Leadership in its simplest form is often just what you think; the president of your high school class or the secretary of your science club. However, leadership is much more than that. Leaders are people who take initiative and do things. A Boy Scout who becomes an Eagle Scout is a leader. So is the person who starts a new club.

Colleges like leaders because they do things on the campus. They join organizations and get involved in them. They start new organizations.

The best leaders are those that get involved because they truly love what they are doing.  Colleges can recognize the difference between a student who leads an organization because no one else was willing to say yes, and the student who leads because of a passion for the organization.

If you want to show true leadership to a college, get involved. Starting a new club and developing it is a great way to show leadership. But so is getting involved in a current club and working to strengthen the club in some way. It may be increasing membership or enhancing the goal of the club.

For the strongest candidates to the most selective colleges, you will want to show leadership in your area of passion. Does that mean you need to start a new club? No. Does it mean you need to get involved in something that you care about? Absolutely.

Don’t worry about how you are going to show leadership. Find your passion and focus on that passion. Leadership will take care of itself.

Charter schools are elementary or high schools that receive public funds but operate independently from local school boards. Thereby avoiding many of the regulations and statutes that apply to other public schools. In exchange, they are held accountable for their results set forward in their charter and these charters must be reviewed after a set period of time. More than ever, charter schools are at the forefront of the educational reform subject. This is evident as President Obama has made charter schools an intricate part of his 4.3 billion dollar race to the top stimulus package available to states. This reform bill has led state legislatures scrambling to remove caps on the number of charter schools many states had employed to pacify unions to become eligible for federal funding.

Thesis

There is no doubt that public education is failing the American family and has done so for quite some time. In the past, the United States was seen as the model for public education but that is no longer true. Our students continue to fall farther behind the rest of the world in education and Americans desire meaningful reform. The 2002, No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) was suppose to bring that reform. Instead it brought an overemphasis on standardized testing, lower academic standards, and unrealistic goals that punish states even when they improve. If anything was proven by NCLB, is that federal involvement in public schools brought about more harm than good.

Now President Obama’s has brought his version of educational reform and 4.3 billion dollars in his educational stimulus package. These funds are available to states that are willing to legislate educational reforms that mirror his agenda which includes removing caps on charter schools. Unions have convinced legislators for years to have a firm cap on charter schools because teachers in public schools do not pay union dues. Unions also wanted to dictate policy, protect incompetent teachers, and set the educational agenda. The real issue is whether unions will ever work with reformers and give up their perceived monopoly on public education. They must realize that the current educational state of affairs is no longer tolerable to families and those families desire real change.

That change for many has manifested itself within the charter school movement. Advocates of the charter school movement will tell you how these types of schools outperform their counter parts in the same school district. How competition makes the entire educational process better and allows parents and students diverse choices in their educational needs. All this without costing school districts any more money. The fact is, if you remove the administrator or union official and replace them with parents and students who have a stake in the process. Test scores will always rise and that is what has been proven through multiple studies which support charter schools.

Anti-thesis

It’s not that charter schools are all bad; it’s the overemphasis the new administration has placed on them. In fact, whether they are charter schools or district schools there are both good schools and ones that need to improve. The real issue is the funding formulas behind them. Charter schools siphon dollars away from district schools and we should be looking for a way to support education in various types of schools . In one Massachusetts school district, a charter school has cost the district more than 1.2 million dollars over the past three years in state support and that lack of funding directly led to the closure of another middle school. The fact is, charter school advocates want to create a private school with public funds, and that is inherently wrong . Ultimately, charter schools reduce funds available for local districts which keep school districts from having the funds needed to improve underperforming schools. Until the states figure out a way to protect existing school districts and create consistent oversight for charter schools, support for charter schools will not be there . Ultimately, you can not ask educators to turn underperforming schools around without appropriate funding .

Charter school supporters will site that charter schools are needed for their diverse and unique curriculum along with various other needs students may have. The fact is that the educational choices offered by charter schools can be incorporated into district schools at a lower cost. You don’t have to build an entire school to achieve these ends. The real issue that charter schools do not want to address is, it is more about an alternative educational philosophy than it is about the school their child is currently enrolled in . School districts certainly can introduce flexible schedules, work with local universities to offer advanced classes, as well as develop new curriculums to meet the needs of the student . The fact is anything a charter school can do; public schools can do if given the flexibility.

Sense charter schools operate without union contracts and experiment with new curriculum models, stricter oversight for charters are needed if they are to garner support from educational professionals. In fact, the Center for Education Reform, an education watchdog group, gave thirteen states D’s for their charter schools. While finding that eleven other states actually had no laws which govern charter schools or how they operate .

Finally, when looking at the results, Education Week states that recent data does not support that charters schools out perform district schools. Christian Science monitor. In addition, a Stanford study conducted by Margaret Raymond on charter schools in fifteen states found that thirty-seven percent of charter schools posted lower scores than comparable school and only forty-six percent did about the same. The real surprise is that only seventeen percent were superior which clearly supports the fact charter schools students do not fare as well as traditional students in traditional schools .

Synthesis

Charter schools are needed for one reason. The current educational system is failing our students and their families. Last year 675 California schools which received title one funding, did not meet federal benchmarks and consequently fell under the program improvement category. Furthermore, fifty-eight percent of k-12 schools failed to meet federal standards in 2008 and sixty-three percent of high schools did not meet those standards in 2009 . These standards set by the 2002, NCLB may set unrealistic goals but the consequences for not achieving those goals are real. Resulting in school sanctions which allow students to transfer to other schools and when the student leaves so does their funding .

Consequently, this leaves teachers, administrators, and legislators to use other motives to show improvements in light of NCLB. Many teachers have resorted to teaching the test to improve scores . While administrators ask schools to place their efforts behind teaching students who are just below what is considered proficient . In fact, NCLB “actually encourages schools to lower their academic standards and that often leave behind the students who need it the most” . The U.S. Department of Education released a study that supports this behavior as fifteen states recently lowered educations standards in order to meet federal guidelines mandated by NCLB .

Superintendents and teachers need the power to make changes and Unions need to be supportive. Unions need to realize the status quo is no longer tolerable or acceptable. The demand for charter schools and educational reform will continue to persist as long as unions remain part of the problem and regularly block attempts to improve traditional schools. By ignoring the current state of affairs, resisting new ideas, and protecting incompetent teachers, unions create the need for charters . The real issue is unions see charter schools and their advocates as individuals attacking their teachers, traditional school performance, and endangering future union contract agreements . What Union officials and administrators should be concerned with is the quality of education our children are receiving and whether that is being accomplished.

These are only some of the reason why over the past twenty years, educational reformers and activist have started nearly 5000 charter schools across the United States. That number is expected to grow as legislators remove caps on the number of charter schools permitted to operate in each state . The value charter schools bring to the community is they offer unique educational experiences and curriculum to interested parents and students. These choices clearly strengthen the public education offered to our children . Charter schools are not detrimental to the American educational system, in fact it is their example that might save our educational system.

To set the record straight, charter schools do not siphon money from local school districts. According to the Boston Herald, school “[d]istricts are reimbursed for three years; one hundred percent the first year, sixty percent the second year, and forty percent the third” . In fact upon closer examination of the fiscal facts charter schools receive less than sixty percent of what school districts spend per student . In Alabama, “Education Association Executive Secretary Paul Hubbert fears charter schools would dilute public education. He may be correct, but the competition might make public education better . The statistics sighted below certainly support that rationale.

The best argument for charter schools is they work. The “Boston Foundation published a Harvard/MIT study that compared charter students against applicants who were not selected in random lotteries that determine admission when applications outnumber available charter seats, and found large and positive effects for charter schools . Stanford also published a report issued by the Center for Research on Education Outcomes, which found New York charter schools showed significantly better results in reading and math, than their public school counterparts . What makes these schools more successful than their counterparts is that they hire teachers who love to teach and are passionate about their students. That passion translates into their working with the student until their goals are accomplishes, not when their union contract says they must leave .

The education problem in the United States is clear and something must change when one-third of public school students fail to graduate each year. There are sizable gaps both economically and racially in our society. These gaps threaten our economic sustainability when you compare our educational system with our counterparts in other parts of the world. Educators can no longer accept the status quo and derail meaningful change in American education in exchange for life long benefits. That is why our current Education Secretary and President Obama are asking states for significant change . At the forefront of that change initiative is a belief that the competition charter schools bring will only enhance the American Educational System. Therefore it is incumbent on our current legislators to hire teachers who engage their students, fire those that are incompetent, and relax caps on charter schools . Until that occurs along with real accountability charter schools are our best choice and chance.

References

Paulo Freire believed that nobody educates anybody else and nobody educates himself. People educate each other through their interactions and dialog about the world. Humans are incomplete beings, conscious of their incompleteness, and their eternal quest to BE MORE.

Currently in education, there is excessive use of lecturing and memorization, with little analysis of the importance of what is being memorized. We know dates, but we do not know how they affect our lives.  We have simply memorized and retained the date.  This is the banking system where students are seen as containers into which knowledge is deposited. The teacher is the depositor and the knowledge is what is deposited on a daily basis. This banking concept of education attempts to transform the minds of students so that they will adapt better to actual situations (life) and be subjugated by them with greater ease. The more passive people are, the more they will adapt, the more their creativity will diminish and their naiveté increase, which creates the conditions necessary for the oppressors to emerge as generous benefactors.

Education that cultivates the ability to think critically in students has to be a conscious act in which the content is understood and analyzed.  This overcomes the traditional paradigm that exists between teacher and student.  It must abandon this one-way relationship and allow a two-way relationship to contribute to the whole education of both parties, since they both have elements to bring to the learning. If this reciprocal, pursuit of knowledge is lost; the learning process becomes a one-way act of memorization. The role of the educator should be to cultivate students who question the world around them and provide the appropriate conditions so that the learning moves beyond common belief to arrive at the level of reasoned discourse.  This type of learning helps students to create new expectations and reach a truly reflective state in which they discover their own reality. It incites new challenges that move the students toward a self-construction of the world in which they have real and direct participation in their activities. All of this requires the creation of curious students with a love of knowledge, without mediating their learning through artificial experiences.

No child left behind really means every child is left behind.  We no longer pursue educational excellence but rather standardized test results.  Our curriculum does not teach the depth and breadth of knowledge our children require to thrive and become more.  It does not teach creative thinking skills they so desperately need in today’s world.  We need to challenge our children, to set high standards in their education, and hold both them and their educators accountable.  Parents and students alike would benefit from a paradigm that teachers and administrators have a job to do and that job is not being done effectively.  That is why more than twenty percent of students who earn a 4.0 GPA’s need some form of remedial math or reading at upon their arrival at CSEB.  I can only imagine the struggle they must encounter when critical thinking is necessary to solving class problems, let alone the needed in the classroom of life.

By the time you hire us, it could be too late based on the needs of your students. While it would certainly be preferable to begin the college counseling process in the eighth or ninth grade, parents often balk at the prospect of commencing early, owing partly to lack of awareness and/or concerns associated with costs. As a general proposition, college counselors, both independent and employed within public or private high schools, truly require a platform whereby they might be able to adequately educate parents of eighth graders as to the appropriate time-frame for college counseling.

We can help parents navigate the college admissions process but we need the time to do it.  What discourages us the most is the upper stratification within education, which does not want to recognize there is a problem at all.  Make an appointment with any private admissions counselor and you will find out we can give you insights your current school counselor hasn’t been able to for one reason.  We have the time to get to know your student and discover what they are looking for in their choice of schools.  That is what makes all the difference in this highly competitive world of college admissions.

There is no doubt school counselors would love to have fewer students. Their true desire is to impact the lives of the children they have seen over the past several years. The fact is, they just don’t have the time to get to know their students. They are overworked and without the resources they need to be successful. That being said, they should tell parents who need help, to hire a professional that can give them a competitive advantage in the college admissions process. Instead they say nothing, leaving parents in a dilemma. That being, parents don’t know what they don’t know, and they don’t become aware of that until it is too late. Call us today, we can make a difference. (925) 287-8900.

Gather as much information as you can about colleges, loans, and scholarships.  Where you go to college is, for most, the first major decision in your life.  Therefore, you want to make the most educated decision possible.   Having enough information helps reduce the natural “stress” that comes with large decisions.  CTS offers helpful high school timelines and can help you manage the process.  For those who need basic help, below is a simple planning guide that can be used throughout high school to help make your college search and application process more manageable.  However, if you are dead set on just one or two colleges, you may want to consider hiring an admissions coach to help you navigate the process.  Often, it is the minor things that make a difference in the admissions process at more competitive schools.

JUNIOR TIMELINE

1: Begin your research:

• Consider possible career options and investigate the type of education that is needed.
• Request materials from schools that interest you and visit their websites to read reviews and requirements.
• Arrange campus visits to those schools that interest you.
• Look at scholarship options and ways you can work to obtain one or more.
• Understand the loan process; look at requirements and provisions from federal loans versus private loans.
• Talk with seniors, older siblings or college grads you know. Ask what to expect, and if they have advice. Find someone to support and mentor you through the process at school, through a friend or at home.

2: Organize yourself for success:

• Take the PSAT to prepare for the SAT, and identify areas where you need improvement.
• Consider investing in an SAT or ACT course to maximize your score.
• Register and take the ACT and/or SAT in the spring of Junior year.
• Make sure you are meeting your high school graduation requirements, and stay focused on your schoolwork.
• Sign up for senior year classes that support and represent your interests.
• Start saving to pay for test and application fees as well as tuitions.

3: Show schools what you are all about:

• Participate in extracurricular activities or volunteer locally.
• Explore your interests and gain experience by getting a job, internship or apprenticeship.
• Continue building relationships with teachers, managers and coaches that can eventually write a letter of recommendation for you.

Submit Accurately and Submit Early

The federal deadline is June 30 and California’s deadline is March 2, but those looking for the biggest check will submit their FAFSA application as close to January 1 as they can. Since many federal aid awards, including Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grants (SEOG), are doled out on a first-come, first-served basis, early birds have a distinct advantage over those who wait until the last minute. Unfortunately, many families miss out on early cash simply because they haven’t yet filed their tax returns. The solution? Fill in the numbers you can and guess on the rest. Once you get all the necessary forms and complete your tax return, you can file a FAFSA correction if needed.

Coordinate Your Family

The vast majority of federal financial aid is handed out based on need—how high your college expenses are versus your family’s annual income and savings. While many families can’t suddenly raise their income level to pay for college, many can raise their aid eligibility simply by putting multiple students through school at once. If mom, dad, or any of your siblings are considering getting a degree, doing so in sync with your college years could result in a fatter check for everyone.

Remember to Reapply

To keep the aid money flowing in, you’ve got to fill out FAFSA every year for your entire college tenure. According to the National Association of College Financial Aid Administrators, more than 1.5 million students who would be eligible for federal aid miss out on their free money each year because they don’t apply. For more tips on the FAFSA, contact us today and schedule an appointment.

At the same time colleges and universities have a similar goal. They want to successfully recruit and admit the students they CHOOSE. Despite all the controversies and debates about standardized testing in general and the SAT in specific – it continues to be a powerful force in the process. Those three numbers compare students around the country and around the world to one another in the eyes of admission committees.

The SAT Reasoning Test scores matter …

There is no point in thinking otherwise. Each student should give full effort to preparation for success on the SAT. No other single measurement of the application is as ‘quick’ a qualifier as those three ‘little’ numbers.

BUT…….

Consider this – there are only 181 different SAT I scores possible. No, seriously. Three tests – each scored from 200-800 in 10 point increments. 181 ‘baskets’ into which the several million members of the class of 2010 will be sorted.

Where a specific applicant gets ‘sorted’ is an indelible ‘line in the sand’. The SAT I is, unquestionably, a high-stakes test. It may or may not predict college success but it predicts college CHOICES better than any other single part of the graduate’s application packet.

The Competitive Advantage –

With only 181 groups created by sorting based on the SAT – it takes more. In 2001 Richard C. Atkinson, then president of the University of California, suggested ignoring the SAT’s and adopting what he called a ‘holistic’ evaluation of each student. The SAT’s are still a part of the US qualification index but a wide array of other aspects of the student’s background: achievement, and accomplishments are considered as well. This is just as true at colleges and universities across the country.

DON’T WAIT until it’s time to fill out the college applications to build the qualifications needed. Simple as that, start now to discuss and plan the three aspects schools will be looking for – academic achievement [grades], test scores, and accomplishments [experiences outside the classrooms].

Getting ready for college is a complicated process. To make matters worse, the question that often follows “Where are you going?” is “How are you going to pay for it?” Depending on the college or university you choose, the average cost of a year of tuition, fees, and room and board could range from $14,000 at a public university to more than $50,000 at some private schools. Just when you’ve beaten the odds and gotten accepted, the numbers game starts again.

That’s where another important number could come into play — your SAT score. Of course it plays an important role in whether or not you’re accepted to the school of your dreams, but does it affect your financial aid package? It can, but this isn’t always the case.

Every school has financial aid programs designed to help worthy students attend and to encourage diversity, regardless of their socio-economic status. These aid programs are generally need-based or merit-based. Need-based financial aid is determined by tuition costs minus the expected contribution by the student’s family; a student’s individual aid program may include a combination of grants, loans and student jobs. Merit-based financial aid is awarded for academic performance or accomplishments. A higher SAT score can help you earn merit-based aid, but once you’re accepted into a school, your SAT score shouldn’t be of much concern.

Through merit-based scholarships, schools seek out students with special talents or promise, whether they excel in music or dance, athletics or academics. High SAT scores can help a student to be considered for academic financial assistance.

According to a recent study by the National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC), nearly four out of five colleges use standardized test scores as an eligibility criterion for merit aid. The study also reported that colleges are continuing to increase the amount of merit aid offered to students at the expense of need-based aid. In 1994, colleges and universities overall reported that 27 percent of institutional aid funds were merit-based and 66 percent were need-based; in 2007, 43 percent reported their aid funds were merit-based, compared to 49 percent need-based.

Many public and private schools offer academic scholarships that require a minimum SAT score to even be considered; scholarship amounts range from $1,000 a year to full tuition and board. For example, the University of Georgia’s Foundation Fellow scholarship requires potential recipients to have a minimum score of 1400 on the SAT and a 3.75 GPA; but that’s not all. Activities, honors, recommendations and a personal interview also factor into the selection equation.

1. “You waited until April? Sorry, we gave your money away.”

At first glance, the amount of financial aid available to students seems like a goldmine. According to the College Board, graduate and undergraduate students received more than $168 billion in aid during the 2008-09 academic year; more than $109 billion came from the federal government alone – not including education tax benefits. But thanks to the down economy, competition for that money is expected to be tougher for the coming year. Don’t miss out on aid because of confusing deadlines for the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). Available at fafsa.ed.gov, the form must be completed to be considered for government grants and loans—and both the government and prospective schools will review it. The federal deadline on the form is June 30, 2011, but schools’ financial aid deadlines – listed in the colleges’ materials – are as early as this February.
“Families need to submit their financial aid info as soon as they can after Jan. 1, preceding the student’s freshman year,” says Barry Simmons, director of university scholarships and financial aid at Virginia Tech. While the FAFSA asks for the previous year’s tax information – a common reason parents postpone applying until April – parents can estimate tax figures based on last year’s return and update them later.

2. “Your error, your problem.”
If you submit your FAFSA with errors, the central processor will send it to the prospective schools, which could have repercussions. One common mistake: Parents put their income and tax information in the student section or vice versa, which can’t be fixed by the machine scanning the form. The error might disqualify a student for financial aid. “A student’s income is assessed in the financial aid system much more heavily than parents’ income,” says Tally Hart, senior advisor at Ohio State University’s Economic Access Initiative, which focuses on college students from low-income families.
Although new labels beginning with the 2010-11 FAFSA are designed to reduce these errors, there are other safeguards. Hart recommends the online FAFSA at fafsa.ed.gov, which will alert you if you leave questions blank and can recognize some obvious errors – such as household income of $50,000 combined with $40,000 in taxes paid.

3. “Our low tuition rate means less financial aid.”
Many parents who haven’t saved enough for college tell their high school seniors not to consider pricey private schools. But, those colleges may be the more affordable alternative. “The more expensive and prestigious the school, the more likely it is well-endowed and can meet 100% of need,” thanks to alumni donation campaigns, says Marcia Sullivan, a certified financial planning professional and advisor at Bedford, Mass.-based College Funding Advisors, a college planning and financial aid-consulting firm. “You might be sending your kid to a state school that for you costs more than Harvard, MIT or Stanford,” she says.
Still, in some cases where colleges have suffered losses in their large endowments or budget cuts, there could be less financial aid to go around. In colleges that consider need, but doesn’t guarantee help, there is likely to be closer scrutiny of applications, says Jim Boyle, president of College Parents of America, which helps parents with college planning. Only a small number of schools meet the “full-demonstration” need — where the school pledges to fill each accepted student’s full financial need. In these colleges, there should be no effect, because the school will offer whatever aid is needed.

4. “You’ll pay dearly for early decision.”
Early-decision admission is a big temptation at highly competitive colleges: Students can apply months before other applicants as long as they promise to attend if admitted. There’s also early action, which isn’t binding. “All these are ways to let students tell colleges they really, really want to be [there],” says Linda P. Taylor, a certified college-planning specialist in Camarillo, Calif.
Sometimes, though, when it comes to getting financial aid, early decision can backfire. Why? Your commitment to attend if accepted means you have less leverage. “If you went to an auto dealership and threw yourself across the hood of a car and told them you would do anything to have that car, you’re not in a very good negotiating position,” she says.
If scoring financial aid is top priority, you’re better off not applying early and applying with the general applicant pool. That’s especially the case if your kid’s SAT scores and GPA are above the college median, and they excel in extracurricular activities. If such a student applies in the spring and gets admitted, they’ll have a better shot at negotiating a strong financial aid package than if they’d gone the early-decision route.

5. “We’re not buying your pauper act.”
Parents are often tempted to cheat the financial aid system by trying to look poorer on paper. There are, however, some acceptable ways to adjust your assets to maximize your child’s financial aid potential. One is to trim assets held in the child’s name – in particular, custodial accounts (UGMAs or UTMAs) – up to 20% of which the college financial aid system will say should go toward next year’s tuition. For assets in the parents’ names, the rate is a much lower 5.64%. Especially in cases where parents expect to incur children’s expenses, they should use these accounts to pay for them. “Technically, parents can’t touch UGMAs except for the benefit of the child, above and beyond food and clothing,” says Sullivan. But “you can use the UGMA to pay for things like summer camp, tutoring, school trips, or a car for the kid, thus diminishing the account.”

If your child is a few years from college, try to contribute the maximum to your 401(k) or IRAs. Consider it forced savings for the long run, and colleges won’t expect you to tap retirement savings to pay your share of tuition. Parents looking to sock away some free-floating cash could give up to $13,000 each – any more will trigger the gift tax – to grandparents or other relatives they trust outside the household, who could then help pay tuition bills; aid officers can’t touch their assets.

6. “When it comes to assessing your need, we’re not always very sympathetic about your expenses.”
For homeowners, the value of your house doesn’t get considered in most financial aid formulas. By the same token, if you’re paying a jumbo mortgage or sky-high property taxes colleges likely won’t be too sympathetic.
To determine aid, colleges calculate your expected family contribution from your adjusted gross income and assets. They usually don’t consider your disposable income or how cash-strapped you might be after paying the bills. “A moderately high-earning family spending most of its income on housing and other necessities may find that their expected family contribution is difficult or impossible to meet,” says Roger Dooley, a vice president at Hobsons, which works with education professionals in high school and college.

When writing or speaking to an aid officer during the application process, emphasize involuntary costs, such as taxes or high medical expenses. Play down voluntary expenses, like your mortgage or payments on an expensive car. “Most financial aid officers are likely to be unsympathetic if a family cites high car payments as one reason for needing more aid, since presumably driving a car with a high lease or loan payments is not a necessity,” says Dooley.

7. “We’ll let you borrow more than you can afford.”
Vickie Hampton, a professor of financial planning at Texas Tech University, knows that being well educated can make you poor. A colleague of hers, she says, racked up more than $100,000 in debt while earning a Ph.D. in English but ended up with a job where she couldn’t use her degree. “There’s very little probability of her paying that off in her lifetime,” Hampton says. The predicament isn’t unique as more students take on excessive debt to finance degrees that lead to jobs in relatively low-paying fields. Unfortunately, college financial aid offices rarely discourage these decisions.

When a student must borrow, they should exhaust the federal programs first. Perkins loans and subsidized Stafford loans are best; Perkins loans have a 5% rate. For 2009-10 rates on subsidized Stafford loans are 5.6%; for 2010-11, rates are 4.5%. With both loans, the government pays the interest while you’re in school. The Perkins, which is awarded to students with exceptional need and which students pay back directly to the school, is the slightly more flexible of the two offering longer grace periods. Beware of unsubsidized Stafford loans, which your college may offer if your family doesn’t qualify for subsidized loans. Although these loans have fairly low rates of 6.8%, interest will accrue from the moment the loan is made even though payments aren’t yet required.

8. “Outside scholarships help us, not you.”
Sure, you’re proud of the five scholarships your high school senior won from community groups and a local church, but don’t be relieved just yet. Unless you weren’t counting on any financial aid at all, those scholarships might not make a dent in the total amount you’ll owe. Why? Federal guidelines mandate that outside scholarship money be considered a resource in meeting financial need. This means you can’t use the scholarship dollars toward your expected family contribution, and the college can reduce the amount of aid coming your way. “Many parents mistakenly think their cost will be diminished and then are disappointed to learn that it will actually be the grant from the school that is diminished, thus saving the college money and not the family,” says Parnell Hagerman, associate head at the Oldfields School in Glencoe, Md.

But applying for outside awards can help students if they’re looking at a financial aid package that features more loans than grants. Ask your college if it can reduce the loans first, says Patty Hoban, aid director at Willamette University in Salem, Ore. In that case, a few scholarships could still save thousands of dollars in interest. Secondly, it can reduce work-study, which is need-based.

9. “We won’t ‘negotiate,’ but we might ‘review.”
College financial aid guides have long urged parents to negotiate with aid offices, often suggesting that you bring a better aid offer from a “competing” school to get them to give you more money. But many aid directors hate this tactic. Some schools have strict no-negotiation policies, while others are only a little more approachable. “There’s certainly no harm in asking a college to review an aid decision,” says Mark Lindenmeyer, financial aid director at Loyola University Maryland. But “we do not negotiate, and we do not match other colleges’ aid offers.”

So how do you request a “review”? When contacting your aid office to discuss your child’s package, start by avoiding such words as “negotiate” or “bargain,” says Virginia Tech’s Simmons, and don’t throw another school’s financial aid award in an officer’s face. Instead, thank them for their work and the school’s generosity, and follow up by expressing doubt at being able to meet your family’s contribution. If you haven’t already done so in writing, explain any special circumstances you have, such as recent unemployment, a death in the family or medical bills. Then politely ask if there’s anything the aid office can do to help. Once you’ve established a rapport with the officer, try casually mentioning that you have a competing offer and where else your student has been admitted. At the very least, aid officers may refer you to outside borrowing opportunities or payment plans.

10. “Thought freshman year was expensive? Wait till senior year.”
Your kid just got her award letter and scored a large four-year grant covering most of her tuition, with a small loan for the rest. So you’re set, right? Not necessarily. Two problems can get in the way. First, the amount of federally subsidized loans a student can borrow typically increases slightly each year; as a result, the college may expand the loans it offers in subsequent years and downsize grants. Second, many parents and students assume that four-year merit-based awards will keep pace with tuition hikes. That’s not always the case. “Not all schools can afford to be that generous,” warns Willamette’s Hoban.
Nationwide, the average private college price tag jumped 4.4% for 2009-10 from the previous year with the average total cost for resident students at private colleges now just over $39,000. Assuming a steady 4% annual price increase and, say, $15,000 in aid each year, the $24,000 difference you paid on your student’s freshman year could grow to $29,000 by senior year.
If your child receives merit-based aid, ask whether the college can adjust it for tuition inflation. And, make sure your child maintains a top GPA; otherwise, they could lose their merit scholarship.