Sunday, November 30, 2014

Senior Year

Of the four years in high school, senior year is when you need to execute the plan you’ve been working on for the previous three years. By now, you should have determined which schools you intend to apply to and be well versed in their admission requirements and deadlines. My general rule of thumb for senior year is to spend the fall getting into college and the spring figuring out how to pay for it.
Ideally, you’ll want to get your admissions applications into colleges during the fall. Some colleges have very rigid deadlines in the fall while others will accept applications into the spring on a rolling basis. You’ll also need to consider early action and early decision deadlines for schools that offer those. For some seniors, it may be worthwhile to take the ACT or SAT at one of the earliest administrations in the fall. I recommend these not be your first attempts at the test. These should follow tests you took during your junior year.
As far as the application itself is concerned, remember that there are four parts to a complete application--it doesn’t matter what order a college receives them in, as long as they get them all. Those four parts are the application itself, the application fee, transcripts, and standardized test scores. Your application won’t be considered complete until all four of these parts are in and it is your responsibility, not your school counselor’s, to ensure all these make it to the colleges. At most colleges, you’ll end up creating an online account of some kind where you can track your application status.
Once all your applications are in, you’ll be playing the waiting the game for your admission decisions. That waiting period is a great time to familiarize yourself with the financial aid websites of the colleges to which you applied. There, you’ll find information about the school’s institutional scholarships as well as pertinent deadlines. You’ll want to make sure you apply for any and all of those you are eligible for.
When January rolls around, students and parents will want to be in position to file their taxes for the previous year as quickly as possible. This will put you in position to complete the FAFSA accurately and meet the colleges’ financial aid deadlines which come quickly in the new year.
After the FAFSA is filed you’ll receive financial packages that include scholarships, grants, loans, and work study opportunities from the colleges to which you were accepted. You may use these packages as part of the process in deciding which college to attend. Once that decision is made (you must do so by May 1st), make sure you follow directions related to housing and provide a final transcript to the college upon graduation.  
Once that decision is made, and you’ve got all your financial aid lined up, you’ll be ready to go off to college. High school is all about preparing you for life as an adult. For some, that means a career, but for many it means college. Having a strategy for life after high school graduation is critical to that and senior year is where the rubber meets the road.