MEFA Institute^™: College Admissions & MEFA Pathway

Please note that this transcript was auto-generated. We apologize for any minor errors in spelling or grammar.

Jonathan Hughes: Right. And

just bear with me for one moment while I start to share my screen here.

I never do this cleanly. Okay.

All right. Here we go. So thanks for joining us. This is of course the MIFA institutes, college admissions and MIFA pathway webinar should take us hopefully about an hour to get through. Uh, it's a, I'm going to try to get through it in that time. Um, so if you have questions on anything, remember to submit them through the Q and a, there is a live transcript feature that you can access by clicking the live transcript button.

I know some people like to do that. Um, and you know what I'm saying will be as I say it, if you need a refresher about who MIFA is, we're the Massachusetts Educational Financing Authority. And we are a state authority created by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts back in 1982. And we have a public service mission to help families to plan, save and pay for college.

We do that in a variety of ways. The first thing that we were created to do back in 1982 was to offer the MIFA loan was an educational, uh, fixed interest rate educational loan. It's something that we still do. However, as the cost of college has continued to rise since 1982, as we're all aware, uh, that wasn't sufficient to, to meet that mission that we had.

So we introduced two savings programs, uh, the, the Massachusetts 529 plan, the U fund and the Massachusetts prepaid tuition program, the U plan, and, um, started to really flesh out and offer a lot of guidance, uh, educational outreach. best practices. So we have a lot of information on all topics related to college and career planning, how to plan, save and pay.

Um, and of course, part of that is the MIFA Institute to help service our partners. Uh, in that space. So, um, what I want to get through to you is that we are a free resource to use for all questions regarding planning, saving, and paying for college and career readiness that you can refer folks to, and that you can contact yourself with any questions that we, you may have.

Okay. Okay. And so a main feature of what we're going to talk about today and a big part of our mission is MIFA pathway and MIFA pathway is MIFA's free college and career planning portal. And this is something that students can take advantage of beginning in their middle school years through their high school years.

And so as students begin MIFA pathway, they can start by just taking assessment quizzes and do fun sort of activities to help them. uh, gauge what they might want to do when they grow up or where they might want to study. And as they move through high school, there's a lot of tools, as we'll see, as we move through the presentation that can help students in their college and career journey.

And today we're going to focus on admission. So we're going to be talking about things like resume building, Letters of recommendation, comparing colleges and college search. This is free for everyone to use. Parents, students, and counselors, school counselors, can take advantage of MIFA Pathway. It is for use within certain school systems.

They've adopted it. And so the level of your use of MEFA pathway and how you want to utilize that is really dependent upon how much you want to take advantage of that. And so, uh, even though it's for use within school systems, individuals can use it outside as well. So random family or student can just create an account of MEFA pathway and take advantage of that.

of all the tools that are available. Now what we're going to talk about today as far as college admissions are concerned, we're going to talk about current trends in college admissions. So what have we been seeing this year and over the past years as far as how students apply to colleges. We're going to talk about compiling the college list, which is sort of the first big step in a student's college journey, is Is looking around and how they assess colleges, certain tools that they can use to do that and compiling that list.

A big part of that should be campus visits or, you know, maybe once they've compiled their list, they can start visiting their campuses. And so That's changed a little bit, uh, in recent years since the pandemic. There's more opportunities for students to be able to do that virtually. We'll go over that.

We'll talk about the application process, so how students actually do apply to colleges, the Common App and some other applications, what colleges actually look at when they're looking at student applications, what might be required and how important. certain things are in the college application process.

And of course we want to talk about financial aid because cost is a factor when students are compiling their lists and applying to colleges and making their decisions, right? So we'll talk about what role financial aid should play in this process and what students should really understand when they're When they're going through the admissions process.

And then we always like to close by pointing out free resources. METHOS, of course, are free resources, a free resource, but there are others. And so, um, for counselors, as well as for students, it's important to have that pointed out and to know that there are resources that are available because. No, you know, nobody knows everything.

Even, you know, Sean and I, we always talk about what the answer to this question is, or that question is, or who we can talk, or who might know. So, um, like to, like to close by talking about that. Okay. Now remember, if you have questions, just submit them. And if, if we're getting enough of any particular question, Sean will break through so I can, so I can, uh, address that.

Um, but go ahead and put that in the Q and A for Sean to be able to answer. Now, starting off trends in college admissions. What have we been seeing over the year over the past few years and college admissions? I think the big theme is more and earlier So students are applying to a greater number of schools than they have in the past I was talking about when I do this for students, you know when I was Applying to colleges back in the 90s and You had to sit and manually write out every application.

Um, you don't have to do that anymore. As we know, there are things like the common app that you can apply to numerous schools at once online through. So students are applying to a greater number of schools these days. So schools are seeing a lot more applications from students. And so what that means is that.

They sort of have a harder task when they're admitting their class because they have more applications. They might get a little bit more selective, but it also means that demonstrated interest has emerged as a factor for a lot of colleges. And, and so colleges will put a different levels of weight on demonstrated interest.

And what I mean by demonstrated interest is that a student's sort of demonstrated desire to go to that school. So when they're admitting a class. they might take that into account. Has a student sort of evidence that they are willing to come to the school if we admit them? They want to admit a student that is likely to come to that school.

So, um, schools might keep track and, and schools do keep track of contacts from students. So, if a student has visited the campus, if they've done a formal visit and done, gone on a tour, if they've interacted with the college on social media, if they've met with a admissions counselor at a college fair, that contact would be noted by the college.

And so it may increase a student's chance to be admitted at that college because that student is seen as likely to attend that college if they're admitted. So that's a good thing for a student to know that if they are interested in a college, reach out to that college, make sure that that. Contact has been made so it can be noted.

Um, as I said, Colleges have really ramped up their social media presence, and this is a great way for students to demonstrate interest. Um, it is also a great way for students to learn about a college, and I think that's even more, um, common a use for social media is just for students to be able to interact with the college, Um, and get information and get a feel for the, for the college, which can be a great first step before campus visits.

Um, we're seeing that a lot of students are, and a lot of families are, as cost has continued to rise, factoring cost in when they're looking at which colleges they want to apply to. And so this is important to understand because, um, we as counselors understand that, A college's stated sticker price is not necessarily, in fact, it's almost never the, the price that college, that students will end up paying.

So cost should be a factor in the, in the decision of where to go to school and where to apply to colleges, but it might not be. Yeah, it shouldn't be looking at a sticker price and then making the determination to not apply to a certain school because there is financial aid available. Not students.

Students don't always realize that. Um, so But it is something that families are understandably considering. Uh, as we mentioned, there are more ways to interact with colleges virtually. That's since the pandemic, they really stepped up their digital efforts. And since students have returned to campuses, they still have those digital resources available.

So that's a good thing. Um, of course, the pandemic has also exacerbated the trend towards more schools being test optional. And so, um, you know, more colleges not requiring SATs or ACTs, uh, to be admitted. So that's a trend that we've been seeing. Although I think this year, some colleges have reversed that, but it's still overall, the trend has been towards more.

A test optional schools, and so those colleges have seen increased applications, and then also there are longer wait lists. I think the percentage is somewhere in the 40 something percent of colleges using wait lists. So more students are being wait listed as they're seeing more applications come in from students, and that can put.

You know, students in a difficult position, um, as well. So understanding the wait list is, is important. But those have been the sort of the overall trends in college admissions in the last few years. Certainly, uh, we're still in the, in the sort of post pandemic phase of things. Now, it's important as an overall strategy for students to stay organized.

And so, you know, in compiling the college list, they're compiling a list. And some of the, important pieces of information that students want to keep track of when they're compiling this list can be found and managed on MIPHA's college application manager. So this is the tool that we have on our site that you can download, print off.

It's kind of a fridge magnet kind of a thing. As you can see here, you can list the school name, the admissions deadline. So, you know, when they need to get that admissions application in. If the student is sending their SATs or their ACTs or neither to a certain school, and then of course, what financial aid forms the college needs and what, and what the deadlines for those are.

So every college you can see there, FAFSA is checked off because FAFSA goes every, everywhere. Uh, but also CSS profile. Does the college need a CSS profile? Is there another application that a student might need to fill out at that college for their, that college's institutional aid? And when that financial aid deadline is?

And then a space for notes. So this is a tool that students can use that we have on the site. Um, you know, students might have their own way, families might have their own ways. I always like to say there's usually somebody in the family that likes spreadsheets. So, um, they can, they can use a spreadsheet, whatever way is most convenient for the family.

Right. To keep track and to not miss deadlines and to fill out forms that are required. That is the best thing that you can really do for yourself. So it's good to, to counsel them that way. Now, in terms of researching colleges where this whole thing begins again, I remember when I was in, uh, In high school in the guidance office and I had this gigantic phone books of colleges that you'd search through.

That's of course not the way of things anymore. There's a lot of tools online available to be able to search and one of these is NIFA pathway as we see here. Our graphics are from Mipha Pathway. Um, but beginning the search can be overwhelming. There's a lot of colleges, uh, I think 2, 800 or so in, in the country, four year colleges, um, and there's a lot of tools to be able to help students sift through this.

So one, two federal tools are college navigator and college scorecard. So for college nav navigator, it's kind of a repository for any information that you might actually. I think it's for every anything that's pretty much collected by the federal government can be viewed through college navigator. So you can search colleges, specific colleges and get information on, uh, you know, their class size, what type of college, the male to female ratio, um, what majors, how many majors are offered, is it a religious school, is it a four year public, a four year private, et cetera.

So you can search for specific colleges, you can search programs, you can search, um, geographical areas, and do a 25 or 50 mile radius search for all colleges that might fit your search. So, it is, as I said, a repository for pretty much any sort of information. Metric you want to go by you can search for and get all these results Um, so a lot of information it looks like a site with a lot of information So it can be a little a little sort of weedy to a little wonky to look through um college scorecard is another federal site and that is Has a slightly different emphasis It's really the thought behind the college scorecard is college is an investment and You know, you're putting money into this particular college.

You can search colleges and see, is this college or are these colleges going to be a good investment for the family? And so you can get. Uh, info on, again, sort of what type of school, um, class size, how well a college does graduating their students, um, how well they retain their students, what the average cost for a family might be, not the sticker price, but the average cost after aid, um, and What these average starting salary will be and not starting.

So the average salary 10 years after admission. Um, so again, is this on a cost basis? going to be a good investment for a family. That's a little more user friendly and, and how it looks. It's not quite as overwhelming, I think, as College Navigator, but it's got a more narrow focus. Uh, big future is the College Board site.

College Board is obviously the, the organization that does the SAT and the AP programs. Um, and this is a good tool to use as well. They have Some of the information listed on College Navigator and College Scorecard. You can look at admissions information, uh, see the average GPA and SAT scores for classes.

Same thing with MIFA Pathway as well. And so these images are once again from MIFA Pathway and you'll see a college comparison tool. on MIFA pathway later on in the presentation as well, um, so that you can go and look at the relevant information as far as admissions is concerned and compare colleges once you have your list.

So there's a lot of tools available to be able to start researching colleges and start compiling that list. Now, how do you weigh colleges and what you might be interested in, etc? I always joke, but it's true. I mean, I think everybody kind of looks at Hawaii at first, but other than that, um, what might you consider?

To start looking through and see if a college might be the right one for you. So the first thing is institution size and location. And so again, location's important. I remember I was told the story when I went to Syracuse for the university, my brother went to Syracuse, he's a year older than me and I went to visit him and I realized not for me, you know, every it's in, it's nothing against upstate New York, but, um, It wasn't a city environment that I wanted.

Everything around me was Syracuse University. It was an enormous school and I would have felt sort of lost there in the shuffle. So I wanted something that was in the city. I wanted something that was a bit smaller. And so I chose Emerson College in Boston. So this is sort of, it's one of these things that's so simple.

I think a lot of people think of it, but, um, is a student going to feel drowned out in a particular college? Or are they, do they want a big college? Um, do they not want to be hemmed in? Do they want a school in the city? Do they want to be in the country? These things are important. Um, and they're probably the first things that, people, occur to students or should occur to students when they're looking at where they might want to attend.

Academic fit is the biggest one in terms of, uh, will they be admitted and can they succeed at that school? So this is important as well, you know, is this a college that I could academically thrive at? Am I going to do well here? Of course, intended major, if a student is lucky enough to know what they want to study and they have a passion for this, is this a good school for my intended major?

Do they have good facilities? Do they have Good teachers or do they have a little later on down the list here? Do they have career and internship services? So is there a pathway into this career through this college? In my field and then learning style, you know, there are are you okay with sitting in a class with 200 students listening to a lecture.

Do you want smaller classes? Do you like those schools where you don't even get graded? You just sort of do a project. Um, I know I would have been horrible at those, but some students would really thrive in that environment. And then campus culture is a, is a huge one. And we'll talk about that when we get to college visits.

But what type of campus, uh, do you want to go to? Especially with, you know, a big school, do you want to go where they have football games every Friday, um, and you can really get swept up in things? Do you like artsy campuses? Do you like a more political environment? What activities are available? Do they have study abroad programs?

That was a big selling point at my college. They had a study abroad Europe program that a lot of students were interested in. And then finally, of course, again, affordability plays into this as well. Um, so we'll talk about that a little bit later on, but those are some factors. that students should consider when they're, when they're going through this process.

Oh, I said, we're going to get to campus visits and here we are. So a campus visits are a really important tool to assess how comfortable you would be on a campus. And so it sounds simple, but I can't tell you how many times students, we hear from students. I really wanted to go to this school. And then I went to this other school and I loved it.

Or I really wanted to, I had this college in mind and, you know, ever since I was a kid, I really wanted to go to the school and I just stepped on campus and it wasn't for me. It's really funny how quickly and how strongly these impressions get formed. I'm speaking with a student who went to a particular college in Massachusetts, didn't like the walls, didn't like the material of the walls, didn't like the feel of the hallways, said it felt like a gym to them, didn't want to do it.

Um, so, You know, they did not think that they would be comfortable. And also looking at the material that was on the walls for the students, the artwork, it wasn't for them. Um, so that is a hugely important part of this process. Um, there are two types of campus visits, informal and formal visits. So formal visits are things like when you contact the admissions office and you're interested in a particular college.

You may want to go sign up for a tour and they have students that may, you know, take you around and view the facilities, view the classrooms. You can sit in on a class. They might have programs. As certain colleges do where you can go and actually stay over in a dorm for the weekend or for the week and, you know, sort of shadow a student and see what college is like at that at that institution and classes are like, um, so those are great to get a feel for all of those, those things.

I just mentioned. It's also a great way to demonstrate interest. Um, and you can ask questions and you can sort of as soon as we will You know, as I said, glean a lot of information that way. Informal visits are a great way to sort of take the temperature of a college, right? So colleges are, college campuses are public.

You can walk on a college campus. Now you can't sit down for a class necessarily. Uh, but you can stroll around the campus, you can, uh, go to the dining hall and, and pay for a meal and see, you can maybe take a stop in the student union and just, you know, see what the atmosphere is like, see what the students are like.

Uh, what are people talking about in the dining hall? What is on the bulletin boards in the student union? Uh, these are are great ways to get a feel for the culture and just again, take your comfort level as a student and see if you could be happy there. I spoke to a student two days ago. who said, I just went to visit here at this particular college and I could really imagine myself there.

And that is such a huge, huge thing. Now we're lucky in Massachusetts that we have so many different colleges and we have different environments. So, um, I know that students can always get to colleges that they are applying to or want to apply to because maybe it's across the country. Um, but we have a lot of different types here.

So you can look at a four year public college. You can look at a four year private college. You can look at an urban college with an urban layout and class, uh, map, campus map. Or you can look at, um, you can drive out a little bit and go to a rural college or a suburban college. So there's a lot of different ways you can get a feel for different types of colleges.

Also, if you can't make a college visit, again, since the pandemic, there's been a lot of virtual, um, Programming for students to be able to do. They can go and take a virtual tour. They can be connected with students or alumni and get a feel for the campus that way. Another way that you can make college, um, contacts and sort of glean information about certain colleges are college fairs.

And so I assume if you're a high school counselor, you're familiar with these because High schools often have college fairs in their auditoriums or gymnasiums for students to be able to come and visit. And essentially, you know, admissions counselors from colleges are going to come and bring their materials and be able to talk to students about colleges.

If you're advising students on college fairs, I think it's important to let them know that this is an admissions contact, right? So, um, the person that they're speaking to as an admissions representative from a college may be somebody who is going to be reading their application or reading their essay.

So, you know, it's important to make a good impression, maybe get their contact information, follow up with that person later on if they're interested. Um, There are really big college fairs in addition to the ones that you may have, you know, the smaller ones in, in certain regional, uh, college fairs or, or, or high school college fairs.

But I'm thinking about the National Association of College and, um, what is it? NACAC, the National Administration Association of College Admissions. Oh my God, I don't know what it's for, but essentially, uh, I don't know, Sean, if you know a breakthrough, but, um, it is a national college fair essentially. And so this year in Boston, it's, it's May, uh, May 1st and 2nd in Boston, but it travels throughout the country and there are hundreds of colleges and thousands, if not tens, uh, over 10, 000 students that, that visit this every year.

So, um, you know, it's good to not be. Overwhelmed so check the listing of participating colleges beforehand and have a plan So visit the colleges that you know, you're interested in right away So before fatigue sets in you make your contacts you you know, ask your questions and get your information If you want to schedule one on one meetings with colleges, you might be able to do that there allow yourself some time to browse and just sort of You know, take everything in and allow yourself to be surprised by colleges.

Uh, and also they may have information set, uh, sessions there on financial aid or college admissions, best practices that you may want to take advantage of as well. Thank you, Sean. National association of admissions. counselors? I'm missing a C. Anyways, they'll understand. They're a fun group of folks. So, college fairs are a great resource, and there's some tips on how to navigate those.

Now, I mentioned that we have a tool on MIFA Pathway, a college comparison tool, and this is the image that you see here. And this is going to aid you in developing a list of colleges. So, we're familiar, or I think it's fairly well known, that there are three components to an ideal sort of college list, which is academically, they, they separate your chances to be admitted, right?

So you're likely colleges, your possible colleges and your reach colleges, your likely colleges being colleges that you have a greater than 50 percent chance of being admitted to your possible colleges where you're about 50, 50, and your reach schools where you're less than 50 percent on being admitted to.

And so, um, Here's how you can assess these chances. And these are, you know, say admitted that the, we'll go into this in a little bit more detail later on, but, um, You want to look at GPA and SAT scores if college, if you're taking SATs and sending them to a college, um, you know, the, the colleges will have posted, or they should have posted on their website, their class information or, or the, the, the range of GPA and SAT scores for their class admittance.

So their, their requirements to be admitted for the college. Now we can see here in this example, we have. five colleges, UMass Lowell, Wentworth, Florida Gulf Coast University, Central Washington University, and Framingham State. We can see we can filter by type of school, setting, size, location and admission difficulty.

Whoops. So we have here moderately difficult. They're all moderately difficult. Undergraduate info, male to female ratio, student to faculty ratio and total size. Now, if we go down here to academic info, these are the GPA. This is the overall acceptance rate. So what percentage of students do they accept and the GPA.

sort of requirements here. 3. 0 to 3. 5. The students tend to get admitted and right here. So you can take a look at your GPA and know where you are around here and your SAT scores and be able to assess your chances for being admitted.

Now in terms of, and I'm sorry I said, but in terms of compiling a list of likely possible and reach. I just want to stress how important it is to really like all of the schools, um, that are on your list. And so I remember hearing somebody say once that the most amount of effort should be given to your likely schools.

Um, because you just want to make sure if you don't get into your REACH schools or your possible schools and you have to attend one of your likely schools, you want to make sure that it's a place that you like and a place that you, um, can be happy and, and do well of course, um, at that school. So a really, um, I think a lot of students don't put the effort into really searching out likely schools that they're going to be happy at.

And I think it's a good idea to make sure that students really will be happy at every school on their list should they go. Okay. So once you have the college list compiled, the next thing is to apply, right? So, uh, in terms of a timeline for college applications, there's different timelines. So there's a regular decision timeline, which is when I say timeline, not timeline it.

When you need to have your admissions applications in by regular decision, usually, you know, you have the fall to, to get your application in, there's usually an early January deadline. So that's your regular decision. And you'll be notified in the springtime, whether or not you were admitted or not. Now there's early application as well.

So there's early action and early decision. And so what that means is early action means. You're applying early as a student, so you have an earlier deadline to get that application into a school. Could be in November or December. And basically you're applying early and you want to know early whether or not you've been admitted.

So hopefully by Christmas or by the end of the year you will be notified of your admission status from from a college if you apply Early Action or Early Decision. Early Action is non binding. What that means is they're just telling you early whether or not you've been admitted. Early Decision means that it's a binding decision, which means that you're applying early.

You want to know early whether or not you've been admitted, but also you're making an agreement to that college that if you are admitted, you are committing to a, to attend that school. Um, so it is a binding decision. And what that means is how we counsel families with that is that If you are going to be applying early decision, make sure you really want to go to that college.

You should only be early applying early decision to one college because you can't make a binding agreement to more than one college. Um, and also consider costs, right? So there are some ways that you can sort of estimate how much financial aid you may receive. Um, but you're applying early decision and, you know, you haven't received a financial aid offer yet.

So just make sure, do your research and make sure you're comfortable, um, you know, making that determination without seeing a final financial aid offer from a college. And then aside from that, uh, so those are the earlier, um, timelines. And also if you're applying early action, early decision, because financial aid deadlines are often.

earlier as well in those processes. So financial aid deadlines are separate from your admissions deadlines. The processes should be sort of running at the same time, applying for admission and applying for financial aid, but, um, but they each will have their own dot deadline. So early action and early decision, or if you're planning, they usually have earlier financial aid deadlines as well.

Um, and then there's rolling admissions. So you can apply throughout the year, November through May. And, and be notified of an admissions decision on a rolling basis and open admissions. So when I say open admissions, um, you know, there's not a standard application deadline per se. This college admits most students for programs anytime.

So when I say open admissions, I'm thinking usually about the community colleges have open admissions.

Uh, the actual college application forms themselves, uh, as I said, it's mostly digital now. The most popular, um, college application now is called the Common App. And so this is, uh, an application that you can file and send to multiple colleges at once. Um, there are about 900 colleges that use the common app.

So again, the most popular, the most common app that there is is the common app. There are others as well. So the universal college app. Is, uh, used by a dozen or so colleges and colleges may use the common app and the universal college app. For example, there's the coalition app, and then there may be college applications on the college websites or paper applications that that, um, students may need to file or be able to file.

So again, it really just behooves people to go to the college admissions website, see how. they want their financial aid, um, sorry, their admissions forms filed and, and just when and not miss any deadlines and, and go through that process. Now, as far as what.

Sorry, it appears

Shawn Morrissey: that Jonathan's

frozen right now. Let's see if we can get him back. One moment,

Jonathan Hughes: please.

Sorry. I don't know what happened there. Um, but I lost you. I think are we all back now? You are back now, Jonathan. Okay. Sorry. I don't know what happened there. Apologize.

Excuse me while I'm just going to share my screen here.

Personal essay we'll get into in a bit. Um, there may be an interview component, uh, not typical these days, but there could be. And also an audition for performing art school or drama schools, uh, music schools and portfolios for art schools. So.

The most important thing when looking at colleges and when they're looking at your application, that is, and they're assessing whether or not to admit you, the most important thing is your academic readiness. So still GPA and to a certain extent standardized test scores are going to be the most important part of that college application.

And so most of the weight is going to be placed on that. Rigor is something that they want to see. And that is not only do you have good grades, but are you challenging yourself? Um, And so the example being that if you have all A's all throughout your high school career, but you never took any AP classes or honors classes, colleges are going to scratch their heads at that a little bit and wonder why.

Um, it, it gets to be a bit of a tightrope, and this is where counselors really have to help students through, um, as to how many APs, um, and, or, or honors classes. You know, the question is, Is a B in an AP class is better than an A in an honors course, um, but should you, you don't want to overload yourself where you're not able to succeed at a high level on those courses.

So, but they do want to see that students have been challenging themselves. AP courses are It was college level course at our college, you know, that that's sort of seen as a college level course. So so that definitely goes far in a college application and the AP Credits earned by the AP exam may be used for college credits at certain colleges.

So um That's important. If a student hasn't been at their best throughout the entire run of high school, that's not necessarily a deal breaker. They want to see that students have improved over time. That can look really favorably. Uh, in a college application, even if, you know, sophomore year wasn't great, if junior year is much better, that looks really good.

Um, they want to see, of course, that they've been exceeding their, their minimum requirements, that they've been, once again, challenging themselves. And if they're applying to, you know, engineering school, they want to say, have they taken the right courses? Have they taken physics and chemistry? Uh, if they want to go to journalism school, have they taken the proper, you know, or go to journalism program?

The, the, the proper requisites in English and things like that. Um, Massachusetts public colleges and universities have standards to be admitted. Uh, there are certain GPAs that they have to maintain. Uh, that's on the DA website for Massachusetts. Uh, they're, they are. admissions available on a sliding scale, so it's certain it's a certain GPA.

I believe a 3. 0, but if you have a below a 3. 0 GPA, if your SAT scores are higher, uh, above a certain threshold, you can be admitted. So there are requirements that you can research on the DOE website there. I know I'm. Probably failing at trying to get in on time, so I'm going to go a little bit quicker.

Standardized tests I've mentioned a few times. Again, some colleges require them, some don't. The general guidance on that is if you take your SATs and they, and you do well, if it's going to bolster your case to being admitted to a college, then send them. Um, if they're not, you don't have to send them at test optional colleges.

But at test optional colleges, just know that If you, if they don't have an SAT, then the weight that would have been planted on the SAT or SAT has to go somewhere else. So your GPA almost counts for, it does count for more than it would have because they need to sort of, uh, absorb that importance in the GPA section.

That would have. previously gone to standardized test. But in terms of a schedule, the PSAT is the practice SAT, and that can be as early as freshman year. I think sophomore year is more typical, but sophomore and junior year, you can take your SATs, right? And so SATs, as a math section in the student sec, uh, um, reading section.

Um, it's on a scale of zero to 1600. It measures college readiness. Um, so there are, there's test prep available online as well. And test prep is a good idea. Studies show that You know, when students do take free classes, um, which are available at that college readiness dot college board dot org, um, that their scores go up.

And also the more often they take the SATs, they take the SAT twice. This score tends to go up the second time. If they take it three times, it tends to go up a little bit more after three times, not so much, but, um, repeated SATs Do tend to result in higher ultimate scores, and you can pick your SATs that you send to colleges.

So they don't see all the col, they don't see all the scores. You know, you can send them the, the, the third score. If the third score is the highest. The other standardized test is the a CT. And so, um, it's similar to the SAT, but um, a little bit different. There was three sections rather than two. The, it's on a zero to 36, uh, scale.

And it also, you know, it's similar. A lot of colleges, a lot of students don't know whether they should take the SAT or the ACT. The good news is you can take a free SAT test or a test prep test, and you can do that with the ACT as well. So you can see which one may suit you best and which one you like better and which one you want to go with.

There are also AP exams. This is the culmination of an AP course. And, you know, these are subjects in subject. So, you know, you might take AP US history or AP chemistry, and then you would take an AP exam in that subject and then submit those test scores, uh, to a college again, if they are, um, above a three or four or five, I think can be submitted and that some colleges be used that those might count for college credits.

Um, so again, standardized testing. If it's going to bolster your case to be admitted at a test optional school, go ahead and submit it. Um, if it isn't, then, then you don't have to. Oh, and fairtest. org provides a list of over 2000 test optional schools, a lot of test optional schools, your activity list and resume.

This is for colleges. They want to know what you do after 3 p. m. So they've got your transcripts. They got maybe your standardized test scores. They want to know who you are as. as a person outside of these things. So your extracurricular activities, people always know, yes, your sports, yes, your academic clubs, yes, your, your social clubs, whatever it is that your, uh, your school that you are a part of.

Um, but you know, you can showcase your job, your part time job. You can showcase, uh, family responsibilities that you may have. You take care of nieces or nephews or younger brothers or older relatives or sick relatives. You can put that on as well. MIFA pathway has a tool that you can create. It'll, it's a my resume tool.

You can put in your Your activities and it will format it for you in the resume format and you can choose your, your font and things like that. Colleges really like to know your impact on the community and they like to see any volunteer work, you might be doing. any leadership positions that you might have assumed within organizations, uh, or clubs at schools or outside of schools.

So those type of things speak really well to students on, um, college applications. Essays. This is every admissions counselor's favorite part of the application because everything else. is really, you know, cut and dried for them. It's all laid out. GPA, standardized test scores, uh, they're looking at things.

This is where they get to hear from the student, right? So your application essay should be something meaningful and personal. Doesn't have to be heavy. Um, we know that a lot of 17 year olds really don't, thank goodness, have a lot of heavy things in there. Their life or their, their history. And that's, that's fine.

Um, students get really anxious ahead of time about the essay. They don't know what to write in their essay. They don't know. Yeah, I think they think that they have to have something heavy and weighty to talk about. Um, but, and there are prompts on the college, on the common application, which we'll see in a minute.

Um, but just some rules of thumb or some, some good practices for writing the college essay. Okay. From what I understand from admissions counselors that I've talked to again. They want to know that you can write, they want to know that you can write about yourself, and they do want some sense of who you are as a student.

Um, or as a person, really, not just as a student. So, tests should be, excuse me, essays should be not about somebody else in your life, not about who you were, maybe who you are now. Um, and we'll see that when we look at the prompts on the Common App. Again, they don't have to write about the prompts, they don't have to write essays, resulting by, they don't have to pick the prompts in the common app to write essays about.

Um, it's good to start early if students are anxious. So you may want to start a couple of months ahead of time and write their essays. Read it out for family and friends. Family and friends, counselors can make suggestions of course. Um, I hate even saying this but plagiarism is taken very seriously. So make sure that, you know, students are writing these.

in their, by themselves, in their own words. Again, admissions counselors read thousands of essays by 17 year olds, and they're pretty good at knowing when somebody other than a 17 year old has written an essay. Um, I know technology is in a race with admissions counselors in this respect, but, uh, yeah, just can't stress that point enough that plagiarism is taken very seriously.

And these are the Common App Essay Prompts. So just a couple, I'm not going to read them all, obviously, but uh, Discuss an accomplishment, event, or realization that sparked a period of personal growth and a new understanding of yourself and others. Reflect on a time when you questioned or challenged a belief or idea.

What prompted you to do that? What was the outcome? Some students have a background, identity, interest, or talent that is so meaningful they believe their application would be incomplete without it. If this sounds like you, then please share. your story. So most students are not really practicing writing about themselves.

Um, so it might take a bit of practice. Finally, I think the best thing that I ever heard about writing the college essay is to have fun to the extent that you can writing this essay. If you are really suffering writing this essay, and it's really hard, and it's like pulling teeth to write this essay, it is going to read like that.

So it's going to be difficult to read for for admissions officers, whereas if you have fun writing this essay, um, it will, it is more likely to be fun, and they're more likely to remember it. Um, so this is their, really, student's opportunity to stand out and really stick in admissions counselors mind.

Again, this is every admissions counselor's favorite part of the application. Letters of recommendation. The college will list out how many letters of recommendation are required for a college application. Don't do more than that. More is not better. Um, you should probably ask if you are, uh, applying to a certain program, a certain field.

Uh, a teacher who, like, for example, if you want to be an engineer, maybe get, uh, a recommendation from your chemistry teacher or your physics teacher. If you want to be, uh, you know, a historian, get it from your history teacher. Usually your junior year teachers, um, are good because they're fresh. You're fresh in their mind.

A good time to ask them is before summer break between junior and senior year, so that they can work on these letters over the summer and have them ready for you by the fall. Um, they have a lot of students who are asking them, so they might need some time to do this. And remember to say thank you to these students, to these teachers as well.

Interviews are, um, less common these days. But there are two types of interviews, evaluative interviews and informational interviews. So, uh, informational interviews are for the student's benefit, right? So, it's for the student to learn more about the college. Where evaluative, um, interviews are for the college to get to know the student.

If colleges offer interviews, Um, it depends on the student, I think, whether or not they should do them. Um, some students are going to be nervous, and, well, every student probably will be nervous, but the interview format will benefit some students and not others, right? So, if you know that a student is really going to shine in an interview, it might be a good idea, it might be a good idea to do it.

If you think it's not the way to put a student's best foot forward, then maybe it's not, um, not necessarily a great idea if they are going to do an evaluative interview, then it's, you know, good to. do some self reflection on why they're applying to this college be ready to answer open ended questions about their plans and who they are as a person and what their habits are and sort of what their Are at this college and why this college may appeal to them and what they hope to do With a diploma from that college, um, they can cover the basics.

Do some research about the college ahead of, ahead of time and relax. I mean, most kids are going to be nervous, right? Or are going to feel some pressure in this. Administrators, interviewers know this it's okay. Um, but, uh, just relax the extent that you're able to do that and be yourself. Now, when students do get all this information into the college, makes the decision, and maybe that student is admitted.

They may be deferred. So if they've applied early action, early decision, maybe they'll be admitted or maybe they won't. Maybe they'll be deferred to the regular pool and they'll be notified later whether or not they've been admitted. Of course, the student may be denied. And it's more common these days that a student may be waitlisted, right?

So, uh, that can put a student in a tough situation if they're waitlisted. Uh, if they are waitlisted and they want to be admitted off the waitlist, they need to, they might need to formally accept a spot on the waitlist and keep that college, uh, updated with their grades if that's going to, again, bolster their chances to be admitted.

But they should make plans to attend another school because oftentimes students are not admitted off the wait list or never really notified about being on or off the wait list again. Most often colleges want their deposits by May 1. to choose a school and, and submit their deposit. Of course, this year with the FAFSA, that's still,

Shawn Morrissey: I'm sorry to peers. Jonathan is frozen again. Hopefully he'll be back in one moment.

I'll try to take over until Jonathan gets back in.

So I think he was starting to say that this year that deposit deadlines may be a little bit different because of the delays with the FAFSA. So some schools are changing their deadlines and extending those a bit. Others are keeping their published deadlines the same, but will be flexible with students who are having difficulties filing their FAFSA.

Um, so students should check with the school to see what the deadline is and see if there is any extension there this year.

So understanding the college affordability, um, As Jonathan was saying earlier that usually the sticker price of the school is never actually what the actual net price will be. Um, and so the cost of attendance at a school will take into consideration not just What the tuition and fees are at the school, but other costs that are associated with attending college are in that as well.

So for example, um, the costs of room and board would be in there as well. So the costs of housing, and food are also in the cost of attendance. There are transportation costs that can be allowed in there, um, costs for books and supplies, and some miscellaneous expenses that schools put in there as well that they know that the average student will have.

During the course of their year at the school, um, the net price is the cost of attendance, less financial aid that they may receive. And that's what the student should really be concerned with. And there are net price calculators on each school's, um, website that's Students can look at to see what the net price is.

That's usually a pretty good estimator of what their net price will look like based on their particular situation. So when students are looking at schools, it's usually a good practice to send them to the net price calculator to see what the costs will look like in their particular situation, not what the full cost of attendance will be.

And Each school will have their own, um, financial aid application requirements. So you want to check on their website to see what is required. Mostly every school will require the FAFSA, the Free Application for Federal Student Aid. Um, And there will be deadlines for those as well. Some schools may, in addition to the FAFSA, require the CSS profile.

Um, and some may also require an institutional application as well. And there's also need based aid and merit based aid. The difference between those is need based aid are That is based on the information reported on the financial aid applications and merit based aid is usually based on the admissions application in their grades, extracurricular activities, things like that.

Um, And they potentially may have different deadlines. So merit based aid may be based on the admissions application and they, the admissions application deadline may be the deadline that's used to, um, Choose the merit based aid, whereas the need based aid way come later based on the financial aid application deadline.

Normally, the admissions deadline is earlier than the financial aid deadline, but that can vary from school to school as well and private scholarships are a whole different process and that would be separate from the financial aid process at the school and schools. Students should start looking for those as soon as possible.

Um, and go through that process. Jonathan, I don't know if you want to take back over or if you want me to keep going. Uh,

Jonathan Hughes: I don't know. Thanks. Go ahead and see the next slide is I think, what is it?

Shawn Morrissey: Yeah, so the net price calculators, I talked a little bit about the net price calculators, and these are found online at each school's website.

And this will ask a few questions from the family. It's usually a few less questions than they have to go through, um, on the full financial aid application. But it's asking about their family size, what their income is, what the academics are, so what the um, student's GPA is. Sometimes it will ask. Um, some questions about some extracurricular activities and what that's just trying to gather all the information To get a good picture of what they would qualify for both need and merit based aid at the school to try to get a good estimate of that net price rather than what the full cost of education is And it will display federal and institutional financial aid And for some schools, merit based aid will be calculated.

For other schools, they don't have the merit based included in the net price calculator and theirs would only display need based aid. But usually, in those cases, it's pretty, um, well documented there whether they are including merit based aid or just need based aid. But it's a good estimator for families to learn about what the net price is for them.

And I talked a little bit about the different applications that are available. It's the free application for federal student aid is the FAFSA. Usually that's available on October 1st. This year was very different. Um, it didn't come out until the end of December and it was a slow rollout and some families did have difficulties at the beginning.

We're still waiting for those, um, applications to be completely processed. Um, those are slowly rolling out to schools now and, um, families are getting information with their. FAFSA summaries that are coming out to them now. But the 2526 is planning to be out on October 1st again, unless there are some delays again this year.

And that will ask about 2023 income, so they do use prior prior year income when they are applying for financial aid, so that most families will have filed their tax returns by the time they have to fill out the application. In addition to the free application, which is required by most schools, some schools will require the CSS profile, which those are usually private schools, um, that have larger institutional scholarships available.

little bit more detailed information from families than the free application for federal student aid. And schools are using that to determine need based aid for their own scholarships. And about 200 colleges use that. And that becomes available October 1st as well. It is also based on 2023 income. And then some schools will have specific specific financial aid applications, and those are posted on each of the college's financial aid website.

And usually that's just asking for some supplemental information that the school needs that is not included on either the CSS profile or the free application for federal student aid. There are a couple of benefits within Massachusetts, um, if you are starting at a community college, And then transferring to a four year public college in Massachusetts.

There's what's called the mass transfer program that makes college a little bit more affordable for students and some of the benefits in there include guaranteed credit transfer. So meaning that if you start at the community college. All the courses that you take there will be guaranteed to transfer and apply to the four year degree that you will be taking at the four year school.

They also have tuition credit and freeze on tuition. So, um, if you start in the community college program, what the cost would have been at the four year program at that point is frozen in time. So you will, um, sometimes have a A little bit lesser for tuition and fees. Once you do enter that four year school for more information on that, you can go to mass dot edu slash mass transfer and find out about that great program.

There's also the tuition break program, which is available for out of state students, um, in New England schools for certain programs, they can get a little bit less tuition and fees. So they don't get quite the in state, um, tuition and fees, but can get between, um, The cost of the in state tuition and out of state tuition is what usually the tuition break cost is.

And that's available for students from outside Massachusetts coming to Massachusetts schools within New England and for Massachusetts students going to other New England schools in their state schools for, um, certain programs. And for more information about that and to see if, excuse me, the student is eligible for a tuition break going to one of the schools that they wish to go to in one of those programs, you can go to debbie.

org slash tuition break to find out more about that. There is a great search tool within MIFA Pathway for scholarships, and you can do a search by type of award, area of study, state of residence, the state where the student is studying, ethnicity, type of school, religion, and you can build that scholarship list in the MIFA Pathway to keep track of each scholarship.

The status of those, um, the award amount, the deadline, if you applied for that, if it needs an essay, things like that, and you can have that list going, um, to keep track of which scholarships you have applied for and which you have received. So staying on track through the senior year. So during the spring and summer of the junior year, that's when students should be researching colleges, doing those campus visits and college fairs that Jonathan talked about and asking teachers for letters of recommendation, taking the SAT, ACT, start writing the college essay.

Then in the fall, you want to retake those SATs, if needed, make sure those letters of recommendation that you've asked for earlier are being completed and sending to the schools. Finalize your college essay. We do have some great webinars, one on financial aid 101 that's available for the fall of the senior year.

We want to complete all those admissions applications during the fall and submit the CSS profile if required. Then in the winter, It's when you're submitting the admissions applications, submitting the FAFSA, applying for private scholarships, sending in the mid year grade reports to the admissions offices, and then the spring is when students will start receiving their admissions and financial aid offers.

Students can attend the Understanding the Financial Aid Offers and Paying the College Bill webinar, attend college open houses, and choose your college by May 1st, and this year As I discussed a little bit earlier, some schools may have that deadline pushed a little bit because of the delays for the FAFSA.

And what can happen now, you can sign up for webinars at MIFA. org slash events. We do have a couple of extra events this year for students who may need help, um, filling out corrections for their FAFSA because we know families have had some difficulties and will have to do corrections on their FAFSAs.

So we will have some events to help with that. Um, research colleges. And start creating the college list. And you can always connect with MIFA on social media. And here's all of the information about that. And I'll now open it up for questions.

Jonathan Hughes: Thank you, Sean. Sorry about that, everyone.

Oh, and by the way, I did figure it out. National Association of College Admissions Counselors, right? I was missing something in there, yeah. It's actually

Shawn Morrissey: the New England, yeah, New England Association.

Jonathan Hughes: That's New England. That's NIACAC, but then there's NACAC, yeah. Yes, yes. Now, um, so for more banter like this, just hang out, but, uh, But if we, do we have any questions?

I don't

Shawn Morrissey: see any. I don't see any as well. Well, thank you everyone.

Jonathan Hughes: Yes. Thanks. And thank you, Sean. I don't know what I would have done without you. No problem.

Shawn Morrissey: Thanks. Bye bye.