Volunteerism Is Essential on College Applications

While college admissions officers focus heavily on students’ grades and SAT scores, they also take a careful look at their history of volunteerism. Colleges offer such a wide range of volunteer opportunities, both on and off campus, that they look favorably on applicants who will likely become actively engaged. 

The Department of Student Involvement at Rutgers University, for example, includes more than 450 student organizations. It offers students limitless opportunities to serve others, both nationally and internationally, through “Rutgers Alternative Breaks” service trips.

The College of New Jersey offers between 50 to 100 percent tuition scholarships to more than 80 students who make a substantial commitment to volunteerism by becoming Bonner Community Scholars.  These students choose to focus on a particular area of service and provide 300 hours of meaningful volunteerism over the course of a year, combining service with their academic experiences.

Five Strategies to Avoid or Minimize College Debt

When talking about college debt, statistics are never encouraging. Student loan debt in the United States currently totals $1.73 trillion and grows six times faster than the nation’s economy, according to statistics on educationdata.org.  There are reportedly 43.2 million student borrowers in debt by an average $39,351.

The key is to avoid being a part of these grim statistics by considering some highly effective strategies.

1) When choosing potential colleges, students should not necessarily reach for the stars. They will find that if they apply to colleges a tier below the level of school to which they could likely get accepted, the scholarship money will almost certainly be much greater.  Students planning to major in business, for example, often apply to NYU’s Stern School of Business where the annual cost exceeds $75,000. These same students could reasonably expect to be welcomed at St. John’s University in New York, St. Joseph’s University in Philadelphia, and a host of other institutions with impressive business schools, substantially lower costs of attendance, and generous merit money (to attract strong students) which does not get paid back.

Latest Rankings Revealed in 2022 “Best Colleges”

The 2022 version of U.S. News & World Report’s “Best Colleges” – often viewed as the bible to the college industry – has just been released.  New Jersey’s Princeton University is still in first place (for the 11th consecutive year) as the “Best National University.”  It’s followed by Columbia, Harvard, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) tied for second place, and Yale coming in fifth.

This guide, in addition to offering overall rankings, lists the “Top Programs” in specific specialties, including Business, Engineering, and Computer Science.  It even offers “sub-categories,” such as Aeronautical, Biomedical, Chemical, Civil, Computer, Electrical, Industrial, and Mechanical in the field of Engineering.  A similar breakdown is offered for Business specialties.

This year an additional category has been added, Nursing, as it’s one of the largest undergraduate majors and has been recognized as an indispensable career during the Coronavirus pandemic.

Prepare to file FAFSA to Determine Financial Need

Families of college-bound students can find out how much the federal government thinks they can afford to contribute to their child’s college education.  The latest Free Application for Federal Student Aid, referred to as the FAFSA, went live on October 1st at FAFSA.gov. This is the one form that all parents must file if they hope to get any federal money for college in the 2022-23 academic year. 

The newest FAFSA uses financial information from a family’s 2020 taxes.  Most people are able to make use of a “shortcut” offered on the FAFSA, which is the I.R.S. Data Retrieval Tool.  As long as you have already filed your 2020 taxes, you can check off that you want the FAFSA to link into your previously filed taxes and automatically fill in the numbers on all of the financial questions.