welcome to the secrets of college planning i'm your host anthony and today we're going to get some insight into admissions and financial aid my guest today is the owner of benetton college planning he's also a  quite a while ago head bet ok so usually what i try to do my guess and to give to the audience is what was the process back then compared to what it is today what's the process of you get what you  go through to pick a school well that's probably mace people so it's been a long time ago obviously and as a side the back when i went to school we took the s a t s with a never gave us our scores so i don't even have a way to tell you what  whole entirely different process in my case i had three colleges i was a soccer player so i was a recruit in some sense i made some visits at dartmouth lafayette and i forget the third college took the recruiting  so once you graduate college how did you become you know the director of financial aid at princeton and you know now you're in you're retired now but right how did you become all the way to that point when i went science at a three year tour here and i basically decided to get out of the navy and i had a number of a different options i flew in a navy side airlines are one of my options a couple other things in new york financial and one of them was an offer to go in the financial office at princeton my wife won't let that be any of my kids were born here would ever said want to take that job briefly and of course thirty five years later i was still doing it and as i say ten years ago i retired been here for a while yes so let's go into let's go into missions first and then we'll go into some financially and so what's the process of admissions at the college level what what what have you seen by doing it at princeton and now that you do it a little bit on your own as well you know the process is hamley an awful lot of applications in a brief period of time as you probably know they usually have an early section where they have students apply in let's say the high school senior there's an option a player colleges early early decision early action she was in a month of november so what colleges do they trying to at least a portion of a class with a readerly get them out of the way make their decision and that cuts down on the total population still the majority of students apply it was called regular admissions let's say princeton for example has thirty thousand applications maybe five thousand apply early so they look at those and make their decisions now they've got twenty five thousand to do between january and march so i think a big part of it is the sheer volume of the applications now the high school population never been larger international students a high percent go to college now it's two thirds rather than forty percent it was years ago so i think managing the pure volume over recent amount of time and making good careful decisions is really makes it a quite a difficult process on a college and let alone a wherry a preparation on a student then yeah so now the process at the college at all of these admissions counselors they're all looking at different applications that are coming in and then do they have a separation of piles of what they do how to how does that all work well used to be folders carrying around but every show should on a computer now but they are they organized by region because usually a dean or director of admissions a couple of systems for administrative resumes and they'll have a team of let's say six regions to two admissions they have members for each region so they get to know the schools they visit the regions they have some idea what to do and now when you get a volume though like the thirty thousand they will have a dozen or more readers so many applications come in they first go to the readers they make a rating and they pass them along to a full time stay to do a more sophisticated reading and decide who admit who didn't know who to wait lists things like that so the process is a very complicated want to say in a limited amount of time and the students more and more look alike in a word high s a t s scores they have activities they do this they write the essays so that the stations between the very top of the next level next level it's not an easy job at all to make those distinctions ok so now there's always a lot of parents out there that say well it's all based on quotas you know you have your eurasians that come in or your are europeans and and then you have your african americans your or your hispanics is that true at the college level or is it really just they come in and then everybody just gets to pick where you know there's there's no quota system i mean if you talk to students from princeton or faculty members ministration princeton there's an idea of how to put together a class so many athletes so many engineers so many alumni sons and daughter so many people in california from china from whatever and you have a general idea how to compose a class but this is a quote of there's no limit like the end the engineers that like to fill the engineering school they want chemical electrical whatever and so maybe there's two hundred to two hundred fifty but there's not a crow to say we're going to get to two hundred fift but kind of more or less forms a class in similar ways from year to year with the strength the stronger the engineers they may be a few or some other chemical and frankly princeton ironically right now is looking for students who are recipients which means some of the lower income students so their idea diverse of the other than geographical and ethnic and all arrestees things is basically a financial diversity they really think for them that's a high priority now so now how about  these extra curricular activities does that mean a lot at the at the college level yeah it does and it depends on my general rule when i work with stu if it's a large public institution a lot applications the computer basically generates most of the admissions less so in that let's say records for example it's probably about seventy five to eighty percent academics g p a a safety scores course level ok and then the essays the activities the volunteer work all the rest of it it's probably twenty percent twenty five percent it at princeton and the ivy league that are very competitive colleges probably sixty percent academics and forty percent personal the reason is the economics good look so much alike they've got a averages they've higher safety scores we're going to make a lot of issues based on these personal qualities who has really done outstanding things away a talent volunteer work a competitive exams and things like that so the more selective and the smaller schools the more carefully look at the extracurriculars because the academics are closely bunched and it's a very large what we call flagship public they're going to do more on s a t and g p a but look at the essay look at the leadership look at the other things ok so now do they grade the high schools that are out there they have a general sense they keep track of the students from each high school and how they do in college and they will know for example unless i get this question off as worthwhile to send a school to a student a private school like lawrenceville or princeton high or whatever and i always say don't do it just to get a leg up in admissions do it for whatever the other academic or other reasons might be however they may over time see that a b plus student loans fill does about as well as an a minus student at princeton high and so on that stance once they keep records they may make some adjustments based on the strength of that school in a population but generally speaking they try and find the best students within any particular school that's pretty important ok and how about sports the sports mean a lot yes sports moving a lot at princeton a where was tag if a student had an extra benefit in addition to what we just talked about we'd say that would be a tag student that was back in the days we did folders and a red tag might be an athlete you know tag me by a minority of blue tag might be a legacy or whatever so each of those tags mean we're going to give that student a careful look ok and so for example with the athletes there's an organized system called the academic index of they've got to run the calculation and once a student passes that certain standard then they go on a list and they get a significant increase in admissions chances as do ethnic minorities as do some legacy sons and daughters of print but not as much as it used to be that used to be a bigger tag and now legacy is a more minor to various other things in fact only sons and daughters get a little bit some development cases some students from a state that they haven't seen a student maybe soon from idaho might get a little bit of a boost so other than just a straight credentials if a student has what's called a tag go in for them they're going to get a little bit of a leg up in a process now how about international students did they go through the same process yeah they go through the same process it depends what kind of school they come from if they come from an international school i'm familiar with the chinese students they take a p courses they have access to videos they do that so they look a lot like the american students so that's not so hard but a lot of them come from  chinese schools where it's a little more difficult because you don't get the same kind of information so the value does she pay any s a t in those cases a chinese student coming from a non international school that the essay and a recommendation think that a quite important is just don't have as many piece of information to go on yeah so now how about financially a lot of the schools are expensive yes right and and a lot of a lot of parents always looking for you know how do i get the money to pay for college right so i know need based is is really big at the college level because it's easier to get the men because they need based about the people that are probably the majority out there which is the middle class right ok so what you have to know about financial aid is there's basically two kind of possibilities to get money one is marinate and one is need a merit a about ninety percent of merit a comes from the colleges themselves and they get  marinate based on the quality of the student within that applicant pool very general rule the top ten percent of the applicants based on s a t g p a whatever that rating they get will probably get somewhere about tuition scholarship or maybe more maybe a little bit less the next ten percent might get five thousand ten thousand whatever and if they're below that they're probably not to get married eight digits going to try to bring the best students into that institution by giving him some money ok and particular for privates to give that tuition discount to compete with the public institutions in that state so that's the kind of merit aid there are things called outside scholarships that one can apply for and bring money from outside but most the money comes from the colleges themselves so that's the merit a basically academic oriented now does every college in the united states have merit eight know the ivy league does not have that merit at all ivy league is need only as our whims and am her some some schools like that but probably ninety five percent of the schools have merit aid ok so they've got the also schools have need based aid normally what they do is they use what i call other people's money ok for example rutgers will use a lot of state money a lot of federal money there's a lot of federal state programs in the bay state so they will fill the students need up with this much money as they can and at they've got some of their own institutional funds they might give the student what's called a grant scholarship is merit grant is need based gift aid you don't have to repay when you do need based aid whatever the amount you're eligible for it's only put in what's called a package a grant hopefully a low interest loan rate a subset of loan subsidized loan and a work study job so normally when a student gets an aid package not all grant they've got to work they've got to borrow and then they get what's called gift but a school institution like the ivy league fortunate although they're very expensive now they're all over sixty thousand dollars for everything they do have an down as with scholarship funds so they do it while they're very expensive on one hand they get institutional grant at a much higher rate than a school like rutgers was which would have very little institutional grant money so it's not unusual for a family to apply for financial aid say they get an rutgers and they get at princeton the princeton will be as affordable as rutgers because princeton will fill up with grant aid to match their student needs rutgers will do what they do and it probably be a comparable decision to whether to go to rutgers or princeton based on a bottom line cost of that family that can happen so now a person that has an extra curricular activity the mom and dad are while lost doing really well can those people get money at the college level even though they're well off but what they do they should check out their need possibilities first and you think going to college board website and run what's called a calculator they can go on a college web site arose called the net price calculator unless the family clearly has enough money to pay for every college student thing applied to they should at least find out what the age system left them to give and if it's over the course of the highest college they wouldn't bother if it's anywhere near that or below they want to start going through the process which is fill out the federal form which is called the fafsa and for a number of institutions what's called the profile these institutions i talked about that have their own money and then they would go through the whole a process and hopefully get an award letter which contains enough money to make it possible to go to that school interesting yes oh so now people that are trying to get into certain schools it just depends on the school that they're picking up the you prefer people picking like a private school compared to in a public school is there more money at the private school you can't really tell until you get the ada war letters ok so that i and when the students i do with let's say that they don't have enough money to pay for all the schools i think they want to play at rutgers t c n j whatever to get that basically in state expensive schools that you might try and just hope that need based award works well enough that you if you go that you've got to say to the whole you've got rutgers and princeton and basically the bottom line might even be the same and you can choose for educational reasons and that's an ideal situation yeah but i think if you want to take advantage of your edge state subsidized to wish and i think no matter what and you want to maybe pick a private college where you're strong in a pool and if you've got the dream school of georgetown and northwestern a duke or whatever it is apply there hope the need based system works for you so you've got at least some choices to make so now how about benetton college planning what is that all about how does how does that all work well one person business i've been doing that for ten years i pick about twenty students per class i just have my senior class now some i'm applying early and now there i get a rate apply for the january regular decision and i work with them fairly closely then as i have compared to high school coun are very good i started earlier i start using their sophomore year so i have more time to build up their credentials and frankly i should do a little more time to spend with them because the typical high school counts are as anywhere from two to four hundred student load so i've got twenty students twenty five students like a stone early i've spent a little more time with them but i'm not not in high school counselor if the student is a good counselor good relationship where i think they should go in there first at that not so good for them then it would come to someone like me who is called an independent college counselor right now what do you exactly do you do with them oh what's the process that you take with these kids well in my case what i do is i give them a rating just like admissions office does like give an academic grade i give a person a rating and then we work improving at rating because eventually for the vet or for worse no turn into a set of numbers the only way shorthand to take care of thirty thousand twenty thousand applicants is to have an academic number and a personal number so i go through the same kind of evaluating system that the college does and we work to improve the numbers on the academic side the personal side as much as possible so they are basically there in the best version of themselves once they apply and then come the august september october the senior year we work on a final application list the final college list then we start working on the applications are going to play a place early we do the essays i do practice interviews in case they're going to have an interview and we basically go through this for right now which is busy for me in the early round and then now we're doing a regular round hopefully they'll have five or six college or admitted to some choices their dream school maybe maybe not and if they're a financial a person maybe they get the aid award or maybe they get some merit money so do you help them pick the schools as well i advise them they create their own list initially i give them some tips on college visits and how to but once they come up with a list it's usually the summer before their senior year i will go over with is it the right major the right location the right size right whatever and particularly what i'm one in a chance of getting and so they've got all these dream schools with relatively small chances i will add what we would call match of say to schools and things like that so th but i'll make sure it's well balanced where they want to go what major they want and they've got a reasonable chance to get in a number of those schools yes so now there's well over three thousand colleges in the united states so a lot of these kids they tend to pick schools like noted dame in princeton and so on and so forth i write because they're all well known name schools how about the smaller schools that people don't really know that are out there do you have heard tell those kids hey you know there's these other little schools here that you never heard of that talk to people so ideally now we've got all these financial reasons we've got where you're going to get into reasons i like to see him have maybe a large university midsize university and so small colleges and that mix so they've got some choices there as well you know it's a complicated ma this together yes so so because there's a lot of very good academic schools that a small right then excellent excellent you've got to be a closer relationship with the teachers you have smaller classes and if you want to go fancy you can go to grad school right amount of say get a good solid education do well and if you want to go to an m b a you want to go here or there you've got a very good background for that yeah so that that that's a big key right so now you're working with a small group of kids do you find any other  little little quirks that they might have or personality traits that maybe a college would like where you have to fix it those that ever come into play personality traits well if it shows up an outgoing or very articulate whatever but most of them are quite good business which is everyone so while i'll say maybe you want to pass on the interviews but that's pretty unusual yeah so now and usually what's the amount of schools that that kids usually pick with you i say ten to twelve what i like to do is have maybe five or six or seven what i call the core area and see the my match is going to be a little bit easier a little bit difficult and then maybe a two dream schools over here just keep your fingers crossed he can't really talk him out of it you know and in the safety schools over here not only to get in but that's also where the merit scholarships come into play so maybe ten or twelve but i like to see the core of them what i call a realistic college list i think that's the single most important thing i want to see him get in at least four or five colleges ok that to me that's very important and they can decide in all these variables we've talked about where they're going to go school where so we're coming to the end of our show is that right yeah how do you like that so i usually ask my guests what advice you want to give to the parents out there that sons and daughters are going through the the process right now what some of the advice that you can give to those parents you know i say relax i mean they really do get wound up in all this college stuff and i know it becomes very important you know in the neighborhood they go to the parties and they see where the cousins get in then or whatever and they really they really get going i get calls from eighth graders and i say that's too early in fact i get calls from freshman and i say finish your freshman year be a normal high school student just get started with some good grades some activities but let's not let's appreciate those high school years as high school years and not have them all depend on what attitude i have good well thank you very much for coming ok you're welcome yeah so you've been watching the secrets of college planning on your host anthony yuva until next time