Como obtener becas para estudiantes internacionales interesados en cursar sus estudios universitarios y de postgrado en USA? Claudine Vainrub, College Counselor o Consultor Educativo y Principal de EduPlan hablar acerca de este tema con Mercedes Soler en CNN – Notimujer.
Ten Ways To Pay For College Right Now – From Forbes
Ten Ways To Pay For College Right Now – Zack O%27Malley Greenburg – Forbes.
Wonderful Article!!! All these are pieces of advice we at EduPlan have provided for you over and over. Take a look at this list, and let me know if you are missing any of these steps so that we can review and complete them together!
Eyes on the Prize!
At this time of year it’s not just Christmas presents you should be wrapping up, but also your college applications. Deadlines are looming and it is not advisable to leave it to the last minute to submit your applications. Ideally, if you are applying Regular Decision, you will have completed all the necessary forms and essays for each school, made the appropriate requests of your teachers and guidance counselors and will have sent off the completed packages to the admissions offices of your selected schools. If you’re not at this stage yet, you need to get busy and fire off your applications in before it is too late!
For the majority of U.S. universities, the deadline for submitting your application is January 1st, but this is not necessarily the same for all schools. Some schools set their own agenda that varies from the norm. Always check each school’s website to verify the deadlines and schedules. The last thing you want is to be rejected from your preferred school because you missed the deadline.
If you happen to be one of those students who is well organized and have already submitted your applications, you can pat yourself on the back for a job well-done, but don’t relax yet. You’ve only completed the first part of your job and there’s more work ahead if you want to get admitted to college. You will have to spend the next few months keeping an eye on your applications to make sure everything is in order and none of your documents go astray. I recently learned about a student who thought she had successfully completed the admissions process to a prestigious Miami school, having sent out the online application, only to find out later on that the school rejected her for not receiving all her supporting documents by the deadline. Her school had not sent out the required transcripts and recommendation letter, and since she did not double check with her school, she lost her chances to gain acceptance to the college in question. Schools do make mistakes, colleges sometimes misplace documents too, so it is up to you to make sure that not only have you sent the correct documentation but also that everyone else involved in your application process has sent out or received the requested documents.
After you have submitted your applications, you should receive electronic and/or written notification of receipt. At some point, maybe three weeks into the process, it is a good idea to email or phone the school’s admissions office just to confirm that they have all the correct documentation. Alternatively, many schools have a system where you can track your application status on-line. Without making a nuisance of yourself, keep an eye on your application until it is up for review. Colleges receive thousands of applications each year – Penn State already had eight containers full as early as November – so it is no surprise that occasionally one application goes missing. Don’t let it be yours!
Once you have confirmed that all your paperwork is in the correct hands and nothing is missing, you can prepare yourself for the arduous task of waiting. Most schools send out notification of acceptance or rejection to Regular Decision candidates somewhere around the first week of April. That means you have at least three full months of waiting to hear what your future holds for you. My advice is to keep busy and whatever you do don’t succumb to “senioritis”. Continue to work hard on your studies and make every day count rather than counting the days till you find out where you will study next. Soon enough, you’ll be heading for college and embarking in your next experience of a lifetime!
Submitting Before the Big Jan 1st Deadline
It’s not too late yet to push that button, and it’s definitely not too early to click “submit” on your Common Application file. With the Regular Decision application deadline of January 1st (11:59pm) just around the corner, you should be wrapping up your college application, checking it twice and preparing to send it off, leaving yourself plenty of time for any missed documents, forgotten information or technical errors.
Each year, there are an inordinate number of students who seem to think it’s okay to put off submitting their college applications until the very last minute, but these students are taking huge risks when they do this. This application will determine how you will spend the next four or more years, and ultimately, the rest of your life, so it needs to be taken very seriously. It goes without saying that almost all graduating high school students feel pretty overwhelmed around this time of the year what with the upcoming holidays and trying to get good grades, maintain a social life and figure out what they want to do once they graduate. But, somewhere in the stress of daily life, it pays to methodically organize the myriad pieces of your college application, check, check and double check that everything is in order, then submit it well before the January 1st deadline.
Studentadvisor.com writes on their blog, “It is not urban legend that websites slow down and servers crash. This happens every year with multiple colleges. Submit early to avoid the stress of seeing your application timeout each time you try to submit.”1 So many students attempt to submit their application at the last minute that the servers actually crash and they miss the deadline.
Another potential technical nightmare can be caused by winter or wind storms taking down lines and shutting down the Internet completely. It’s been known to happen before and it can happen again. In fact, any number of technical glitches could occur when sending off your application, and if you’ve left it till the eleventh hour, you simply cannot try later. You get the picture.
Anyone applying for college knows there are endless strands to tie together in the application process. The more schools you apply to, the more paperwork there is to organize. Good organization takes time. By starting early, you allow yourself enough time to complete your part of the application and make sure everybody else has done their bit. Remember, high school teachers and counselors are very busy people, helping hundreds of students get off to college, but they are also human and may sometimes accidentally neglect to send off a letter of recommendation, transcripts, etc. Also, they go on vacation, just like you, and might be taking a break right before your deadline. Allow yourself enough time to chase up any missing or erroneous documents.
Let’s face it – we all make mistakes every now and then. The college application, however, is not the place for errors. From the minute you start the application process, READ THE INSTRUCTIONS CAREFULLY. Then re-read them. Make sure you complete every form accurately, stick to the word limits on the essays, and get the right people to provide the right documents. Check your spelling and maybe even ask someone else to check it again. Do NOT rely on Word’s automatic Spell Check! Typos happen to the best of us, so proofread carefully to make sure you have really written everything just as you meant to. If you are applying to more than one school you may have cut and pasted some of your information. This can lead to some denials if you don’t go over each application individually to ensure you are sending the correct information to each specific school. A kiss of death is to send to say to Michigan that you would love to attend Virginia, for example. This almost happened to me, when applying for MBA admissions. However, I was cautious and caught the error on time to not only correct it but also to comply with the deadline. Make 100% sure the worst case scenario doesn’t happen to you!
January 1st may feel far away, but it is rapidly approaching, so today would be a good time to start wrapping up your college application. Make a tick list and approach it systematically. Your application is your first introduction to the school you hope to attend, so you want to make a good impression. Spelling errors, incomplete or incorrect information and tardiness do not look good in the world of academia and can seriously jeopardize your chances of getting into a college, let alone a good college. Every year hundreds of students miss the Common Application deadline because they left it till the last minute.
If you get busy now, you still have time to submit your application on time, and conquer the intricate admissions process!
References:
1 Mody, Purvi S. “The 6 Worst College Application Mistakes.” Studentadvisor.com (22/11/11)
School Administrator Takes Standardized Tests
What do standardized tests really do for students, schools and colleges? Are they truly a measure of future success? Find out what happened when an accomplished school administrator took the tests… READ THE ENTIRE WASHINGTON POST ARTICLE HERE
It’s time for Florida Bright Futures!
Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus! Particularly if you happen to be a college-bound resident of Florida. Funded by the State Lottery, every year the Florida Department of Education (FDOE) hands out an impressive amount of cash to high school graduates heading off to college. But, just like you have to earn your Christmas presents by being good, in order to qualify for this free money, you have to meet a small list of criteria. The good news is that these guys really want to support higher education so they offer three separate programs to attract as many potential shining stars as possible to complete postsecondary education and keep Florida bright.
Created in 1997, the Florida Bright Futures Scholarship Program has assisted hundreds of thousands of young Floridians in pursuing postsecondary education, both academic and vocational. Initially, the program paid a fixed percentage (100% to be precise) of the college fees as well as contributing towards the cost of books. Over the past few years, however, the form of payment has been changed to a fixed-dollar amount calculated on a cost per credit hour basis. With college fees ever increasing, the percentage covered by the Bright Futures Scholarship has decreased to about 75%. Though the scholarship no longer covers the full cost of college tuition, this can still prove to be very helpful in keeping college-incurred debts down.
The Florida Bright Futures Scholarship Program offers three different scholarships to assist successful Florida high school graduates to go to college. The top scholarship in this program is the Florida Academic Scholars (FAS) award followed by the Florida Medallion Scholars (FMS) award and the Florida Gold Seal Vocational Scholars (GSV) award. All three scholarships are only available to Florida residents who have attended a Florida high school and will be enrolling in an eligible Florida college. There is funding for both part-time and full-time college attendance. While most of the recipients of these awards will be attending university straight after graduating from high school, some students may choose to delay their studies. These students should still apply for a Florida Bright Futures scholarship as eligible students have up to three years from high school graduation to begin using the scholarship.1 Once you have been awarded a Florida Bright Futures scholarship and have started to attend college, you can continue to receive the award each year while you earn your baccalaureate degree if you maintain your GPA.
Though it takes some navigating to find all the specific information on this program, the Florida Student Scholarship and Grants website run by the Florida Department Of Education (FDOE) does provide you with complete details of the Florida Bright Futures Scholarship program as well as information on many other financial aid options. To learn about the eligibility requirements for the three Bright Futures scholarships, your first click after entering the website at http://www.floridastudentfinancialaid.org/ssfad/bf/ is Programs Offered. Here you have the option to click on Florida Bright Futures Scholarship Program that will take you to a fact sheet telling you all you need to know about eligibility, applying, and award procedures. There is a tick list of initial eligibility requirements stating that the applicant must be a Florida resident; a U.S. citizen (or eligible non-citizen); must not owe any outstanding debts on state or federal grant, loan, or scholarship program; and must meet specific coursework and minimum GPA and test score requirements. Students applying for the FAS award must carry a 3.0 GPA and have achieved a minimum SAT score of 1270, or 28 on the ACT. Students applying for FMS award must carry a 2.75 GPA and have a minimum SAT score of 980 or 21 on the ACT. Applicants for the GSV award must also carry a 2.75 GPA and must earn a minimum score of 440 on each section (Critical Reading and Math) of the SAT, or a minimum of 17 on English, 18 on Reading and 19 on Math on the ACT. Getting good grades isn’t everything though – you must get good grades in specific classes, so be sure to check the course requirements early (as early as grade 9 if you can!) and allow yourself plenty of time to take the necessary classes. As well as reaching these academic targets, students intending to apply for a Florida Bright Futures scholarship need to also rack up a minimum number of hours performing community services.2
If you have met all the requirements and are hoping to receive a Florida Bright Futures scholarship, it is a good idea to apply early as the funds are finite and can run out depending on the number of applicants. Students should apply during their final year of high school any time between December 1st when the Florida Office of Student Financial Assistance opens up the application process and the date of graduation. If at all possible, try to get your application in before Christmas to maximize your chances of being awarded a scholarship. Remember, this is certainly the case when sooner is better, as scholarship funds are not bottomless.
Start the application process by completing the Initial Student Florida Financial Aid Application (FFAA) online at www.FloridaStudentFinancialAid.org. This application gives the FDOE permission to evaluate the applicant’s high school transcripts for eligibility for a Florida Bright Futures Scholarship.3 Though the Florida Bright Futures scholarship is merit based and not offered according to financial need,students must now also complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). The application requires families to provide tax data, including documented earnings for the previous year. Any one who neglects to submit a complete, error-free FAFSA will not be considered for a Florida Bright Scholars award. The rest of the application process can also be completed on line. Be sure to keep an eye on your application status to make sure that all your information has been properly submitted (your transcripts and test results should be submitted automatically if you have provided all the correct information) and to find out if you have been successful in your application. The final determination and information on how to access your award, if you are successful, will be posted on your Initial Student Florida Financial Aid Application (FFAA) record.
Whether you are a high school freshman or in your senior year, if you live in Florida and have worked hard at your studies, it is definitely worth a visit to the Florida Student Financial Aid website to see if you are eligible for some free money. The Florida Bright Futures programs offer thousands of Florida students each year the opportunity to attend college at very little personal expense. If you are a high school senior and think you meet the necessary criteria, start your application process on December 1st and it may just start to feel like Christmas for you this year!
References:
1 “Go Higher Florida, Education Pays.” Facts.org. (08/11/11)
2 Florida Student Scholarship & Grant Programs. Florida Student Financial Aid.org (6/11/11)
http://www.floridastudentfinancialaid.org/ssfad/bf/
3 “How and When to Apply.” Florida Student Scholarship & Grant Programs. Florida Student Financial Aid.org (6/11/11)
http://www.floridastudentfinancialaid.org/ssfad/bf/howapply.htm
MIT takes Measures to Prevent more Suicides
With two suicides happening at MIT in the last two months, MIT leadership takes measures to support students and prevent further tragedy.
In its article “MIT reexamines campus efforts after 2 suicides,” The Boston Globe talks about the deceased, their families, friends and the support available on campus for this not to continue happening.
The Ivy Dream – Correlating Success with College Brand
Do you know what Richard Branson (CEO of Virgin), Michael Dell (CEO of Dell Computers), and Paul Allen (Microsoft’s co-founder) have in common? These corporate superstars never attended, nor graduated, from an Ivy League school. Yet today, they are considered some of the most successful executives in the world.
The Ivy League dream. Many students suffer from it; many parents desire it for their children —to earn an education in a brand-name school that can secure a top salary, offer amazing career opportunities, and the chance to take that next step to become a great leader. Or not? Every day, we hear more success stories about professionals who did not attend a top-tier school. One interesting case was shown by Dale and Krueger’s research paper “Estimating the Payoff to Attending a More Selective College.” This team of respected scholars conducted an in-depth study and concluded that if you are talented enough to gain acceptance to a top-tier school, whether you actually attend that school or not will make no statistical difference in your income twenty years after graduation. The study presented current income for the class of 1976 freshman of 34 colleges. The range went from students that gained admission to some highly selective schools such as Yale, Dartmouth, and Harvard, and students that attended less selective schools such as Penn State and Denison University. The study assessed whether the average annual earnings for students attending Princeton and Columbia, for example, would differ if they would have attended a less selective school. We might find this surprising (I actually find it refreshing), but the research findings proved that attending (or not) an elite school will not directly help or harm a student’s capacity to be positioned in a higher or lower pay scale. What Krueger and Dale concluded is also supported by tons of anecdotal information, as Gregg Easterbrook quotes in his article “Who Needs Harvard?” One of the examples he offers is the U.S. Senate, which only lists twenty-six members with undergraduate degrees from super selective schools, while explaining that “half of U.S. senators are graduates of public universities, and many went to “states”—among them Chico State, Colorado State, Iowa State,…” What does this mean for students? It means that there certainly is a wide range of great choices for students seeking an education that propels an outstanding career.
As a college counselor, stressing over college choices is part of my daily routine. However, my stress is related to finding schools with the right fit for the student. I want to make sure that the college the student finally selects is one where they’ll be able to thrive academically, socially, and personally, while opening opportunities for career advancement. Oftentimes, parents and students themselves feel the pressure of choosing a school for the wrong reasons – name recognition, rankings, status quo in the admissions world, and, simply, brand name recognition. I see students often believing that selectivity is correlated with future professional success. As Dale and Krueger, and countless personal examples have proven, this is not so. So taking this out of the equation, since it is no longer valid (right?), let’s evaluate what really is important.
I’ll start with the reminder that the college admissions process should not be a student’s final life goal. When admissions are seen as the means to an end, but not as the award received for doing everything right, that is a start with the right foot. Going to college is one small step (albeit an important one) in what hopefully will become a long-term professional success story. The buck does not stop here! If you gain admission to the college of your choice, it does not mean that you have “arrived.” Often, I see students thinking that they have it made because they are attending an Ivy League school. This couldn’t be farther from the truth. These same students have an equal chance to find themselves unemployed after graduation as those attending less prestigious schools. It is what got you in to a school that can help you get far: discipline, creativity, sense of responsibility, and maturity used during the college admissions process. These traits, and others like perseverance, ambition, and any exceptional abilities you possess, are important aspects of who you are and what you offer as a professional. Keeping this in mind, you will be ready to take advantage of the opportunities placed in front of you.
Know this: when choosing a school considering fit, you will gain acceptance to a community where you have a great chance to thrive. It will make no difference in your long-term career success if you attend a highly selective school or not. However, your talent, commitment, ambition, and the opportunities you take to challenge yourself will be essential to secure a place in a great Master’s/Doctoral program, to open doors professionally, and ultimately to achieve your career goals. So, get ready to combine these attributes and the educational opportunities provided to you in order to seize your future and become the superstar you are meant to be!
The Early Decision Dilemma
Applying to college is a gamble. You send your applications and test results off to a handful of universities with no guarantee of which ones will accept you, which one you will choose, or if you’re going to be happy with the end result. You play your cards and hope to win. There are a few steps you can take, however, to increase your chances of a happy outcome. The obvious step is to be extremely studious, ace your exams and get top grades. Another way of increasing the odds of getting into a good college is to apply Early Decision, but this option comes with its own set of risks, and is generally beneficial to only a select group of applicants.
The Early Decision program is a binding contract between the student and the institution whereby they mutually agree early on – the ED application deadline for 2011 is November 1st, and the student can expect to hear from the school within a month – that the student will attend that school and withdraw all other college applications. The only way you can break this contract is if you can prove that the school’s financial aid offer is insufficient for your needs. Because of its binding nature, it is designed for students who are completely, 100% certain about which school they wish to attend. If you have any doubt about where you want to study, ED is not for you. If, however, you are one of the few students who do feel fully committed to attending a particular college, ED can make the college application process a relatively smooth experience. You may only apply ED to one college, but you should consider sending regular applications to other schools in case you are not accepted to your first choice. Not all schools use the ED program, so be sure to check the school websites if you are considering this option.
Applying Early Decision can be quite advantageous if you have done the research and truly feel you have chosen a college that you can afford and is a good fit. Using this program can increase your chances of gaining admission, since the school knows that you will be attending if accepted. This allows schools to admit students that will enhance their yield (percentage of admitted students that decide to attend), which positively impacts school rankings.
Applying ED can also eliminate a great deal of the stress typically involved in the college admissions process. There’s a lot to be said for knowing where you are going to study, as you can stop waiting and worrying and start to focus on your priorities. Likewise, you can save a lot of money by reducing the number of applications you file. Statistics show that students who apply ED increase their chances of admission, possibly due to the fact that these students tend to have high academic records. Applying ED can also increase your financial aid package as the school coffers are still be quite full at this stage of the game. Schools like to have a good idea of how many students will be attending and paying fees each year and ED helps them plan their budget. It’s a win-win situation.
But Early Decision is not for everyone. If you are one of the many students whose higher education choices will be strongly influenced by finances, then you will probably want to take the standard route to applying for college. Most colleges offering ED are private schools with high fees. They may offer some level of financial assistance, but when applying ED, you do not have the option of comparing financial aid offers. Once you have been accepted, you cannot wait to see if a different school will offer you more money. State schools do not generally offer the ED program, but tend to be much more affordable. Unfortunately, this is a real deciding factor for many students.
Another disadvantage to the ED program is the pressure it puts on young people to make a very big decision. Choosing where you want to spend the next four years studying is no small matter and many students just haven’t completely decided by their senior year. Applying to a variety of schools can help with this process. When you send out your applications, choose schools where you think you will be happy. No choice will feel perfect, but lots of choices will feel very good. Look for schools where you think you will be happy, but let go of any expectations of finding a school where you will be happiest. All campuses will have things you like and things you hate.
There is no doubt that in every graduating class there will be a group of students who will benefit from applying ED as it will get them into their first choice college and they can spend the rest of their senior year focusing on their studies. These students have done their research and set their sites on a particular college. Most high school seniors, however, will apply to many colleges and choose their final destination by a process of elimination. Both systems work, but ultimately, it is up to the individual student to decide if ED is the best option for them specifically when applying to college.
