I
get asked all the time: "Does working with you really make a
difference?"
Well, the answer is "YES!"
"A Tale Of Two
Families"
This is the story of two families, The Taylors and The Jacobs* (real families, but not their real names).
The Taylors "did it themselves," following the advice of both the guidance counselors and the college financial aid officers.
The Jacobs,
on the other hand, took control of the college admissions and financial aid
process, and with my help had a very different outcome.
Both families start out in roughly the same financial situation, and their children applied to the same colleges since they both had B averages and 1100 combined Critical Reading/Math on their SAT's.
However, that is where the similarities end and our story begins. First the Taylors' story...
The Taylors started to think about the college admissions and financial aid process around August, right before the start of their son, Josh's, senior year of high school.
Mike
and Sarah Taylor had a combined income of $60,000, $40,000 in savings, a home
worth approximately $350,000, and a rental property worth $160,000. They had about $20,000 saved for
college, in a CD.
They met with me, sharing their college concerns. We discussed potential solutions that would help Josh not
only get noticed by the college admissions office, but could also help them get
the most money possible.
While they seriously considered getting my help with the college
admissions and financial aid process, they decided it would be "cheaper to
do it themselves." Boy, were they wrong.
They
let Josh pick his colleges, which he did mostly based on where his friends were
also applying. Because he
was a football player, and because he didn't think "applications were a
big deal," he didn't even start his college applications until after his
season was over in November of his Senior year.
Josh completed all of his applications in a grueling, "application frenzy" during his Christmas vacation and then sat back and waited to hear from the colleges.
Mike and Sarah and filled out the financial aid forms themselves in early March when they got their tax returns done. They then waited.
They
got back their Student Aid Report (this is what the government sends you after
you file a financial aid form) and, much to their surprise, this complicated
report told them the following :
It said their family contribution (the minimum amount they would have to pay at any school) was $20,600.
The
Taylors stared at the report in amazement.
Mike said a year later to me: "I couldn't believe that this report was telling me the exact same thing that you had told us back in August when we saw you. That two average folks making a modest income with very little savings had to pay this much!
Where in the world
did they expect us to get all this money from? We're already up to our eyeballs
in bills, and our savings was supposed to be for retirement. I was just at a loss on how in the
world we were going to send Josh to college."
Around
April, Josh started getting financial aid award letters back from the colleges
to which he had applied. He got
his first one back from a small, private liberal arts college on the East
Coast.
When they opened it, everyone was shocked.
According to the the college award letter, even though, according to the Student Aid Report, the family contribution was $20,600, the award letter said they would have to come up with $26,000.
But
that wasn't the worst of it! The
money the school was offering was almost all loans with the exception of a
$2500 grant.
"They had made several CRITICAL mistakes throughout the college admissions and financial aid process and ended up losing out on a lot of money to help pay the college bill."
Josh got the rest of his award letters from the other schools. Unfortunately, most of them were just as bad, if not worse, as the first one.
The
Taylors had a tough decision to make - should they tell Josh they couldn't
afford to pay for his college education, or should they sacrifice?
They decided to use their life's savings to pay for the first year, and had planned on taking out a home equity loan to help pay for years 2, 3, and 4.
However,
the collapse of the housing market brought them back to my door after Josh's
freshman year looking for help.
* * *
The
story of the Jacobs turned out a lot differently.
Phil and Gina Jacobs started thinking about the college process in February of their son, Don's junior year – much earlier than the Taylors. Like the Taylors, they too, also had a combined income of $60,000, a savings of about $40,000, a home worth $350,000, and a rental property.
After
meeting with me and discussing their situation, they decided to work with me
and take control of the process.
Together, the Jacobs and I tackled the college admissions and financial aid process as part of an integrated plan.
Working with Don, I helped him:
o Get a better sense of his strengths and identified possible careers that played to those strengths.
o
Target and select the right schools that not only had the programs he wanted and
needed to further his goals but also that had the money for the family's
particular situation to help them pay the bill.
o Create a message to help him promote himself to the colleges as well as a communications plan to use the message consistently – helping him stand out from the huge stack of other applicants sitting on the college admissions officers' desks.
o
Get
the applications done, so that he could
still have fun senior year!
Working with Don's parents, I helped them:
o Understand and use the rules of financial aid to their advantage—so they were in a better position to get as much money as possible
from the financial aid offices.
o Ensure they completed all of the financial aid paperwork quickly, accurately and on time so they didn't give the colleges any reason to deny them money they were eligible to receive.
Unlike the Taylors, the
Jacobs felt confident that, at the very least, they had done everything within
their power to help their son get NOTICED, get IN and, most importantly, get
MONEY to help them pay the college bill.
The first good sign was when they received their Student Aid Report. It said their family contribution was only $11,500. This was $9,100 less than what the Taylors had to pay - all because the Jacobs took control of the process before they filed their forms. They also discovered that their forms went in "error-free" so they wouldn't have to re-submit any forms.
But
the best was yet to come….
Their son, Don, started to get his award letters back from the colleges he applied to. Among all the seven schools he applied to, he had also applied to the same small liberal arts college that Josh Taylor had, but his financial aid award looked vastly different.
Unlike Josh, who had waited until the last minute possible to get his applications done, Don had taken his time and didn't just throw his applications together in a mad, frantic race to get it all done.
As a result, he was considered for scholarships and received a letter in February saying he had been awarded $12,000 per year as long as he maintained a certain Grade Point Average. This alone was worth $48,000 over four years.
Then in early April, he received the rest of his financial aid award notice.
In addition to the $12,000 academic scholarship he had received in February, he also received a financial aid package that said the family would only have to pay their $11,500 expected family contribution. His academic scholarship, plus mostly need-based grant money and one student loan met all of the family's need.
Don also started receiving award letters from the rest of the schools, and the monies offered were almost exactly what I had told him to expect.
Phil and Gina had an easy decision to make. All they had to do was come up with their family contribution, and most of the schools offered enough financial aid to cover the rest of the expenses.
Don ended up going to the same small, private liberal arts college as Josh. BUT, his parents didn't have to spend their life's savings or mortgage their house to the hilt to make it happen.
The
Jacobs got the college dream for their son without it becoming their financial
nightmare!
* * *
What
was the difference between these two families?
On
the surface, they both looked the same. They had similar incomes, assets, and
both students had similar grades and SAT scores.
The only difference was that The Jacobs took control of the process instead of "sitting back and hoping for the best" -- and put MORE money back in their pocket as a result!
If you'd like more information on how you, too, can take control of the process, read about how I help students, and then give me a call at 410-715-2116 so we can schedule time to talk about your college admissions and financial aid worries, ask key questions and discuss solutions that can help you get NOTICED, get IN and get MONEY to help pay the college bill!