Tutoring | Local Workshop

**No College Coffee Talk this morning:  I'm on the road, depositing my daughter back in college after her break (public transportation is beneath her, apparently**

Well, it's that time of year when most colleges are issuing estimated financial aid awards. Many parents are staring at these offers and wondering, "Where's the beef?"

Here are the top three categories of appeal (I call it "negotiating", but that's definitely NOT the term used by financial aid officers).  Note:  no matter what your argument is, you must present new information that the college didn't have, previously. 

1. Drop in income.   Financial aid eligibility is heavily dependent on income. But that income is from two years ago.  Example:  if you have a Class of 2024 student, your 2022 Adjusted Gross Income is the most heavily weighted factor.  But if your income dropped in 2023, maybe because of a layoff, or your business income...

Roslyn Workshop

This past Tuesday I was back to back on client calls, especially with Class of 2024 students, bragging about their college acceptances.  That's fun!

But they don't all go that way, unfortunately.  Part of the job of college advisor involves consoling and doing post-mortems on "what went wrong."  

But here's the thing...

Just because someone doesn't get into a particular college doesn't mean that something "went wrong."  Even if other, supposedly lesser-qualified students managed to get accepted to the same college.

It's never One Thing that gets a child rejected, or admitted, even though our tendency as humans is to attempt to find an obvious answer, whether or not based on actual data, instead of feelings.

I'm not writing this note to suggest that we change our way of thinking, or wiring.  This pattern recognition trait is probably what got us out of the Serengeti and to the top of the heap of the animal kingdom, so who am I to...

Tutoring | Roslyn Workshop

Partially in tribute to the late Richard Lewis, I'm dubbing this year's college application cycle the College Year From Hell.

Things have been stressful and crazy for the 21+ years I've been in college advising, and probably longer, but this year takes the cake.  

Yesterday, the Department of Edu-macation announced that it "discovered"yet another glitch on the brand spanking new "simplified" FAFSA.  This one affects 330,000 financial aid applicants. 

Gee, pretty soon we'll be talking real numbers!

5% of the 6.6 million FAFSAs contain errors that caused reductions in eligibility for aid.

10% had errors that mistakenly INCREASED eligibility for aid.

The FAFSA has had errors relating to calculating assets, and problems importing income from tax returns filed with the IRS.

Other than that, things are going pretty smoothly!

On the college acceptance side, I'm seeing clients getting into Ivy and near Ivies, as well as slam-dunk...

op of the morning!

We're hitting the airwaves in few moments -- 10:00am EST --  for College Coffee Talk, our live show about college admissions and financial aid news that you can use!  

Here's what's on tap for today:

The FAFSApocalypse:  signs of relief?

Harvard:  Safety School?

The First 100K per year college

More - we'll be live and chatting away with you if you have any "burning" questions you need answered...free!

Here's where to join me, Pearl and Zuck on our Facebook page:

TUNE IN!

Grab a cup of joe and we'll see you at 10am EST (recorded if you can't make it)

- Andy Lockwood

12 College Application Tips Webinar 

Today I read how Vanderbilt University is apparently a few bucks shy of being the first college to cost $100,000 per year, all in (tuition, room and board, fees).  Officially.

Unofficially, this happened a few years ago, if you count unofficial expenses, such as Ubers, reasonable travel expenses, beer money, Door Dash etc. that kids spend Ma and Pa's money on (note to my three college kids:  there's nothing wrong with peanut butter sandwiches once in a while).

Like the college admissions process, there's no apparent rhyme or reason to a lot of this process.  Why should a non-Ivy college in Tennessee run you more out of pocket than an Ivy League school located in insanely high cost of living Manhattan?

I'm sure someone from Vanderbilt could explain that, but they'd be twisting themselves into knots to do so as far as I'm concerned.

Incidentally, it's not just Vandy that's pushing the 100K envelope:  it's virtually all...

12 College Application Tips Webinar 

It's been quite a stretch for recent SAT-related scams.  Last week's was about so-called "free" prep courses.

This week:  a "new" story about kids at top private, New York City high schools getting extra time on the SAT for newly-discovered disabilities that popped up just in time for the standardized tests.  

What a coincidence!

Thing is, this isn't new. 

After the whole Operation Varsity Blues/Felicity/Lori scandal broke in 2019, numerous stories  broke out about parents bending or breaking rules to give their kids an edge in college admissions.  The Wall Street Journal wrote how 80% of students in the Newton, Massachusetts school system received extra time accommodations on the SAT and ACT.  (I graduated from Newton North in1986.Tiger Pride!) 

So here we are again, five years later.  The more things change, the more they stay the same.

If kids are able to...

12 College Application Tips Webinar

We're scant days away from the "final" college acceptances, denials and waitlists for this year's crop of college applicants in The Most Confusing College Application Season ever.

Which means that I now have enough intel to share the following tips with Class of 2025 families, in a brand new webinar, Thursday night:

• How to get into a decent college, today
• How to construct a strategic and balanced college list
• How to avoid "Admissions Armageddon"
• How to answer one of the new supplemental essays about diversity even if you don't feel or look particularly diverse
• How to earn a 30K per year merit scholarship even if you didn't cure a pandemic or single-handedly build a village in a third world country
• Test-Optional:  To Opt or Not to Opt (yeah I know that one doesn't quite make sense but you know what I'm trying to say)
• The New Digital SAT:  right for your kiddo?
• Merit Scholarships:  how to get 'em without spending six months on stupid...

Good morning!

We're hitting the airwaves this morning -- 10:00am EST --  for College Coffee Talk, our live show about college admissions and financial aid news that you can use!  

Here's what's on tap for today:

The Digital SAT Math Meltdown

Two Obscure FAFSA Hacks Discovered by Pearl

More

TUNE IN

Grab a cup of joe and we'll see you at 10am EST (recorded if you can't make it)

- Andy Lockwood

Tutoring and Small Group Classes

Most of the comments I've heard and read about the new digital SAT given March 9 are critical of how difficult it was. 

But I'm not sure it matters.  The College Board is pretty good at assessing the difficulty of its SAT questions ahead of time.  They engage in "score equating," which is similar to a curve, but done in advance.

My hunch is that the actual scores, when released later today (!) will not be super-low, generally speaking.  I believe that they'll be pretty similar to historical scores.

- - -

Sidebar from Cynical Andy:  the College Board (and the ACT) have been under the gun in the past two-three years, as opponents to standardized testing -- namely, FairTest.org -- have pressured colleges to not require the tests because of their inherent bias, lack of correlation with a student's future performance in college and a likely reduction in underrepresented minorities on college campuses as a result.

On the other...

Tutoring | Webinar

Closely-Guarded "Secrets" Revealed - How any family...even six and seven-figure earners...can slash college costs by more than 56%

If you have a class of 2025 or younger child who is headed to college...

...and your stomach is in a knot and your hands clammier than on your first date, because you're just now realizing how freakin' much college will *actually cost* you...

....I've got GREAT NEWS!  Tonight, we're walking you through all the ins and outs of how financial aid and merit aid works, in a brand new, free webinar!    Yay.

On tonight's webinar, you will discover the (legal and ethical) ways to cut your college costs so that you can comfortably afford tuition without scrimping on your lifestyle, loading up your kid (or you) with high rate, high fee student debt or selling a vital organ on the dark web.  Bold promises, but we will deliver.

Topics on tap:

• How six figure and seven-figure earning families can ...