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Watch The Recording!
Thank you for registering and attending last night's session on merit scholarships. Hopefully you found it informative and useful. Click below to watch the session in its entirety...
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Check out COLLEGE INSIGHTS to jumpstart your research and college search. Get the first month free by using code 1stmonthfree*, valid till April 20th!
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Here are some important topics discussed:
- College Insights compiles data from multiple sources: IPEDS, Common Data Sets, 3rd party sources, and over 10,000 crowdsourced college offers from families, including offers from this admissions season.
There are multiple ways to use College Insights:
- Check colleges already on your student's colleges list to review if the colleges offer merit scholarships, and if so how much and what did other students receive.
- Do a reverse-lookup: Enter your student's stats and preferences (major, location, size), select to match students in the 75th percentile and review the results of colleges. Sort the columns of "Avg Merit Amount" and "% of Students without Financial Need" in descending order.
- Look for schools with Early Action: Find a few schools where your student is likely to get merit scholarships and has early action. Add it to your student's list. There's NO downside, only an upside of your student getting a merit scholarship.
- If your student doesn't have a test score, use these two tables to convert their GPA to a test score range and use that to search with: ACT conversion table and GPA to ACT Match.
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Here's what families have said about using College Insights (all of these are unsolicited comments):
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For now, College Insights is best used from a desktop or laptop. The mobile version will be available later in 2021.
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*Sponsored by College Ave Student Loans. |
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MY 3 FAVORITE MUST READ BOOKS
These are my 3 go-to books and if you read all 3, you will be sooooo far ahead of other parents in understanding how the college admissions and paying for college process works. |
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Who Gets In And Why, written by Jeff Selingo, gives you the behind the scenes view of how college admissions decisions are made at 3 different institutions. Jeff had the privilege of sitting in on real admissions meetings to observe how applications are reviewed and decisions made. It truly is the complicated TRUTH of what goes on behind the doors of the college admissions office.
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The Price You Pay For College, by Ron Lieber, provides a road map of information on how to navigate the financial and emotional decision of not just how much your family can afford college to pay for college, but how much is it worth to your family.
I'm completely bias on recommending this book because I befriended Ron a year before he decided to write the book and thoroughly enjoy my conversations with him on these topics. It also doesn't hurt that he recommended our Paying For College 101 Facebook group as "the single place where I've learned the most during my reporting".
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This book has no connection to our Paying For College 101 Facebook group, but it is another great source to have at your side while going through the admissions process. Kalman Chany, the author goes through EVERY step of the financial side of college planning. This should be your paying for college bible to understand financial aid forms (FAFSA, CSS Profile), the EFC calculation, state aid and more.
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Like Road2College, College Ave Student Loans is committed to helping families navigate and finance a higher education. To help get you there, enter our exclusive Road2College Sweepstakes and you could be one of the two lucky winners to win free textbooks for a year.
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My goal is to help families like yours and mine get through college admissions and paying for it with as little pain (emotional and monetary) as possible; and with as much data, tools, and guidance without breaking the bank just to get our kids into college.
I'm always open for suggestions, so don't be shy to email me with your thoughts on College Insights or anything we do on Road2College and Paying for College 101.
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Debbie Schwartz Founder, Road2College I'm a parent, like many of you, navigating college admissions and paying for college. With an expertise in personal finance, analysis, and marketing, I'm working to give families the information and tools to make smarter financial college decisions. |
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