Admissions Blog

Best College Acceptance Gifts for the Class of 2021

Posted on November 18, 2020 by Craig

After applying ED to Tulane, my first two students in the Class of 2021 received their offers of Fall 2021 admission this week. Thus, around these parts at least, College Acceptance Season has officially begun!

With the bulk of Early Decision and Early Action notifications set to be released in December, now is the time to determine what you will buy your special someone (maybe even yourself) who hopefully will be getting into college real soon (if he or she hasn’t gotten in already). While most Early Decision and Early Action acceptance notifications coincide with the height of Christmas-Hanukah shopping season, this year, to mark getting into college, you really don’t want to give simply a fruitcake or a Rudolph sweater. You want to make your gift college acceptance-centric.

So, go on and surprise your special someone or treat yourself with gifts that mark the occasion of getting into college and celebrate college life in general by browsing through the 2020-2021 College Acceptance Gift Collection presented by Admissions.Blog.

A bit of a back-story: for nearly a decade I sent acceptance gifts to my students accepted Early Decision and Early Action at their first-choice colleges, and these gifts’ massive popularity got many people both near and far asking, “Where did you think of that?” or, “That’s the perfect gift for my future Terrapin (or Gator, or Bruin, etc.), how can I get my hands on more just like it?” So, several years back, I decided to open up Admissions.Blog’s online gift shop designed specifically for your future or current college student.

Gifts detailed in the gift collection run the gamut from college apparel to dorm safety products. No matter your budget or needs, we’ve got the perfect college-themed gifts that are fun and practical.

So, what are you waiting for? Start Shopping below!

Congratulations on getting into college Rolling, Priority, ED, or EA!

Represent with or Protect your Tech (and this year, life!) with College Pride!
Skinit makes some of my favorite phone cases and laptop, AirPod, PlayStation, and Xbox skins around. What’s great is that on some of these items you can not just find styles that match your personality; you can also find designs that flaunt your college colors. Below are some examples of some of my favorite skins or cases.

This year, with a plague all around us, we’ve added a way to show college pride while covering your face. FOCO and Original Retro Brand make some face masks that future college students will love even as they gasp for air.

In the same vain, it’s also important not to misplace your technology and charge your gadgets regularly. I love this all-in-one bamboo charging station by NEXGADGET because it’s compact, which is perfect for a dorm room and it’s also quite stylish.

Protect Yourself!
Sad to say, college dorm showers are gross! Showaflaps make my favorite antibicrobial flip flops for your (hopefully) daily showers while on campus.

At many college campuses it also gets quite cold in the winter; therefore, how about some house boots to keep your feet nice and warm during your first winter on campus? Hanes makes my favorites in this category, and their unisex bad boys double as awesome dorm room slippers. Added bonus: no-slip!

Keep the Peace in Your Dorm Room
They say that good fences make good neighbors. In the context of a dorm room, good room dividers make good roommates. Sometimes we all need a bit of our own space, and MyGift makes my favorite dorm room divider because it can also double as a chalk board.

Look Good On Campus
While it makes the most sense to dress for success during the school day and while in class, once nighttime rolls around, strip down to a graphic tee that showcases your sense of humor. My favorite pop-culture inspired, random, college-themed, and all around fun t-shirt designs that are sure to grab the attention of fellow travelers in your dorm, at the library, or in the dining hall are below.

Look Good In Bed
Get your head out of the gutter! When it’s time to go to sleep or simply nap, there is no need to do so in a drab quilt. You should be able to snuggle up in your college colors, and Dormitory101 makes the very best double-layered, double-sided blankets made from the softest material you’ve ever felt – and they’re easy to take care of. No pilling. No extra care instructions. Just the comfiest, coziest fleece that will last years after graduation.

Congratulations on getting into college/university!

Parents, congrats – your child is going to college!

Students, great job! Now, let’s party!

1404 Error: University of Georgia Early Action Stats Full of Spin

Posted on November 17, 2020 by Admissions.Blog

University of Georgia campus in Athens, Georgia, USA

The University of Georgia releases its Early Action decisions on November 20, 2020; yet, the university has already released aggregate data on those who applied Early Action. In the process UGA has released information indented to skew the public’s view of how selective UGA really is.

For whatever reason UGA is waiting to release the average stats of those students accepted EA, and instead UGA has only released stats for those students who applied EA. Here are the stats shared:

Total EA Applications – 20,900 – This is a 27% increase over last year.

UGA GPA Average – 3.91 – This is calculated by UGA using only core classes, and not the GPA seen on the high school transcript.

ACT Average – 32 – This is based on the students who submitted ACT scores as a part of their file.

SAT Average – 1404 – This is based on the students who submitted SAT scores as a part of their file.

AP/IB/DE Courses – 8 – This is the total number of AP/IB/DE courses taken by our applicants over their 4 years in high school.

Many people who read the above information would come to the conclusion that UGA is more competitive than ever, more difficult to get into than ever before, and in huge demand by students around the world. Not so fast!

UGA is not sharing what percentage of its EA applicants even submitted SAT or ACT scores! After going test-optional this cycle, this means that the intimidating 1404 SAT score and 32 ACT score UGA is sharing is propaganda pure and simple. What if only forty percent of applicants even submitted SAT scores? What if far fewer did? This means that many students – most in fact – getting into UGA this fall have scores well below 1404 on the SAT and 32 on the ACT. If they took them at all. We wish UGA good luck going back to being a test-required institution while also keeping those averages where they are!

Similarly, with the economic turmoil caused by pandemic closures, job losses, and ravaged income streams, is it really a surprise that a public university in a well populated state would get a lot more applications from in-state students who are seeking a lower cost alternative to pricey out of sate publics or privates? A twenty-seven percent increase in total EA applications is to be expected.

Meanwhile, what does a GPA even mean anymore? Most high schools are inflating students grades gratuitously. A 3.91 is actually pretty low sounding to us. Especially when considered in context of the 1404 SAT and 32 ACT averages reported. This means a lot of students are apply test-optional. A LOT!

Finally, the “8” shared in reference to total AP/IB/DE (Dual Enrollment) courses applicants took in high school is also misleading as many applicants won’t finish all the courses they reported on their applications and UGA still will accept plenty of students from schools that don’t offer AP/IB/DE courses at all. The only reason UGA shares it is the only reason UGA is sharing any of this information: to appear highly selective when the simple reality is that UGA is selective but not particularly so.

Applicants who applied Early Action can check their Status page on Friday, November 20 in the late afternoon to learn which of the following four decisions University of Georgia has made on their applications:

Admit
Defer: This means the UGA admissions committee will review your extracurricular activities, essays, and recommendations during the Regular Decision review period and a final decision will be forthcoming in late March.
Deny
Incomplete Defer: Roughly 1% of EA students did not complete their EA file, and they are now automatically deferred to the next step, and so they will need to get in the missing materials from EA, (remember the teacher recommendation is optional but we suggest also having one sent in)

If UGA is at the top of your list and you applied Early Action, good luck! Here’s hoping UGA releases aggregate data soon for those students it accepted Early Action so we can put this first tease of data in full context.

What to make of Tufts’ Early Decision Deadline Extension

Posted on November 17, 2020 by Admissions.Blog

While occasionally colleges extend application deadlines in response to hurricanes or other natural disasters, Tufts’ announcement in October that it would extend its Early Decision I (EDI) deadline from November 1 to November 17 in response to COVID-19 and various natural disasters didn’t pass the smell test.

It’s one thing to be or appear charitable by giving struggling students a few extra days or a week to complete their applications; yet, giving every applicant seventeen extra days to submit applications EDI is an extreme act that reeked of desperation.

Now, we are getting Common App data that supports our suspicions.

Inside Higher Ed shared that Common Application colleges are seeing average application declines of eight percent this fall. Meanwhile applications for first-generation students and those eligible for fee waivers are down sixteen percent so far. A full sixty percent of Common App colleges are seeing application declines. In addition Common App colleges and universities in the Northeast and Midwest experienced the steepest declines in application volume – down a full fourteen percent compared to last year.

While we don’t yet know if Tufts is one of the schools with application declines, by pushing its EDI deadline out nearly three weeks the university is signaling that it at least wanted more EDI applications to review for some reason (either a dip in application numbers or some other internal application target not being met).

This was all expected and is one of the main reasons why colleges were so fast to go SAT- or ACT-optional for members of the high school class of 2021. Colleges rightly worried that pandemic closure-induced job/income losses and the ongoing pandemic itself would scare students away from wanting to live and learn in close quarters far from home. This is an acute worry at second tier or lower colleges that cost a pretty penny to attend. Interestingly, with so many colleges now SAT- and ACT-optional it is likely that only the biggest name colleges are benefitting greatly from the test-optional trend while others like Tufts that have limited name-brand appeal are likely getting overlooked by students newly-emboldened to apply to reach colleges they would have never considered if their SAT or ACT scores were any good.

For instance, let’s say you are a straight A student with a 1010 on the SAT; in a typical year you would never apply to anything other than your state university an a few others with relatively low test score averages. This year, you say to yourself, “I might as well put in an app or two to Harvard and Yale since they won’t look at my scores.” Notice how Tufts (or other similar schools) was not mentioned in such a hypothetical student’s line of reasoning. That’s because most college applicants have never heard of Tufts. Those who have are also probably holding off on applying EDI to Tufts when the school also offers EDII. This is because many typical EDI Tufts applicants are now going to try and swing for the fences at Brown, Penn, Princeton, or Harvard. Tufts likely finds itself in a doughnut hole of a situation. With that in mind its EDI acceptance rate is either likely to skyrocket, or, to save face, Tufts will reduce the total number of students accepted EDI in order to maintain the veneer of selectivity that it wants to portray to the world. Alternatively, Tufts might just not report EDI stats at all and instead lump them in with its EDII numbers later this winter.

Only time will tell.

The 3 Dos and Dont’s to get Accepted into America’s Most Selective Colleges

Posted on August 16, 2020 by Max

There is so much misinformation out there regarding how to get into America’s most selective colleges, and sadly, a lot of it comes from high school counselors themselves.

Luckily, by reading on, you will get some of the best advice that many high school-based counselors are unable or unwilling to give their students.

Here are the 3 Dos and 3 Don’ts to help you get accepted into America’s most selective colleges:

1. Don’t be well-rounded. Do be well-lopsided.

Why well-rounded students get skipped

It almost doesn’t seem fair. You work hard throughout high school, joining clubs and sports teams, focusing on getting good grades, trying to be the most well-rounded student you can possibly be – and then comes time to start applying to colleges.

For years, you have dreamed of attending some of the more selective colleges in the nation: Duke, UC Berkeley, Michigan, perhaps some of the Ivies, like Harvard, Yale, or Princeton. You have put in the work, built the resume.

Applying to college can be an exciting yet stressful time in a high-schooler’s life. After all, this is what all the hard work was about. This is why you packed your schedule with extracurriculars. This is why you stayed up late studying for those exams.

But before you begin submitting those applications, there is something important you should know: college admissions officers are not looking for well-rounded students.

On the surface, that might not make much sense.

Let’s take a deeper dive into why well-rounded students get passed over and what admissions officers are really looking for in high school applicants.

Well-rounded student vs. well-rounded class

If you are a well-rounded student, don’t take this personally. But consider this a fair warning: college admissions officers are not looking for well-rounded students.

If you’re going down the path of well-roundedness and you have your eyes set on a top college, you need a change of course – before it’s too late.

Many students might find this confusing. After all, you’ve been told time and time again by teachers, parents, and counselors that you need to join a wide variety of clubs, try out for some sports teams, volunteer, get involved however possible.

“If I can show colleges that I can do a little bit of everything, then surely, I’ll set myself apart from the rest of the competition.”

Unfortunately, this sort of thinking couldn’t be further from the truth.

The reality is that admissions officers are not looking for well-rounded students. They are trying to put together a well-rounded class. The mistake that so many college applicants make is trying to be a jack of all trades, which inevitably leads to being a master of none.

With this in mind, you likely only have one question to ask: then what does it take to get accepted to highly selective colleges?

What admissions officers are looking for

The simple truth is that if you want to go to a top college, you can’t just blend in with the crowd—you have to stand out among the other applicants. That may seem like straightforward advice, but it’s far more difficult to put into practice.

Virtually everyone applying to the Ivy League has good grades. Many played sports. Many were involved with the same types of activities and organizations: choir, National Honor Society, and Student Council. On their own, none of these activities will make your application stand out to top colleges.

To college admissions officers, you must be able to prove that you are an applicant who deserves their attention, interest, and ultimately, consideration.

And with many top colleges only spending eight minutes or fewer on any given application, you need to spark their interest – fast.

Brainstorm what sets you apart, what differentiates you from the mounds of well-rounded students who also want one of the select few spots in the upcoming freshman class.

In one of his popular blog posts, Allen Cheng, a Harvard alumnus and co-founder of a college test prep company, notes that there are two things that elite college admissions officers are looking for from applicants; they seek those “who are going to accomplish world-changing things” and those “who are going to contribute positively to their communities while in college and help other students accomplish great things as well.”

Understandably, neither one of those traits are a walk in the park. But with your application, it is your job not to demonstrate how much of a well-rounded student you are, but rather to demonstrate how you are the right applicant to accomplish such remarkable things in the future.

At the end of the day, being a well-rounded student may lead to modest successes in high school, but when it comes to applying to the nation’s most sought-after colleges, be sure you are demonstrating what sets you apart. The members of the next generation who will change the world are almost certainly not well-rounded – they are masters of their trades.

2. Don’t dabble. Do focus.

Why the best college applicants are the most focused

Focus is key.

You’ve already learned that the first key to acceptance into schools like Harvard, MIT, and Stanford is abandoning the image of a well-rounded student, and instead highlighting what sets you apart, and what makes you the type of student who will go on to change the world someday.

We know that alumni of many top colleges are often well-known for their astonishing contributions to the world – Nobel laureates, Pulitzer Prize winners, Olympic medalists…But long before that, while they’re still back in high school, working hard with their minds set on attending one of those schools, how do admissions officers pick them out? What is it that sets these future leaders apart in high school – and on their applications – that so clearly speaks to what their long-term success will look like?

The secret is that the best college applicants are also the most focused candidates. Let’s dive a little deeper into what it means to be hyper-focused and what sets those students apart from the rest of the crowd.

The best college applicants don’t dabble

Being a well-rounded student is usually just another way of saying that the student dabbles in a multitude of activities, often without mastering any of them.

Students who find they have strived their entire high school careers to get involved with as many activities as possible to “round out their resume” should heed this advice. The truth is that if you are preparing to send a competitive application to top colleges, you need to hone in on a select few skills or pursuits. That’s where you should be focusing from here on out.

All those other activities, the ones you are doing half-heartedly or just for a participation trophy – those are simply time-wasters. Take some time to identify those activities now and abandon them.

This is not to say that there was no value in dabbling at a younger age. After all, you need some time to develop your skill sets and identify where your talents lie. But as you progress through high school, and especially as you prepare for college, you should be narrowing your focus and eliminating the activities that simply serve as distractions.

The best college applicants are hyper-focused

Take a moment to think about the people who are the best at what they do in the world. Think about Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and NBA superstar LeBron James. No one talks about Zuckerberg’s ability to play basketball, and no one discusses James’s web development skills. You know why? Because those things don’t matter. It’s not what makes them great. What matters are the skill sets each of them uniquely garners that make them truly great.

It’s a safe bet to say that these top-performers cultivated their skills through focused attention and work.

That’s the same type of hyper-focus high school students should use to become the most competitive college applicants.

Focus, as defined in a Psychology Today article, “involves the ability to pay attention to things that will help avoid distractions that will hurt your work efforts.”

It’s really as simple as that.

Discard the activities that are time-wasters and spend your time and energy on your true strengths. Some might call this your “spike,” “pointiness,” personal brand, or elevator pitch – whatever the term, it’s the overall theme that you’re trying to convey to admissions officers.

So what does it look like to harness the type of hyper-focus that will lead to admissions success? There are several tangible steps you can take.

One of the most significant leaps you can make is to eliminate unhelpful extracurriculars and instead focus on the ones that highlight your best skills. So many high schoolers are encouraged to take up as many extracurriculars as they can – sports, music, clubs, volunteer work. But, admissions officers are going to look at this list and judge you based on whether or not they require any special knowledge or skills to succeed, or whether or not you are a leader or just another run-of-the-mill teammate or club member.

If anyone could do it just by dedicating some time, it doesn’t stand out on applications.

Consider also auditing your free time outside of schoolwork and extracurriculars, and determine if you’re truly spending it wisely. We live fast-paced lives, and, of course, high school students have social lives to live. The advice here is not to completely disregard your social life or the small pleasures of everyday life.

Instead, it’s to be conscious of where you’re spending your time, and to refocus when you find yourselves straying from your long-term goals.

This type of hyper-focus is what differentiates average applicants from the “must-admits.”

3. Don’t give up. Do be gritty.

If you want to successfully compete for a seat at a top college, you need a certain mindset. After all, years of dedication, hard work and high performance culminate with these college applications.

The college application process, and all the work that leads up to it, is enough to burn out many students. But the most successful college applicants have one other thing in common: they are gritty.

Why gritty students have the best chance for admission

Angela Duckworth is a leading researcher who, literally, wrote the book on grit and its impact on success, called Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance. She defines the trait as “passion and perseverance of very long-term goals.”

According to Duckworth’s research, the most successful students are not necessarily those with the highest IQ or exam scores. Rather, she notes in her book, “the highly successful had a kind of ferocious determination that played out in two ways. First, these exemplars were unusually resilient and hardworking. Second, they knew in a very, very deep way what it was they wanted. They not only had determination, but they also had direction.”

Duckworth is someone worth listening to when it comes to grit’s role in being accepted into elite colleges, herself having earned degrees from Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania, and the University of Oxford. Her research uses grit as the greatest predictor of long-term success, rather than talent.

Becoming a grittier person will not happen overnight. It’s a trait that you develop in the long run, with benefits that you reap lifelong.

This is to say, students who are gritty and can clearly demonstrate that grit on their applications have the best chance for admission to top colleges. There is a long list of talented applicants on the desks of Ivy League admissions officers. But those whose story is one of grittiness — a relentless pursuit of a select few strengths and overcoming of obstacles — those applicants consistently dominate the admissions game.

University of Maryland joins Common App for 2020-2021 admissions cycle

Posted on August 12, 2020 by Craig

Better late than never. University of Maryland College Park announced today that it was joining the Common Application for the in-progress 2020-2021 admissions cycle, even though the Common App itself went live on August 1.

“We remain committed to expanding access to potential future Terps by offering them another option to apply through the Common App, in addition to the existing MyCoalition platform,” said Shannon Gundy, executive director, UMD’s Office of Undergraduate Admissions. “We are very proud to receive tens of thousands of applicants each year, and we constantly reassess ways to streamline pathways for a wide population of diverse and academically talented students to apply to be part of the Terrapin community.”

Despite Maryland’s kind and diplomatic words, the application offered by MyCoalition is a complete and utter disaster that needlessly ghettoized both Maryland and the Maryland applicant over the past several admissions cycles. As one of only two remaining colleges that were exclusive members of MyCoalition (the other being University of Washington in Seattle), Maryland had been making its applicants endure the process of creating an account on a portal that was the opposite of user-friendly and the antithesis of intuitive. It’s actually pretty amazing Maryland got as many applications as it did in the past few years considering its exclusive relationship with MyCoalition.

“The diversity of our membership helps us forge a direct and unambiguous path to a viable future for all students,” said Jenny Rickard, President & CEO of Common App. “Through membership with Common App, University of Maryland has demonstrated a shared commitment to pursuing access, equity, and integrity in the college admission process. Thanks to our members, all students have the opportunity to easily apply to the college or university that will help them achieve their best future.”

Yada, yada, yada. The words of a true monopolist. The Common App, with nearly 1,000 member colleges, just put the final stake in the heart of MyCoalition; the latter is going to die even sooner than most observers expected. What’s the point of MyCoalition now unless you are applying to U-Dub? Will it be far behind UMD in joining the Common App? So much for “promoting access and affordability” (the catchphrase of the Coalition App when it first launched) when today many colleges are just trying to survive the pandemic by turning to the Amazon of college admissions (the Common App) to pump up their application numbers when admissions officers have been marooned at home.

Expect Maryland to see a huge increase in first-year applications this fall, which means if you are serious about getting in, you must apply PRIORITY admission while not expecting what got students into Maryland last year will be enough to get you in this year when the university could see thousands of more applications than it has in previous years (this number may only be tempered by the ongoing pandemic, which could reduce serial applying from other quarters).

The Maryland announcement comes after other southern state schools, including Clemson, announced earlier this year that they were joining the Common App for the ’20-’21 admissions cycle.

“Your anguish is justified.” The ACT apology for canceling your registration.

Posted on August 1, 2020 by Craig

Many colleges have gone test-optional for the 2020-2021 admissions cycle, and so far, ACT, Inc., the publisher of the ACT, has done all it can make colleges appear prescient by doing so. When you can make the individuals running Mizzou (went test optional this week) appear forward-thinking you know you are really scraping the bottom of the barrel when it comes to organizational effectiveness.

Throughout the spring and early summer ACT administrations were cancelled with little to no notice. Students often registered for testing sites miles away from home in the hopes that they had found a rural school willing to allow them into the building to take the ACT only to find that they were student #251 out of 500 students in line, and the school, because of social distancing, was only accepting the first 250 students to show up.

All this happened with no warning or guidance from ACT, Inc.

In other cases, students showed up to a school on a Saturday morning only to find the whole place locked up and the ACT unable or unwilling to give any pre-test or post-test guidance as to why the test was never administered. Was it the ACT’s fault or was it that proctors just didn’t show up or was it because the school was closed by some higher power? Does it matter?

Obviously, the plague spreading around the Earth came at a time when many long-standing institutions were least capable of dealing with it. Most venerable institutions in the U.S. are notable for their lethargy, inflexibility, listlessness, and lack of leadership, and their reaction to doing business through a plague is to remain in denial as long as possible.

Yet, now that summer is waning, the hits keep on coming for the ACT.

The latest ACT snafu comes in the form of a random email some students who thought they successfully registered for the September ACT received this week that read as follows:

Hi [Student Name],

We’re sorry. We know on Monday you visited MyACT to register for the ACT test and did not have the experience you were hoping for or the one we wanted to provide you. Your anguish is justified.

We are refunding your full transaction amount that occurred on July 27 through MyACT.

Your order did not complete as expected and you do not currently have an ACT test registration.

MyACT will be up and running on Monday, August 3 at 10:00am CT, and you will be able to register successfully. Customer Support teams are not able to complete or change registrations until our system is back up on Monday.

Thanks for your patience.

What’s going on in Iowa? ACT, Inc. claims a new registration system is in the offing in 48 hours. Maybe come August 3 the powers that be at the ACT will wake up fully aware that their entire business model is hanging on by a thread and they will chart a positive course for the standardized test. But, would you be money on that? Chances are ACT, Inc. will keep stumbling from embarrassment to embarrassment into the fall and winter until someone who is actually a leader takes charge and proactively guides the organization forward in a world unlikely to return to fetid “normal” any time soon.

In the meantime, if you can earn a strong ACT or SAT score and the college(s) you are applying to is test optional, it’s still my recommendation to grin and bear this shady process. Test optional is not test blind; therefore, the clamor to take the SAT and ACT will remain no matter how bad both of these test makers behave.

The (former) SAT word for all of this: debacle. The (current) SAT words for all of this: hot mess.

Avoid Tuition Anxiety: Put Strong Merit Aid Colleges on Your List

Posted on July 22, 2020 by Neeta Vallab

Already mostly unaffordable for middle-class families, college costs have gone up by about twenty-five percent in just the last ten years. For the past two decades, sticker prices for public and private colleges have increased more than the rate of inflation almost every year. The average cost of attending a public four-year college is $22,000/per year and $50,000/per year for a private four-year college. Yet, there are ways for families that aren’t loaded to afford college in the United States.

Stay away from the ‘student loan trap’

Student loan debt is the second-highest household debt category ($1.6 trillion with 45 million borrowers!); only mortgage debt exceeds student loan debt.

Still, college graduates annually make about $32,000 more than high school graduates on average, and on average over $1 million more in a lifetime. There can be a huge payoff for going to college, but how can students avoid taking out outsized student loans for their education? The key to avoiding the student loan trap is to make your “out-of-pocket” expenses as low as possible and take out as small of a loan as possible (ideally one with a very low and subsidized interest rate as well). This is particularly important if you don’t qualify for some, any, or enough need-based financial aid, yet can’t afford to comfortably pay the Expected Family Contribution (EFC) of the college you want to attend.

Assess your financial situation

For many colleges, the Federal government methodology determines if you qualify for need-based aid and how much. Expected Family Contribution (EFC) calculations are based on information parents/guardians are asked to disclose regarding their financial history on the FAFSA form for financial aid. A family earning $130K per year would generally be considered ‘rich’ enough to pay 20% of their annual salary toward college costs.

Find scholarship money at the source

There’s a better strategy to help you reduce your out-of-pocket college expenses and that’s by finding and comparing merit aid offers. The largest pool of non-loan money is available directly from colleges in the form of merit aid scholarships. Understanding how colleges award these scholarships requires a thoughtful strategy. Having one can help you reduce tuition costs by thousands, and even tens of thousand of dollars. Colleges award over $8 to $10 billion dollars in merit scholarships annually, which is the largest pool of money available to families who don’t qualify for need-based grants.

What is merit aid and how does it work?

While mostly awarded to students who show academic excellence, merit aid is also awarded for other talents in music, art, or athletics. Merit Aid scholarships are used by colleges to attract students who can boost the applicant stats of a school. They’re usually offered to students in the top 25% of a college’s most recently admitted first-year class.

Because many colleges offer merit scholarships, you don’t need to have straight A’s or a 1600 SAT score to be awarded merit aid. Each school has its own top quartile stats.

Merit aid grants, unlike loans, don’t need to be repaid. In most cases, there’s no separate application process and colleges share award amounts in their acceptance letters. Most are renewable and you’re eligible to receive them for four years, but it’s important to check requirements and renewability. Often, you must maintain a certain GPA in order to continue to be eligible each year for the award.

How do you find merit aid?

Make a list of all the colleges you are interested in and find their common data set. Once found, you can apply top quartile data for your standardized test scores, but not for your GPA. You can go to the website of each college to find common data information or you can use the Common Data Set Initiative to find the information. A search engine called MeritMore allows you to search across schools to find and compare merit aid offers using your standardized tests scores and GPA.

What can you do with merit aid information?

First, check to see if your top schools may offer you merit aid. Second, compare aid offers from your top schools against each other. Third, explore other financial-fit schools that match your criteria, but may not have been on your radar. Finally, use merit aid comparison data to make informed decisions about colleges you can afford, the true cost of attending each college, and the total loan you may need to borrow.