have a change in your income due to job loss, uh divorce, separation, u death of a parent or spouse, these are all circumstances you want to communicate to not to to all the financial aid offices that your student is applying to. Okay. um unusual expenses such as large
058medical bills, loss of property, uh natural disasters, all those folks out in Los Angeles or in California due to those wildfires. That would be another example there. Um you will want to let the colleges know that if you have other students who are attending college, um their tuition expense may be able to be taken into consideration. and then unusual family circumstances such as arangement. Um, some students may be homeless. Um, and then you'll want to communicate that with the financial aid office as well. So again, I will stick around and address anyone's individual personal questions until you're all satisfied. >> Before we start questions, can you on your one slide and I'm just curious for my own >> in December it said appeal your financial aid offer. Can you speak to that? >> Sure. >>
059Um I have families often say like do we wait and get a financial package from multiple schools and then are we can we like challenge it or >> Yeah. And and that's a good good point. Um so like like you were saying every year things change and my slide presentation changes every year based on those changes. So and that is something that I used to point out. Um, if your student gets a fantastic financial aid offer from maybe their second or third choice school and their first or second choice school is not as generous, you can take that offer and show it or share it um with their first and second choices and say, "Geez, you know, we are in love with the University of West Virginia or whatever." and we really really want to
060go here, but you know the financial aid offer from Clarkson's just so much better. You know, is there anything you can do? And larger schools, they have some endowment money and depending on where your student ranked in that application process, that's something that they might be able to do. Um, the smaller the school, unfortunately, the smaller the pot of money that we have available. So, unfortunately, I've never been able to make an offer like that. a community college, but I'm sure there are financial aid counselors at big schools who do have that opportunity. Um, so that's definitely something that you would like to share. Now, the other thing too in terms of appealing that your financial aid application, that's where this all comes in. So, if anything has changed, so you have to submit your
061original your initial FAFSA with your taxes as they are in 2025. Um, but if that has changed or excuse me, we're talking about the 2526. So that would be >> 232. I'm so confused right now. I'm literally working on three financial aid award years simultaneously. I apologize. So we said what? Go back here because I'm losing my mind. >> It is confusing. >> 24 taxes. So you use your 2024 taxes and it's going to be 2526. So, in any case, that's not where your household income is anymore. Um, and then based on these circumstances, you would communicate with the financial aid office, hey, you know, I lost my job and now I'm, you know, going back to school, maybe even >> um, and they'll take that into consideration and adjust the student aid index, um,
062and maybe be able to offer you some more money, um, in either grants or scholarships through the institution or through the federal grant. And I'll add with that when there's some of those circumstances, changes in income. We have had parents who um are older and have retired, right? So, they don't have the income that you would have if you were working, but they were working two years prior. They've retired since. They still have to report those taxes, but that's a circumstance, too, that now that I'm retired, I don't have income coming in. Um, but my child is going off to college. I saw that a lot this year. >> Yeah, me as well. All right, questions. What do you got? >> So, do you have to if you're in a divorce situation, do you have
063to have both mom and dad's tax forms on there? >> It's a good question. If if they're still divorced and neither parent has remarried, whichever parent made the most is the parent who would be the contributor on the FA. So it doesn't matter if you flip-flop who claims the child every year. It's just that one parent. >> Correct. Whichever parent made the most. >> So if the parent who makes the most is also remarried, do you have to claim finances? >> That is correct. Yes. >> Um I was under the impression it's the parent that provides the most support. >> Correct. And by the government's the definition now it's whichever parent makes the most. So, as you're reading through the questions, if you have a different interpretation, feel free to follow. >> Question. >> Um,
064yes. You mentioned one of the parents. >> Okay, that's and that happens a lot too. So, you're using on 2024 maybe divorced, but you're now remarried before you file the FAFSA. >> When you file the FAFSA, you'll use both biological parent and stepparents 2024 information to create like a basically like a makeelie picture of what it would look like if they filed. >> So, what if you're married, but you're going to be filing? Well, it doesn't matter, right? you have a specific question. >> It doesn't make sense. >> So if like let's say our son is doing four applications by December 1st. >> Yeah. Couple are top choice, couple are not top choice. Should we just do early action on all of them? >> Okay. Yep. The the only thing early action is just get
065your stuff done early. They make it allows colleges to review So, it's really beneficial to the college because anybody who hit that deadline, okay, we're we're going to review all of those, make decisions >> and then they'll move to the regular applicants and make all those decisions in January and February. So, it's helpful for the college, but often times with the EA kids find out before Christmas and they got in. Um, so if a school has that option and you already have your application done, I say take it regardless if it's a top choice or not. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Other questions? tell some of the other parents that learn it for the first time. I think that your taxes automatically upload. >> They do. He didn't touch on that, but it's an import
066right like >> import >> unless you itemize. So, if you own a business or other I'm taking your but I don't know if I'm accurate, but I think if you itemize um or if you own a business um it doesn't allow it to import. You have to do it correct. You're best before you sit down to have it in case you need it. But you're not wrong for most people. It'll just suck that information right in pretty >> which is fantastic. But >> if you need it for one question, it's good to good to have it before you sit down. >> Yes, >> you're still supposed to complete the like as soon as possible now. Is that still Generally, um I think for especially if you're looking to apply to a larger school that may
067have more endowment money, the sooner you do it, the better you would be. Again, once that coffer is empty for that year, that budget's used up. So, the sooner you apply, especially for the larger universities, probably the better. And again, to follow up and make sure that they don't have a supplemental application that also needs to be completed. Uh but pretty much all the applications kick off from the FAFSA. >> Yeah, I would advise it's it's I I didn't realize it was a last week, so that's refreshing. Had to >> shut it down. >> Um yeah, so if you can I would say it's sooner to do the fast for the better because um John's right. The colleges have like a p a pool of money, right? So they start allocating it out. There's less
068to allocate out the longer you wait to apply for for aid. Um, and then you'll just get those financial packages sooner. Other questions? >> Again, if you have specific questions, I'll >> thank you for coming tonight. >> Yeah. Yeah, add to the fast. >> Yeah. also focus. You just sit right. How are you doing? the first time They work.