College Admissions Counseling Blog

Brown University has announced that they are putting a new financial aid policy in place which will eliminate loans for families with income below $100,000, reduce loans for all students receiving financial aid and eliminate parental contributions for families with incomes less than $60,000. This new policy will apply to all current students as well as future students. This aid policy is very similar to that recently announced by Stanford University.

I am pleased to see that Brown has joined most of the other Ivy League universities with a revised financial aid policy benefiting students. It appears that Columbia is the only Ivy League university that has not yet announced a new aid policy.

Stanford University has announced their latest enhancement to their financial aid policy. The new policy provides that families with income less than $100,000 will not pay tuition and families with income less than $60,000 will also not be expected to provide any contribution to room, board and other expenses. Further, the new policy eliminates loans for all students which will presumably be replaced by grants. The report on the new policy also mentions "other significant enhancements" that have been made to their financial aid program but provides no details.

It is wonderful to see Stanford joining their competitors by revising their financial aid policy. As a counselor it would also be nice to know what those other "enhancements" are to financial aid to completely advise students who might be interested in Stanford.

Washington University in St. Louis has announced that they are joining other highly selective colleges in limiting loans for certain families. Specifically, the college will be eliminating all loans for families making less than $60,000 a year and replacing them with grants. This is good news from Wash U since their focus in the past has seemed to be on using merit money to buy high quality students rather than seeking an economically diverse student population. The number of students receiving Pell grants, those reserved for the lowest income students, has consistently been very low, even compared to their competitors. This despite having an endowment of over $5.5 billion.

I am a proud alumni of Wash U and I hope that they continue to use their substantial endowment to enhance their financial aid to gain a more diverse student population.

Princeton has announced the creation of a working group to study the idea of having some freshman take an "international bridge year program". Basically they are examining the possibility of about 10% of incoming freshman, about 100 students, take a gap year and engage in public service in a country outside their native country. Costs of such a program would be treated as costs of the college with financial aid available for students with need.

I have written about gap year programs on several occasions and am generally a fan of such programs for the right student. I think Princeton's approach is admirable, particularly their approach that financial aid would apply to needy students. The also make it clear that if a student wishes to take a traditional gap year that option would still be available although without the financial support of Princeton.

Boston.com has a good article about the hazards of getting too much help writing the college essay. The article makes it clear that with the increasing competition for students to gain admissions to their dream colleges, admissions officers are paying more attention to the essay to discern whether the applicant actually wrote it.

Students can, and should, discuss possible topics for the essay with a trusted adviser whether they be parents, teachers or private counselors. They can, and should, have an adviser review and possibly edit the essay for such issues as syntax and spelling. However, the essay must come from the student with the student's voice coming through. Not only is this the honest approach but if the student's voice is not coming through in the essay, the student is not giving the college an accurate view of who they are. To find the right college, the student must communicate to the college who they really are.

There are many private college admissions counselors and private financial aid counselors who do a wonderful job for the students they work with. However, families need to understand that even so called financial aid counselors don't always know what they are talking about.

Ivywise is a college consulting group known for their high cost and the infamy of having "packaged" the student who was admitted to Harvard and later discovered to have plagiarized a novel she was writing. The Ivywise newsletter has an article written by their financial aid counselor entitled "Secrets from a Financial Aid Officer: Top mistakes students and families make now". In the article the author states that parents can get a PLUS loan with a current interest rate of 6.1%. However, the current rate for PLUS loans is actually 8.5% and has been at this rate for all loans taken out after July 1, 2006. Prior to that time the interest rate on PLUS loans was 8.02%.

We all make mistakes but anyone familiar with PLUS loans would not suggest that they are currently at such low rates. If families are spending upwards of $40,000 for the services of this group one would expect that their counselors would be familiar with the area in which they counsel students.

Families do not need to spend $40,000 or more to get competent college admissions advice. Spending more does not always get you better knowledge or service.

I wrote last summer about "Gap Year" programs where high school students take a year off before their freshman year of college. Such programs are fairly common in Europe but not well known in the United States. There is a good article about such programs and a college fair for gap year programs recently held in the Chicago area.

Gap year programs are not for everyone but for the student that feels that they are not quite ready to head to college or for the stressed out student, they can make a good option.

Wellesley College has announced a new aid policy that eliminates loans for students with family incomes below $60,000. In addition, Wellesley will reduce loans for students with family incomes between $60,000 and $100,000 to no more than $8,600 for all four years. For families earning more than $100,000, loans will be capped at $12,825.

Wellesley has had a reputation for strong financial aid for some years and this new policy reinforces that reputation. Personally, I like the approach that Wellesley has taken in recognizing that for students above a certain family income level, having some amount of student loan at graduation is not necessarily a bad thing. It provides a certain level of buy in when the student knows that they will have to pay back part of their education without causing the severe stress that excessive loans can cause new graduates.

The New York Times has a recent article about summer pre-college programs where students travel around the country, or around the world, taking classes or exploring the world. I think some of these programs are fine and if a student has an interest in a particular program and the family can afford the program then it is not a bad way to spend some time in the summer. However, many students feel that they need to participate in this type of program to be viable candidates for selective colleges which is not true.

At one point colleges might have been impressed by the student who spends the summer in Italy taking an art course but those days are gone for most colleges. The highly selective colleges recognize these programs are often simply a venue to "enhance" a students resume and they are rarely impressed that a student attended such a program. Moreover, they can sometimes work a disadvantage in the application process because many of these students come off as just like every other applicant who has lots of advantages in life. The unusual student, and the one that often catches the eye of the admissions committee, is the student from a well to do family who spends the summer working at a job because it is unusual for such a student to have a summer job.

Summer programs are fine and if they enhance the students background in their field of interest they can be helpful for admissions purposes. For instance, if the student's focus throughout high school has been on art and its many aspects, spending time in Italy studying art may be helpful. But don't be misled into thinking that you need such a program to be a successful applicant at a highly selective college.

If you are looking for a summer program to enhance your ongoing interests, there is a good new website called Enrichment Alley that I would recommend checking out. This is a nice website in part because many of the programs listed are for students who do not have the resources to attend one of the fancy programs discussed in the Times article.

Northwestern University has announced an adjustment to their current aid policy but is taking a different approach than many of its peers. They have announced that loans will be replaced with grants for "undergraduates with the greatest financial need" starting Fall 2008. What the phrase "greatest financial need" means is not defined. Northwestern's position is that it is more equitable to keep the term undefined since there are some families with higher income that may have unusual expenses such as high medical bills or the need to care for grandparents. Northwestern will also be capping subsidized Stafford and Perkins loans at no more than $20,000 for 4 years.

I am uncertain how Northwestern's policy will work since there seems to be an internal inconsistency. Most students who qualify for subsidized Stafford and Perkins loans qualify for such loans because of low family income. If these students don't qualify for loan replacement, and they presumably won't since their loans are capped at $20,000, then who exactly will qualify for Northwestern's new loan elimination policy? Student's with family income below $10,000 or $20,000? Frankly, as a counselor advising students on what colleges to consider, where financial aid is one of the considerations, I am not at all confident that this change at Northwestern will have any practical effect on financial aid for most students. Given the substantial size of Northwestern's endowment, that is unfortunate.

Another highly selective college has joined the ranks of those schools that are reducing the loan obligations for undergraduate students. Cornell University has replaced need based loans with grants for families earning less than $75,000 per year. This new policy will be phased in over the next 2 years with loans eliminated next school year for undergraduate students with less than $60,000 in family income. Also during that time, loans for student's with family income between $60,000 and $120,000 will have loans capped at $3,000. In the 2009-2010 school year the full policy of loan elimination will occur for all undergraduate students with family income below $75,000 and will cap loans at $3,000 for students with family income between $75,000 and $120,000.

Congratulations Cornell.