scholarships Archives - College Initiative

Predictive Analytics’ Impact on College Admission: What You Should Know

Jill Schwitzgebel — Thu, 05 Jun 2025 20:24:17 +0000

Predictive analytics' impact on college admission - three main ways colleges are using data to evaluate students and how to leverage it

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Significantly Lower Scores on October 2019 PSAT – What Does That Mean?

Jill Schwitzgebel — Mon, 02 Mar 2020 22:02:09 +0000

I have been waiting for more than a month for a story about this test to hit outside of college counseling circles, but I still haven’t seen it anywhere. I have spoken to my clients that may be affected, but wanted to share this information more widely for all families. There were significantly lower scores...

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What Does My EFC Number Mean, Really?

Jill Schwitzgebel — Sun, 20 Oct 2019 21:20:55 +0000

When your oldest child begins high school, you may never have heard of the acronym, “EFC” before. But by November of their senior year, most families of college-bound teens are not only familiar with the term, they likely know what their EFC number IS. In general, most families feel that it’s too high. But what...

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Your College Applications Timeline for Senior Year

Jill Schwitzgebel — Wed, 13 Mar 2019 23:07:30 +0000

Senior year – the culmination of all the hard work your student has been doing to prepare for college. Application time is when all that they have been doing to prepare comes together. Ideally, you and your student have followed all of the advice about starting the college admissions process early. But if you haven’t,...

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Surviving the End of the High School Senior Year

Jill Schwitzgebel — Thu, 17 Jan 2019 18:30:23 +0000

Okay, let me begin by saying that as I write this, I’m coming off of a tough weekend with my very own high school senior. And I recognize that “tough” is relative. It wasn’t tough because we were arguing about curfews or who he is hanging out with. It was tough because senioritis has sort...

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Important Financial Aid Questions You Didn’t Know to Ask

Jill Schwitzgebel — Sun, 11 Nov 2018 19:39:23 +0000

If you have been reading about college admissions for a while, you may already know some of the financial aid basics like what an EFC is. And if you’ve been following me for a while, you likely know what an NPC is too. However, the list below also includes financial aid questions you may not...

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How to Narrow the College Application List

Jill Schwitzgebel — Tue, 17 Jul 2018 18:30:41 +0000

Anyone else out there have a kid who needs help to narrow their college application list a bit? Most college admissions counselors will tell you that applying to seven schools is a good target. And many students actually struggle to even get to seven on their list. Or, they have intentions of applying to that...

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Summer Before Senior Year To-Do List

Jill Schwitzgebel — Thu, 17 May 2018 19:38:34 +0000

Being productive over the summer before senior year will make applying to college much less stressful. Here are six things to do.

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A Word About Scholarships

Jill Schwitzgebel — Thu, 05 Apr 2018 00:15:43 +0000

So, your student is getting serious about their college list and you’re looking at your college savings and wondering how you’re going to be able to afford this? It’s time for a word about scholarships – from automatic scholarships to athletic ones. It’s likely that one of your very next thoughts after you see the...

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How Much Does College Really Cost?

Jill Schwitzgebel — Tue, 03 Apr 2018 15:02:54 +0000

When I started working with my older kids to find a good college fit for each of them, I was also very motivated by money…and how to not go into debt paying tuition. I’m sorry to say we had not saved nearly enough in our 529 account. We are not all that different from the...

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