Your Senior Is Accepted to College – Now What?
Your student may have been accepted to multiple schools, and now it’s time to whittle down the options and make a final choice. There is a lot to keep in mind along with weighing pros and cons.
Why It Matters
- Deadlines are important.
Each college will have their own process in place for accepting admission and financial aid offers. There may be additional financial aid paperwork and a housing application to complete, an orientation date to select, and deposits and final transcripts to submit. Not paying attention to deadlines might translate to a late registration date or the last choice in a residence hall. Even worse is missing the deadline for crucial financial aid resources. This is even more critical due to the delayed release of the 2024-2025 FAFSA. - Remove emotion from the equation.
Because college is expensive, the decision to attend should be made using all of the facts placed before your student. Does the college have a high placement rate for its graduates? Does it offer the right major for a future successful career? Is it affordable for you and your student?
What Your Student Can Do Now
- Stay organized.
Track all of the information and deadlines using a method that works, whether it’s noting the dates on a calendar or planner, setting up an Excel spreadsheet, or using a checklist for each school, such as the one we’ve included in this article. - Develop a scoring sheet.
Similar to a ratings scale, determine what each college offers your student — graduation outcomes, placement rates, major and internship offerings, financial aid, campus organizations, campus life, other activities — and have your student rank each qualifier. If campus beauty ranks number one on the ratings scale, is it really an objective decision?
What Your Student Can Do Later
- Obtain access.
With acceptance, your student will most likely have access to a student portal or intranet. Additional information tends to be readily available through this portal, and your student should become familiar with navigating the internal website.
What You Can Do
- Be ready to validate.
If your student questions the final decision, use the tools we’ve provided and be prepared to offer reminders about discussions that took place along the way. Offer encouragement, and if it ultimately is not the right choice, transferring to another school is very common and easy to do. - Be prepared to discuss finances very soon.
There is validity in comparing financial aid offers from each school and determining the most affordable option for you as a family. However, due to financial aid offices not receiving FAFSA results until late January or early February this year, your timeframe for doing so is severely shortened. As soon as financial aid offers are received, map out finances for your student’s entire college career with the expectation that tuition and fees increase each year. Use ISL Education Lending’s College Funding Forecaster to foresee the full cost over four years. Determine which scholarships and grants will be renewed every year or renewed only if certain conditions, such as a minimum GPA, are met. - Obtain your own access.
Once your student has access to a school’s portal, there’s usually a way for you to be granted permission to view bills and payments, receive notifications and perform other limited functions. This gives you the ability to handle common transactions while giving your student the responsibility of being a student — attending class, learning expectations, monitoring grades, checking college mail, etc. - Encourage independence.
Doing laundry, making basic banking transactions, and scheduling appointments are all common activities you do on a daily basis. Make a list of them and help your student perform them between now and the college departure date. Provide assistance without actually doing until your student finds the momentum to go it alone — even if it’s not how you would do it yourself!
Registration is open now for a scholarship for Iowa high school students, not just seniors. The scholarship awards $1,000 College Savings Iowa deposits, which can be used when your student is ready to pay educational expenses. Register at www.IowaStudentLoan.org/ScholarshipSignUp.
Next Steps
Be sure to complete the survey questions at the end of this article to be entered into the 529 deposit giveaway!
Additional references, handouts and talking points are available in the right sidebar to use at your leisure. They may prove beneficial to reference now or after receiving future emails – we’ll leave it completely up to you. Use our emails like a recipe for a successful outcome — assemble the recommended ingredients and then follow accompanying directions to add flavor and depth.