One of the best things about working for Collegewise is getting to collaborate with my brilliant colleagues. Today, I’ve asked my friend and fellow Bay Area counselor, Marisela Gomez, to tackle financial aid with me. Marisela spent twelve years working in admissions at Santa Clara University before joining Collegewise in 2014. She is especially knowledgeable about the process of paying for college, and offered to share some of her expertise here.   

From our experience, most families are concerned about financial aid. And rightfully so.  Some colleges are very clear on how much financial aid a family will receive, while other colleges are less transparent. This ambiguity creates a lot of anxiety, but there are a few tools that can help families get a handle on the cost of college.  

One tool that can help families is the Net Price Calculator. In 2011, the federal government issued a mandate that colleges provide the calculator on their websites to help families understand the actual cost of that college. Theoretically, families enter in some basic financial information, like the size of your household and annual income, and it tells you how much you can expect to pay at a given school. However, some estimates don't come close to what the colleges actually offer at the end of the process. Even though this is a great step forward, there is still a need for more clarity.

This year, the FAFSA or Free Application for Federal Student Aid will make a small but significant change that could greatly improve financial aid transparency, making it easier for families to make informed college decisions. Parents will now be able to submit the FAFSA in October of their child’s senior year using what’s called prior-prior-year (PPY) tax information from their child’s junior year. This will mean that families will have a more accurate understanding of what they’ll be financially responsible for well before their child chooses a college.
As policies continues to shift, there are things that you can do to help create financial aid opportunities:

1. Do your research: use the Net Price Calculators on the websites of schools your child is considering to get a rough idea of your family’s contribution, and talk to your child if you think it's out of your family's budget.
2. Talk to your high school counselor and learn about financial aid opportunities: counselors are knowledgeable about possible scholarships in your area, and often host financial aid presentations at your high school.
3. Create a balanced college list: 90-95% of the money available for college comes from the colleges themselves. Your best bet for an affordable education is to apply to schools where you are a good academic and personal fit.
4. Make sure you fill out the appropriate forms (by the deadline): waiting until the last minute to fill out the forms can jeopardize your opportunity to receive financial aid. All colleges list what forms they require and important dates on their websites.

My freshman year at Loyola, I had a five-page paper due for my Shakespeare class. I felt overwhelmed by the prospect of writing my first college paper, so I did what virtually every 18-year-old does. I procrastinated. I ended up writing it the night before, feeling rushed and tentative about my point. I ended up getting a B-minus. But I also got a wake-up call. I started the second paper a week before it was due, planned what I wanted to say, and got an A-minus.
 
There’s nothing surprising about this story. Anyone will tell you that starting early produces better work, and makes the process less stressful. Except when it comes to applying to college. The common wisdom is that starting too early puts pressure on students, and causes unnecessary stress. But I’ve actually found the opposite to be true. That doesn’t mean you need to prep for the SAT your freshman year. But not thinking about the SAT until the end of your junior year diminishes the amount of time you have to make the best choices for you. I work with some students as early as freshman year, not to stress them out, but to give them good advice that will ensure they have as many doors open to them as possible. Knowing what’s coming during high school allows students and families to plan ahead and take advantage of all the support, resources, and opportunities available to them.
 
Starting to think about applying to college earlier allows students to find schools that are a better fit, produce better applications to those schools, and feel more confident about their applications.  To that end, I’ve put together a timeline for all four years of high school, basically what you should be doing when. Start with your year to get a sense of what you should be doing right now. Then, take a look at the upcoming summer or school year to see what’s ahead.  
 
If you’re feeling anxious, the best thing to do is begin tackling the items on your list. That might mean signing up for an upcoming test prep class, or submitting applications for a part time job, or scheduling an appointment with me where we can talk through your goals and make a plan. The point is, you’re never going to regret starting the process now. But you might look back and wish you had started sooner.

​​When I first started putting together my website, I asked my mom to read over it. Like any smart writer, I know that we all have blind spots, and a second pair of eyes can prevent all manner of embarrassing typos. Her one correction was a sentence I had started with “and.” I was mortified. How could I not know this rule? I had been starting sentences with “and,” “but,” and “or” for years. I did some research, and discovered that this is commonly taught in elementary and high school, but there’s actually no basis for it in the rules of English grammar.
 
Last year, I read an article that has stuck with me ever since. It was a discussion of the way we teach humanities, a subject dear to my heart after spending so much time thinking about this in college and graduate school. The thesis was that there are two parts to good humanities instruction. First, take something complicated and make it simple, like stripping Hamlet down to purely plot points, ignoring the poetry, psychology, and historical context. Second, take that simple thing and make it complicated; ask questions, find contradictions, and hold ambiguity. The critique in this article is that we have done an excellent job executing the first part, but we’ve forgotten to finish the task. The same is true of grammar.
 
Teaching children not to start sentences with “and” can help them avoid incomplete sentences and ideas in their early writing. But once they’ve mastered that, we have to reintroduce nuance (see what I did there?). Good writing doesn’t happen by simply following the rulebook. As an editor, I spend a lot of time thinking about these things. I spend a lot of time researching how to capitalize “Fall Ball” for my baseball player’s essay, and whether exoatmospheric is a word (it is) for my aspiring aerospace engineer. I am constantly honing my ability to ask the questions that will help a student write a clearer, more impactful essay that expresses the truest semblance of who they are as a person. And in order to do that, sometimes you have to start a sentence with “and.”
 
I thought about changing the sentence on my website, so that parents and students who’ve been taught this rule wouldn’t take me less seriously as an editor and writer. But I’ve never been one to shy away from the nuanced discussion in favor of the more straightforward rule. Maybe you don’t want to read 500 words about why it’s okay to start a sentence with “and,” or end a sentence with a preposition, or (gasp!) split your infinitives. But I do, which is why I’m the one who edits college essays for a living.