CollegePlanning

my name is tom woodford and i have the best job that you can have in hillyard city schools i get to work with all of our students and talk about what they're going to do after high school and so as i speak with them we get to talk about going to college working in the workplace but i get to talk to all of these kids about what is going to happen next so let's get started so as our students plan act and sat is a big topic out there the act historically has been offered about seven times a year they just started offering one session over the summer every school in the country will use both tests so whichever test that the student feels best fits them they can use and so when students choose to take the a.c.t historically they start to take that in the spring of their junior year if they choose to take that test they're usually going to take it probably three times and the reason why students would take it three times is because um some schools will actually super score and super scoring is when you take a test multiple times and let's say you score 26 each time a school like ohio state they're going to say that that student has a 26. a school like miami or even case western whose super scores they might say that this student has a 28 or even a 29 and that happens because they will always take the highest reading english math and science across all of those tests to create a new score for them now for the s.a.t it is usually offered again seven times a year it is very different test that it is made up of an english section as well as a math section and both of those tests have an optional writing which you do not have to take i suggest students take the writing section once on either one of those tests just in case they apply to a school that's going to ask for that again if schools will superscore the sad like oh you they will take your highest reading and your highest math score from various tests to create a new final score so it's important to know too that we will host the s.a.t for all of our juniors students do not need to sign up for that we will take care of that students do not need to pay for it the state of ohio is going to pay for that so we will give the sct at the high schools in the month of april for all of our juniors now we're hearing about a lot of schools going test optional test optional was a big movement that had started years and years ago prior to march there were already over 1 000 colleges all over the country that did not you did not have to send any of your act or your sat scores to a school like wake forest they have been test optional for 15 years but due to everything that has happened and they know that students especially in this current senior class they were not able to take a test many of the sites were closed or they just were not able to actually take the test so now it's up to about 17 or 1800 colleges all over the country that are test optional which means if they do not have a test score you don't have to send it if you have a test score and you don't like your score you don't have to send that either now there's also a movement about a lot of schools that are test blind and actually in the state of california all of the state schools they have to be test blind which means they are not allowed to use any type of test scores in the process of making a choice if a student is going to get in to their school even schools like cal berkeley uc irvine university of san diego schools like that that are great academic schools they will not use any type of test scores it's important as you're going through this process and especially as you start to meet with various schools and you go on visits you understand the language that is being used so you're going to hear terms and we're going to go over those terms so you know exactly what they mean the first one is early decision this is a binding choice not all schools offer this as a choice a school like case western does as well as miami of ohio they do as well and so basically you are telling them when i say you this is the student the student is telling that school you are my first choice and if you admit me that's where i'm i am going to attend by rule if you get accepted to your ed class or your ed school then you have to cancel all of your applications to all of your other schools you can only apply to one ed school early action is something very different you can apply to as many early action schools as you would like ohio state is an early action school okay and it's usually what that means is students would apply earlier and they will find out much earlier if they're in they don't have to make any choice may 1st is the date that students have to make a choice so they have plenty of time to think about all of those options but early action students can apply to as many schools as they want restricted early action is an option that is used for about 12 or 13 schools all over the country these are usually the stanfords of the world the ivy leagues and that is basically the student telling those 12 or 13 schools that you you are my number one choice of that group it is non-binding but it does let them know that they are your first choice then most colleges have an application deadline that is much later that if they don't want to apply by the early deadlines they have a much later date as well february 1st is usually that date we've already gone over super scoring we're going to talk more about the common app and holistic review i have a slide on that but holistic review is what all of the colleges use to review all of the students at no time does any college ever look at a student's transcript and put it side by side to any other student's transcript how are students going to apply there's four different types of applications out there the most common is the common application over 900 colleges and over half of the schools in ohio use this one application students still have to pay for each app that goes out to various schools but it is one application that is used every school that's going to use that one application they also have a section of their own questions and things like that that are specific to them then many colleges sometimes have their own application which they may not want to use the common app but so they're going to make their own application some schools actually have both one is not i always have students asking which one's better one as long as the student fills out one of them they are good to go the universal app only about 50 colleges all over the country use that application honestly i've never seen it because all 50 of those schools also use some other form of a app that they use as well and then about four years ago a few colleges came together in the ivy leagues and now it's up to about 200 colleges that are using the coalition application that is a different application that colleges have have to actually request to actually be a part of that group every one of those schools also use common app typically that's what our kids use visits it's very important that our students go on visits even now when a lot of schools might not be hosting those visits i know i sent out a tweet monday or tuesday talking about otterbein otterbein is still actually hosting face-to-face tours so as students sign up for them online or if you speak to a rep from various colleges it's important that you ask them are you going to give face-to-face tours and if you do it is a great opportunity to hear about what's happening on that campus everything that that school is going to offer you will also have an opportunity to go on a walking tour and and hear about all of the different buildings and and the various things that are happening there on campus and then usually you have an opportunity to meet somebody in a specific major so you can ask questions based on what your child wants to actually study so um each year we have over 100 colleges that actually come to hilliard to see our juniors and seniors right now various colleges are not allowing their reps to leave campus so we have uh made a way for those reps to actually talk to our students so inside all of the students naviance account they can look under what's new and we will have a list of all these colleges that have set up virtual meetings for all of our kids in all three high schools they can sign up for them they can sit down they can meet with them they can speak to the rep who's going to read their application they can go through a various presentation and they can hear they can hear what that school offers them and then if they have questions they actually have somebody they can speak to to hopefully get as many of those answered at the same time there is also a college fair that's going on throughout the fall it's at oacac.org colleges from all over the country are signing up and holding 45 minute sessions so students can can log in again they can meet with somebody from that school financial aid i talk to parents every day that worry about paying for school i am painfully aware of that i've got one out of college and i have one in now painfully aware of what that is so financial aid there is a form it's called the fafsa the free application for federal student aid that parents can fill out after october 1st of their child's senior year they will use the tax returns from two years back from when their child is going to start school so this year's current seniors when parents filled out the fafsa hopefully they're doing it now they're going to use their tax returns from 2019. every year we will offer a financial aid seminar the last week of september so all of our parents are ready um i sent out a video of that two weeks ago and so i know that our families are watching it and they're working on those forms now now a lot of schools in the south and a lot of the private schools all over the country not only do they use fafsa but they also use a form called the css profile this is a different form that many schools might use to create the financial aid package so it's important when you see what parents need to turn in what students need to turn in and you see the deadlines and if you see fafsa which you will see and you see the css profile you have to fill out both the css profile parents can find that form on the college board website it is there there is a list of also scholarship sites all over the country in hilliard we are very fortunate that we have a lot of sponsors from um here who want to sponsor our kids and so right now we are emailing them and speaking with them if they're going to sponsor those same scott all of those same scholarships for this year we will have all of those posted inside the students account by about the first first of january then there's usually a deadline later on around march 1st or so when all of those have to be in some of them are just an application some of them might have an interview but this is money just for hillyard students there's also a few sites here as you can see on the slides that are open for franklin county students as well as scholarship sites that are open to everybody throughout the u.s financial aid terms so when our parents go to fill out the fafsa it's very important that they go to fafsa.gov do not go to dot com or dot org that is not the right site remember it is the free application for federal student aid there should you should be paying no fees for that form so once parents fill out that form the federal government's going to run their little calculation then within 72 hours they're going to give you feedback on what the federal government says you can afford for your child's college it's called the efc i'm going to tell you now you're not going to agree with that data okay but this is what is used at all of the schools that your child is going to get into to help them create a financial aid package from there if you as a parent want to talk to them then you would reach out to the financial aid office at that school the css profile is something else used as well we've already talked about it but the difference is when you fill out the css profile as a parent you do not get any feedback of what your efc is the only way you can find that out is by asking the financial aid office if you ask them they have to tell you what your efc is for the css profile i can almost guarantee you they're not going to match so you as a parent then can ask a simple question to the financial aid office which one of these documents are you going to use to create the financial aid package they have to answer that for you they don't have to tell you up front but if you ask they have to tell you some of you may may have students who are freshmen sophomores and juniors and you may want to figure out what what is my efc you can actually go to fafsaforecaster.gov and it's a simple process but it will give you an idea of what your efc is now if you can't wait until your child's a senior this will give you a fairly good idea of what that is going to be and then about six years ago because when you look on various schools websites you're going to see the cost of that school you're going to see all of these different prices but then you hear from friends what the true cost was and usually they don't match so about six years ago every college in the country is mandated that they have a thing called a net price calculator on their website within two clicks of the home page um it should take you a half an hour to 45 minutes to fill this out this will give you an estimate of what the true cost is going to be at that school i think it's also important for students and parents to have questions this is a list of questions i'm not going to read through them but i also think too where as you ask these questions you can also create more questions based on the current situation that we're having right now i think a very important question is how how are your kids in school right now are they online are they in a hybrid setting or are they going face to face it's important to know how they are um how those students are going to school now how are they how are they planning for next year also if your child is a junior and you hear about all these test optional schools this year you want to ask is your school going to be test optional next year when your child is a senior you want to know how the landscape is going to change so it's important that you have questions you write down answers so when you leave that will help everybody create some type of conversation about those schools social media social media parents i'm going to help you here we've you've told your parents or you've told your kids over and over again to watch what they put on social media it's important to understand that colleges also track students there so many reps might ask to friend students on facebook or or even on instagram because they can send them information about the school quickly it's easy and it's cheap but if they can also send that information then they can also see what they are going to post so it's important that kids understand that and i always say if you're not gonna if you're if you're gonna put something on instagram that you want that you would not want your grandma to see i wouldn't post it it's important too that every application is tied to an email address if they made the email in fourth grade it probably sounds like it so they need need to make a new one so what is a holistic review holistic review is they're going to look at students they're going to look at their grades their high school gpa they're going to look at a rank if there is one they're going to look at act scores unless they are a test blind school or even a test optional school they're going to look at the courses your child has taken compared to the courses that the school offers when we send a transcript we also send a school profile and it shows them uh shows all those colleges what kind of ap courses we offer what kind of honors courses we offer what kind of college courses do we offer what kind of courses do we offer in the fine arts and things like that so it's important that the kids know that it's important too when they create their senior schedule that they understand the senior schedule is a part of the review many colleges email us and ask for grades right after january 1st so it's important that you understand senior year does matter i had someone from the university of south carolina tell me tell your seniors that senior year is not a recreational a recreational activity it does mean something and even when kids get accepted nothing is finalized until the colleges receive the final transcript so when they get the final transcript in june colleges can still change their mind based on what kids did do or what they didn't do second semester volunteering and service being a part of clubs in school being being a part of out of school activities with the intent to take on some leadership roles that's very important where colleges really get to see and create a vision of who our kids are is in what they write not only in the application but in their school essays they really get to find out more in depth who is that student and also okay so the last piece of a holistic review is demonstrated interest colleges track how many times they have spoken with a student they track how many times they've sent various emails to students many times they know if the students opened up those emails they also know did they click on the link that's inside the emails and many times they can also tell how long did they stay inside that link and so it's important as kids visit they always go through the go through the school of admissions so they can track them schools like case western it's very important demonstrated interest is very important if you've never logged in with them they've never talked to you you've never been on campus your chances of of actually getting in are very small and so it's it's important that uh kids answer their emails um speak to the reps and then um follow up as soon as they're finished as well so as i said i have the best job you can have in hillary city schools i get to talk to students and parents about going to college about what is after high school and so if you ever want to meet with me feel free to send me an email or follow me on twitter every day i send out tweets that are only about college you're not going to see any pictures about my family but it's only about college a-c-t-s-a-t various meetings various articles that are written so please follow me at woodford underscore tom thank you

Channel: Tom Woodford

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Id: sFPpivgC9jo

Length: 24min 46sec (1486 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 07 2020