For years colleges have been saying that there's no money left to give out in student aid by the time a student is taken off a wait-list. You wouldn't know it this year. And a recent notice indicated that there are plenty of colleges who haven't filled all their seats because accepted students didn't send in their required deposits. This presents a huge headache for the colleges, and it's your opportunity to make their headache bigger.
One of my students was awarded $5,000 in grants from his # 1 college, but his # 2 college, which wait-listed him, called him after the dreaded May 1 deposit deadline to say they had awarded him $20,000 in grants if he would come. That represented a total difference of $60,000 over 4 years. Read: $60,000 of less debt for the student after graduation.
If you have a college that still has your student on a wait-list, I suggest you rethink your financial aid strategy in the following steps:
(1) Have your student call the wait-list school and express how much s/he still wants to attend that college. Colleges like to hear the "love" over the phone to help them decide who's getting off the wait-list first. For the student to call is a big plus (okay...if you don't like the wait-listed school, you're engaged in a lie; if you do like it, you're engaged in a strategy).
(2) If the college notifies you that your student's been taken off the wait-list, be sure to ask for their financial aid package. If it doesn't exceed the amount of your # 1 college, notify them in writing that "another college" offered a larger package, as if to suggest that your student would still like to attend, but reality's face looks like 20 miles of bad road. If they ask for a copy of the other school's offer, send it happily. If they come back with an offer that now exceeds the # 1 college's offer, do this:
(3) use the wait-listed college's new offer to ask for more money from your # 1 choice. Tell # 1 that you may have to break their heart because you received a larger offer elsewhere and that, after all, a larger debt is not something you regard as part of your "award" for working hard, being committed, and achieving all through high school.
(4) You can keep this ping-pong game going until September. How long you want to keep it going is up to you. It's your money that's at stake, and the colleges will take every dime if you let them. Don't give in, and don't give up until your gut tells you that you've gone as far as you're going to go.
Huge Tip: No college will ever rescind an offer due to a student's persistent requests for more money. It would be a catastrophic public relations nightmare for the college to do so, and I have a $1,000 cash reward offer for any student who can produce any letter that says such a thing.
Go ahead...call the college that wait-listed your student. There could be a pile of money waiting for you from 2 schools.
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Sunday, May 11, 2008
Is This The Dumbest Generation?
In a fascinating article on Boston.com this past Sunday, there was an 8-point article to demonstrate a theme in a new book, The Dumbest Generation, by Mark Bauerlein, a teacher at Emory University. Instead of writing about it, I thought you ought to read the article verbatim.
1. They make excellent "Jaywalking'' targets
Bauerlein writes: "The ignorance is hard to believe ... It isn't enough to say that these young people are uninterested in world realities. They are actively cut off from them. ... They are encased in more immediate realities that shut out conditions beyond -- friends, work, clothes, cars, pop music, sitcoms, Facebook.''
2. They don't read books -- and don't want to, either
"It's a new attitude, this brazen disregard of books and reading. Earlier generations resented homework assignments, of course, and only a small segment of each dove into the intellectual currents of the time, but no generation trumpeted aliteracy ... as a valid behavior of their peers.''
3. They can't spell
Lack of capitalization and IM codes dominate online writing. Without spellcheck, folks are toast.
4. They get ridiculed for original thought, good writing
"On MySpace, if you write clearly and compose coherent paragraphs with informed observations on history and current events, 'buddies' will make fun of you,'' Bauerlein says. Wikipedia writing is clean and factual, but colorless and judgment-free. Often the most clever students, with flashes of disorganized brilliance on MySpace, switch to dull Wiki-writing formats for school papers, he says. "If we could combine the style and imagination of MySpace with the content of Wikipedia, we might get good stuff."
5. Grand Theft Auto IV, etc.
The stats tell the story here. First week's sales: $500 million. The sales of GTA dwarf movie premieres, CD sales, or, Bauerlein notes, book sales. All that video use, Bauerlein says, has hurt in the classroom, too. Thousands of Massachusetts public school graduates are ending up in remedial reading and writing classes in college, according to a Globe story.
6. They don't store the information
"For digital immigrants, people who are 40 years old who spent their college time in the library acquiring information, the Internet is really a miraculous source of knowledge,'' Bauerlein says. "Digital natives, however, go to the Internet not to store knowledge in their minds, but to retrieve material and pass it along. The Internet is just a delivery system.''
7. Because their teachers don't tell them so
Or because their parents don't check their bedrooms at midnight to halt the instant messaging..."Kids are drowning in teen stuff delivered 24/7 by the tools, and adult realities can't penetrate," Bauerlein says. Another factor: "It's the era of child-centered classrooms and self-esteem grading.''
8. Because they're young
Do you remember how stupid you were when you were a teen-ager? Or all that you didn't know -- and thought you did? And the skills you gained by holding back on foolish comments? Oh, the now-old guy [now an old rock star] in this picture? He once wrote: "I was so much older then/I'm younger than that now.''
____________
With contempt for matters academic in general, and a total lack of interest in American history in particular, this generation presents us with a disturbing national security problem: we cannot depend on them to defend what they don't know.
Give me a dedicated American history teacher and I'll give you an army division.
1. They make excellent "Jaywalking'' targets
Bauerlein writes: "The ignorance is hard to believe ... It isn't enough to say that these young people are uninterested in world realities. They are actively cut off from them. ... They are encased in more immediate realities that shut out conditions beyond -- friends, work, clothes, cars, pop music, sitcoms, Facebook.''
2. They don't read books -- and don't want to, either
"It's a new attitude, this brazen disregard of books and reading. Earlier generations resented homework assignments, of course, and only a small segment of each dove into the intellectual currents of the time, but no generation trumpeted aliteracy ... as a valid behavior of their peers.''
3. They can't spell
Lack of capitalization and IM codes dominate online writing. Without spellcheck, folks are toast.
4. They get ridiculed for original thought, good writing
"On MySpace, if you write clearly and compose coherent paragraphs with informed observations on history and current events, 'buddies' will make fun of you,'' Bauerlein says. Wikipedia writing is clean and factual, but colorless and judgment-free. Often the most clever students, with flashes of disorganized brilliance on MySpace, switch to dull Wiki-writing formats for school papers, he says. "If we could combine the style and imagination of MySpace with the content of Wikipedia, we might get good stuff."
5. Grand Theft Auto IV, etc.
The stats tell the story here. First week's sales: $500 million. The sales of GTA dwarf movie premieres, CD sales, or, Bauerlein notes, book sales. All that video use, Bauerlein says, has hurt in the classroom, too. Thousands of Massachusetts public school graduates are ending up in remedial reading and writing classes in college, according to a Globe story.
6. They don't store the information
"For digital immigrants, people who are 40 years old who spent their college time in the library acquiring information, the Internet is really a miraculous source of knowledge,'' Bauerlein says. "Digital natives, however, go to the Internet not to store knowledge in their minds, but to retrieve material and pass it along. The Internet is just a delivery system.''
7. Because their teachers don't tell them so
Or because their parents don't check their bedrooms at midnight to halt the instant messaging..."Kids are drowning in teen stuff delivered 24/7 by the tools, and adult realities can't penetrate," Bauerlein says. Another factor: "It's the era of child-centered classrooms and self-esteem grading.''
8. Because they're young
Do you remember how stupid you were when you were a teen-ager? Or all that you didn't know -- and thought you did? And the skills you gained by holding back on foolish comments? Oh, the now-old guy [now an old rock star] in this picture? He once wrote: "I was so much older then/I'm younger than that now.''
____________
With contempt for matters academic in general, and a total lack of interest in American history in particular, this generation presents us with a disturbing national security problem: we cannot depend on them to defend what they don't know.
Give me a dedicated American history teacher and I'll give you an army division.
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