Stanford University: Campus Visit Observations

By Rajkamal Rao  

Image Credit: Rao Advisors LLC

On June 10, 2019, we visited Stanford in Palo Alto, Calif, for a campus visit. Our verdict? If you're lucky enough to be one of 1,600 freshmen selected, you should probably say "Yes!!!!!!!"

All You Need To Know About Stanford

The best way to visit Stanford is to register in advance. The visitor center is easy to find and parking is $2/hour. Inside the center, you can view multiple video clips that are constantly running. An information session is generally held at 10 AM and repeats at 2 PM. A campus tour starts at 11:30 AM and again at 3:30 PM. Each tour lasts 70 minutes.

Stanford is in small, scenic, Palo Alto. The neighborhood around Stanford feels like any other northern California suburb. The university is beautiful with over 40,000 trees on a 3,300+ acre campus.

Image Credit: Rao Advisors LLC

Image Credit: Rao Advisors LLC

Image Credit: Rao Advisors LLC

Image Credit: Rao Advisors LLC

Image Credit: Rao Advisors LLC

Image Credit: Rao Advisors LLC

Image Credit: Rao Advisors LLC

Image Credit: Rao Advisors LLC

Image Credit: Rao Advisors LLC

Image Credit: Rao Advisors LLC

Image Credit: Rao Advisors LLC

Image Credit: Rao Advisors LLC

Image Credit: Rao Advisors LLC

Image Credit: Rao Advisors LLC

Image Credit: Rao Advisors LLC

Here are key observations and notes from our participation in the official information session.

1. One of the most important things Stanford looks for in a high school student is if he/she has exploited all that the high school offers. If a school offers AP/IB courses, Stanford expects students to sign up for as many of them provided students are interested in those topics. If you're a humanities student, Stanford does not expect you to take AP Calculus.


2. It's almost impossible to transfer AP credits. Stanford allows you to take an exam to exempt out of certain courses, generally limited to 2-3 courses.


3. Like we often tell our clients, Stanford suggests that you take both the SAT and the ACT so that you can submit whichever is the better score.


4. There are no score cutoffs but clearly, the higher the score, the better.


5. SAT subject tests are optional. Yes, optional means optional.


6. Stanford expects you to pursue any extracurricular activity which reflects your passion. This is identical to our advice on extracurricular activities. You don't have to be part of a school club. You don't have to have performed research. In fact, if you take care of a sibling at home, that counts as a meaningful activity.


7. Stanford says that the admissions office reads every application and likes to understand the student's context. It's a good idea to therefore include high school demographic information.


8. Stanford needs two recommendation letters from teachers, with at least one from your core teachers (Science, Social Studies, Math and English). An optional recommendation letter may be submitted from anyone who is not a family member (Athletics coach, volunteer service director, etc). 


9. The counselor recommendation is required and does not count in the 2+1 recommendation letter package.


10. Stanford supplemental essays are relatively short, 300 words or so, but are intended to represent who you are. Check out our post on essays and contact us to learn how we can help.


11. Interviews are optional but recommended. Not everyone is selected for an interview, so just because a student doesn't receive an interview invitation does not mean that he/she will not likely get in.


12. Stanford follows a non-binding Early Action calendar, for those students who already have their grades well set or for those who are applying for athletic admissions. Stanford is a big Pac-10 college with heavy emphasis on sports.


13. Stanford follows the rigorous quarter system (8-weeks), so expect to take your first mid-term exams in the 3rd week of school!


14. Stanford is a need-blind institution which means that admissions decisions are unrelated to a family's ability to pay. In general the $65,000/$125,000 rule applies. If your family makes $65,000 or less (with proportional assets), Stanford will pay for tuition, room and board. If your family makes $125,000 or less (with proportional assets), Stanford will pay for tuition.


15. There's no core curriculum at Stanford. There's no impacted major. There are no minimum number of courses needed to declare a major. You generally meet with a PMA (pre-major advisor) at the end of your Sophomore year and decide on which classes to take for the remaining two years. Then you may be assigned a faculty advisor.


16. Stanford offers numerous research and internship opportunities, many more so than there are students for. Many opt to work for startups.


17. Stanford's study-abroad program is extremely popular. It offers tieups with numerous institutions around the world, including Oxford.


18. Nearly all students live on campus given the expense of housing in the bay area. Bike paths are common. There's no air conditioning in campus housing.


19. Dining options on campus are limited to the dining halls. There's not a lot of choice of restaurants and cafes on campus.


20. Stanford is known for a supportive and collaborative community unlike some schools in the northeast.

The idea of residence colleges comes from Cambridge, Oxford, Yale, and Princeton. Students feel an identity first to their residence college, then to Stanford and then on to the world. Friendships are made in the residence colleges because this is where you eat, sleep and live. Intramural sports are often competitions between residence colleges. For overprotective parents worried about how their teenagers will adapt to an independent life, residence halls are a great way to transition the change.

Our takeaway

Stanford is America's most selective research institution, admitting fewer than 5% of applicants. If you're lucky enough to be admitted, you should strongly consider it.

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Individual counseling is part of the Premium Offering of Rao Advisors and involves a fee.  Please  contact us for more information.

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Harvard, Stanford, Duke, Georgetown and Penn: 2019 Information Session

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By Rajkamal Rao

On May 21 2019, five elite colleges - Harvard, Stanford, Duke, Georgetown and Penn - presented an information session in Ft. Worth to a group of 150+ parents and high school juniors. In many ways, the evening was similar to a session a few weeks earlier when Brown, Chicago, Columbia, Cornell and Rice presented.

But back to the Harvard, Stanford, et al colleges. Each school is private, co-ed, and has a reputation for research. Each school is highly selective and is proud of its need-blind admission policy, which means that offers of admission go out regardless of families' ability to pay. Each school promises that for families making up to $65,000, all expenses for tuition, room, and board are met by the school. For families making up to $125,000, tuition expenses are zero, although room and board expenses still apply.  Each school says that parents must visit their net price estimate site to get an idea of what they will likely pay.

Class sizes are small. Each school offers 100+ clubs. All proudly host Division 1/NCAA sports teams. Stanford is a big player in the PAC. Nearly all have residence halls which bring a distinct student experience. If a student is lucky enough to win admission, his/her future is virtually assured given the brand.

Harvard's great selling point is that it offers 3,500+ courses each year, including classes that students can take at MIT. Duke says that Durham's small city experience - and the huge campus - are draws. Georgetown's campus is the smallest among the five, but perched on the Potomac and minutes from the White House, it offers excellent opportunities for students interested in politics and international affairs.

Stanford's major appeal are the size of the campus, the location and the proximity to technology and venture companies. Penn's location, midway between New York and Washington, is also appealing.

Getting in

Like we said for other elite schools, you must have a near perfect student profile - grades, test scores, evidence of taking on difficult courses in high school, recommendations, essays, strong extracurriculars, leadership in community service and a personality which stands out. And all these are just to get past the gate. After that, getting in requires a nod from God.

Each school prides itself on trying to know more about you through its supplemental essays. An excellent essay still doesn't get you in, but an average essay surely gets you out of contention. Read our primer on essays to prepare.

There are so many administrative things to keep tabs on that one needs to be tremendously organized to complete all tasks within stated deadlines. Here's a summary of each school's Early Action, Early Decision and Regular deadlines.

Image Courtesy: Joint presentation of the five schools.

As a rule, financial aid deadlines don't coincide with deadlines from the office of admissions. All schools will require both the FAFSA and the CSS applications to be completed.

Our takeaway

Hire a professional counselor - it's worth the investment. We are glad to help and offer you peace of mind during the admissions process. Individual counseling is part of the Premium Offering of Rao Advisors and involves a fee.  Please contact us for more information.



A Note About Rao Advisors Premium Services
Our promise is to empower you with high-quality, ethical and free advice via this website.  But parents and students often ask us if they can engage with us for individual counseling sessions. We are indebted and privileged to have earned their trust in matters which are so important to them. Please check out our public Google reviews to see what they say about us.


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Frisco ISD changes Course Grade Weights

Image Courtesy: Frisco Independent School District

By Rajkamal Rao

The 2019-2020 Frisco ISD Course Catalog has an important update for students who are currently in the 8th grade and will graduate in 2023. See pages 20 and 21.

Currently, students taking Pre-AP and other designated courses attract a GPA bonus similar to AP courses - that is, on a scale of 6.  In fact, Frisco is the only major school district which treats Pre-AP and AP courses as being the same level of difficulty. This is bizarre because any student will tell you that the rigor in AP courses is markedly higher than Pre-AP courses.

Starting the class of 2023, the only courses which will attract a 6.0 bonus will be AP courses. Pre-AP and other designated courses will be demoted to a 5.5 scale, in line with dual credit courses.

This makes sense. Most other school districts, such as Plano, Coppell and HEB ISD were already doing what Frisco is proposing with its 2023 class.

So, how will this affect the computation of the weighted average GPA? Students who will graduate from high school before 2023 will, on average, have a higher weighted average GPA because of the 0.5 point Pre-AP bonus. This will vanish starting the 2023 graduating class.




Because weighted average GPAs are only used in the computation of the class rank, which is a relative measure within a graduating class, this change will have no material impact to any FISD student.

Takeaway

FISD is finally embracing Course Grade Weights which make sense. But students have to wait until the 2023 graduating year for the changes to apply.



A Note About Rao Advisors Premium Services
Our promise is to empower you with high-quality, ethical and free advice via this website.  But parents and students often ask us if they can engage with us for individual counseling sessions. We are indebted and privileged to have earned their trust in matters which are so important to them. Please check out our public Google reviews to see what they say about us.

Individual counseling is part of the Premium Offering of Rao Advisors and involves a fee.  Please contact us for more information.

Is taking a dual credit course a good idea?

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By Rajkamal Rao

Many high schools offer students a chance to earn college credits right in high school, during the regular school day. Called Dual Credit, these courses are taught by college faculty (generally, community college professors) at the high school. They are more difficult to handle than regular on-level courses, but are generally easier than AP/IB courses. This is why school districts generally offer a weighted Grade Point Average (GPA) bonus which is in the middle between an on-level course and an AP/IB course.

Dual credit courses have little involvement with high school faculty once classes start. College instructors don't communicate progress with high school teachers or the guidance counseling team. Students generally must maintain at least a "C" average to earn dual credit, and complete all assignments/tests/projects as required by the instructor. Attendance requirements must also be met. Students cannot use high school activities as an excuse to skip classes.

In-state public universities and colleges are required, by law, to accept these credits when students enroll. Not all out-of-state public universities, or private universities, accept dual credit courses. AP/IB courses have a higher degree of acceptability than dual credit programs.

Advantages

Students can earn credit both towards completing high school graduation requirements and college courses. For example, a student enrolling in the "Fundamentals of Programming" course not only earns college credit but also High School/TEA credit for "Computer Programming I". If students sign up for classes with the "Texas Core Curriculum" designation, they can earn up to 42 college credits which can be seamlessly transferred to any public Texas college or university. This is equivalent to taking 14 AP courses.




The school's partnership with the community college makes it easy for students to enroll in dual credit courses without the headaches of juggling two schedules. There is generally an "open-enrollment" window towards the end of the school year when interested students are invited to attend information sessions and register. If the student agrees to sign up, he/she will get a student ID from the community college. Once the student is in the college's system - and receives an email confirmation - he/she can take additional courses in the future at the college. For example, he/she can continue on to take the remaining 18 credits on top of the Texas Core Curriculum and earn an Associates Degree, enroute to transferring to a 4-year public Texas college.

A big advantage of Dual Credit programs is that students can begin test-driving college curricula right in the comfort of their high school. College instructors don't engage in as much handholding as high school teachers do. Expect to put in lots of work, on average, at least 6 hours a week for a 3-credit hour class. Dual credit classes are an excellent way to train in time management, an essential skill for success in college.

In some cases, Dual Credit programs may be the only meaningful choice available, especially for students with specific career goals. Even the College Board's AP courses may not be satisfactory enough. For example, Frisco ISD students interested in a nursing or medicine career can take the Health Science Clinical, a two credit course offered in the 11th and 12th grades, in partnership with Collin College. This course provides intensive classroom and clinical study of healthcare and patient care skills. Students will take the Texas Nurse Aide certification exam and upon passing, can become Certified Nurse Aides (CNA).

Drawbacks

Dual credit courses cost money. A Tarrant County resident taking a dual credit course at Bell High School taught by an instructor from Tarrant County Community College must pay $64 per credit hour, that is, $192, for a dual credit class. Remember that most classes are 3-credit hour courses. Textbooks are extra. For many high school students, AP courses end up being less expensive, more rewarding (because of the higher GPA bonus) and of better value because they are accepted by more colleges around the country.

Takeaway

Dual credit courses are an excellent option for students who wish to study in the state at a public college because articulation agreements ensure seamless credit transfer. They're also excellent for students who want to accelerate through high school and college - for example, for students who want to pursue medicine.



A Note About Rao Advisors Premium Services
Our promise is to empower you with high-quality, ethical and free advice via this website.  But parents and students often ask us if they can engage with us for individual counseling sessions. We are indebted and privileged to have earned their trust in matters which are so important to them. Please check out our public Google reviews to see what they say about us.

Individual counseling is part of the Premium Offering of Rao Advisors and involves a fee.  Please contact us for more information.

Brown, Chicago, Columbia, Cornell, & Rice: Information Session Summary

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By Rajkamal Rao

On May 2 2019, five elite colleges - Brown, Chicago, Columbia, Cornell and Rice - organized an information session in Ft. Worth. Over 300 people were in attendance. Please check out our post covering a similar session when Harvard, Stanford, Duke, Georgetown and Penn presented on May 21, 2019.

With marketing costs on the up, it is common these days for elite institutions with key similarities to team up for such roadshows. Each is an outstanding research university founded a long time ago, some, before the American Revolution. Each is known for distinguished academics, all with Nobel laureates on staff, many teaching undergrad classes. Class sizes are small. Each school offers 100+ clubs. All proudly host Division 1/NCAA sports teams. Nearly all have residence halls which bring a distinct student experience. All are need-blind in admissions, which means that the admissions office does not look at a family's financial ability to make an offer of admission. If a student is lucky enough to win admission, his/her future is virtually assured given the brand.

But there are also subtle differences. Rice is the smallest of them all with only 4,000 undergrads in total, that is, a Freshman class size of just 1,000. Read our detailed Rice on-campus tour report from October 2018 here.

Cornell is the most rural, 4 hours from New York City. It's the only major institution which has a college dedicated to Labor Relations. 

Columbia's major appeal is that it is in New York City. This is so much a part of what the school is that New York is inscribed into its very name. Naturally, internship and job opportunities abound for students who do well.

Brown has a beautiful campus in the Ocean State of Rhode Island, close to New York City and even closer to Boston. It's the only school with an open curriculum which means that students can literally take whatever courses they want. Like most other schools, students don't have to declare their concentrations until the end of their sophomore year.

Chicago offers over 50 majors and is known to fund internships. Its Economics degree is the most sought after. It's the only major that is fully test-optional, so no ACT/SAT scores are required.

Getting in

Each school is highly selective, accepting fewer than 10% of applicants. Some are even more selective. You must have a near perfect student profile - grades, test scores, evidence of taking on difficult courses in high school, recommendations, essays, strong extracurriculars, leadership in community service and a personality which stands out. And all these are just to get past the gate. After that, getting in requires a nod from God.

Each school prides itself on trying to know more about you through its supplemental essays. An excellent essay still doesn't get you in, but an average essay surely gets you out of contention.

There are so many administrative things to keep tabs on that one needs to be tremendously organized to complete all tasks within stated deadlines. As a rule, financial aid deadlines don't coincide with deadlines from the office of admissions. All schools will require both the FAFSA and the CSS applications to be completed.

Our takeaway

Hire a professional counselor - it's worth the investment. We are glad to help and offer you peace of mind during the admissions process. Individual counseling is part of the Premium Offering of Rao Advisors and involves a fee.  Please contact us for more information.



A Note About Rao Advisors Premium Services
Our promise is to empower you with high-quality, ethical and free advice via this website.


Go back to "Rao Advisors - Home".

How do you prepare for AP Physics I?

By Rajkamal Rao

 

 

The month of May is the time to ring in the Advanced Placement (AP) exams. Of all the 34 exams offered by the College Board, the AP Physics 1 exam is among the most challenging. It is consistently the exam where the fewest exam-takers score a 5, the highest possible score on an AP test.

The exam is three hours long and has two sections — multiple-choice and free-response. You're permitted to use an advanced scientific calculator. Click here to learn more about the format of the exam.

Why is this a challenging exam?

As someone who has taught a student who went on to get a 5 on the test, I know that what makes it challenging is the wide variety of topics that are included: Kinematics, Newton's Laws, Work, Power, Energy, Rotational Motion, Sound, Simple Harmonic Motion, Friction, Collision, Moment of Inertia, Gravitation, Electricity - the list seems never ending! The course approximates to a first-semester introductory college course in algebra-based physics.

Most students feel fairly comfortable when answering end-of-chapter exercises when each chapter is taught in school. This is because students are able to apply the formulas to content that they know belongs to the chapter at hand. What makes it hard is that as they learn new chapters, their familiarity with older chapters begins to wane.

On the exam, it may not be immediately apparent to identify the chapter from which a problem may be sourced. Additionally, the same problem can be typically solved multiple ways - for example, using Newton's Laws or the Laws of Conservation of Energy.

So, how does one prepare?

The best way to prepare is to practice solving math-based problems. Examine the worked-examples in your textbook and try doing them on your own - this will give you the confidence to tackle similar problems. Chapters at the end of the textbook generally contain answers only to odd-numbered problems, but try and solve as many problems as you can. The Khan Academy is also a great resource.




An unlikely resource is YouTube. Prof. Michel van Biezen's channel is outstanding. He has over 650K subscribers, and nearly 125 million views. His problem-solving skills - and ability to teach them - are genuinely world-class, the advantage of being a full professor at a college (Loyola Marymount). Every Physics topic is covered in great detail, and for Mechanics problems - especially ones involving pulleys, blocks, and tension, there is no better source. Another teacher, who goes by JG, is outstanding at solving DC circuit problems, especially complicated ones.

As the date of the exam draws near, these official Free Response Questions from the College Board from past tests will provide excellent additional practice.

Our takeaway

AP Physics is all about practice. If you've been practicing diligently for at least two hours each week going back to the first day of school, you should be feeling reasonably confident now. If not, there's still time to step up practice using the methods described above.


A Note About Rao Advisors Premium Services
Our promise is to empower you with high-quality, ethical and free advice via this website.  But parents and students often ask us if they can engage with us for individual counseling sessions. We are indebted and privileged to have earned their trust in matters which are so important to them. Please check out our public Google reviews to see what they say about us.

Individual counseling is part of the Premium Offering of Rao Advisors and involves a fee.  Please contact us for more information.

Understanding the College Pricing Ladder

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(If image is not clear, click on the image & right-click to "Open Image in New Tab").

By Rajkamal Rao

May 1 is the deadline for students to accept offers of admission from colleges and lock in their seats. Many families struggle with how to balance multiple offers of admission. Invariably, the struggles relate to the costs of college attendance (COA).

In the United States, the COA is collectively borne by the family, the student, the university or college through their endowments (called institutional aid), the state government (in the case of public colleges), the federal government through its massive Education Department budget, and private entities which make merit scholarship awards, such as those associated with the National Merit Scholarship program.

The degree to which each of these external parties assumes financial responsibility will determine how much the family ends up paying. For example, the breakdown for the UT Me Scholarships for low-income families is represented below ((If image is not clear, click on the image & right-click to "Open Image in New Tab").

 

 

Nearly all financial awards are need-based. External merit scholarships are rare, and when given out, are rather small. Most are one-time.  Exceptions are awards associated with the National Merit Scholarship Competition, such as the Finalist awards. Some awards can be so generous that they can fully pay for a student's tuition, room, and board for all four years of college.

Other exceptions are when students pursue in-demand fields in which the U.S. government has an interest. President Bill Clinton signed a directive to strengthen cyber capabilities of critical infrastructure; information and communications, energy, banking and finance, transportation, water supply, emergency services, and public health, as well as those authorities responsible for the continuity of federal, state, and local governments. The CyberCorps scholarship has since funded undergraduate students to up to $75,000 for three years of education. 

Students pursuing a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine can get attractive scholarship and internship funds from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Students admitted to any military academy will receive a full ride plus expenses provided they sign a contract to serve in the U.S. armed forces. ROTC scholarships also offer comparable benefits.

But this article is dedicated to awards based on financial need. Determining financial need is a complex exercise and is facilitated through the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA®) website, run by the U.S. Department of Education, and the College Scholarship Service (CSS), run by the College Board. Review this excellent step-by-step video about how to apply for FAFSA. Also read Ron Lieber's excellent NY Times piece on Nov 23, 2024 about the latest FAFSA process. 

So, what is the difference between FAFSA and CSS?  Think of FAFSA as your gateway to federal funds, and the CSS as your ticket to institutional funds, such as private college endowments and grants. The CSS is a lot more invasive in the sense that it seeks more financial details about your family than does the FAFSA.

Public colleges and universities (such as UT Austin and Texas A&M) require the FAFSA. About 400 private colleges and universities require both the FAFSA and the CSS profile. Both websites employ complex algorithms and business rules. They take into account numerous family financial situations such as the age of parents, income, savings, debt, size of household, number of college-going students, assets, alimony payments, and other parameters.

The main sources for this information are the tax returns filed by the parents (and the student, if the student is employed). The prior-prior year is important here. If your student is starting freshman year of college in 2020, your family's 2018 tax returns are required. Deliberately filing erroneous information, with the intent of extracting a more favorable need-based determination, is a violation of numerous federal and state laws.

Some private colleges say that they are "need-blind" - that is, they make admissions decisions regardless of your family's financial situation. Federal law is clear in this regard. Section 568 of the Higher Education Act says that a college is not considered need-blind even if its policy helps students in financial need. Wikipedia maintains an excellent list of need-blind and need-aware (schools that factor a student's ability to pay whether or not they will be accepted).

 

Unfortunately, some need-blind institutions wade into need-aware territory and get into trouble.

According to a 2022 lawsuit filed against 16 elite schools, the University of Pennsylvania and Vanderbilt, for example, have considered the financial needs of wait-listed applicants although the schools claim that they are need-blind. Doing so is just as unlawful as awarding “special treatment to the children of wealthy.” In January 2024, top schools decided to pay $104 million in fines to settle the lawsuit. The bottom line is that need-blind schools should NOT look at the financial ability of a student whatsoever in making admissions decisions, poor or wealthy.

 

Some need-blind colleges (most top institutions such as Stanford, Yale, Harvard, and Rice) promise to meet the "full demonstrated financial need" of the student - after offering admission to the student based solely on the student's merit. This means that they will cover the difference between your EFC and the sticker price (see our graphic above) through a combination of grants, scholarships, and work-study programs. Loans, should they appear at all in the package, will be an insignificant part.

The need-blind private colleges that fully meet the student's demonstrated financial need use a simple formula - the so-called $65,000/$125,000/$200,000 rule.

According to this rule, if your family makes $65,000 or less (with proportional assets), the institution will pay for tuition, room, and board - the entire expense of college is completely free. For such students, organizations such as Questbridge will even pay college application fees, and all expenses at summer programs at the top-40 schools between junior and senior year. We implore low-income students not to consider public universities at all and concentrate all of their efforts on private need-blind colleges. Of course, the only catch is that students should win admission to these colleges, to begin with.

If your family makes between $65,000 and $125,000 (with proportional assets), the institution will pay for tuition, but you're still responsible for room and board. Harvard and Stanford are more generous in wiping out tuition fees for family incomes up to $150,000. The University of Southern California is far less generous, capping incomes to $80,000.

Between $125,000 and $200,000 (with proportional assets), the tuition fees are prorated. So, if your income is $162,500, your tuition fees are halved, but you would still pay full room and board.

The engines make several assumptions regarding proportional assets. If a family has an annual income of X, the programs will automatically assume that assets are some multiple of X. For families with lower incomes, up to $65,000, the multiple is less than 1. For families with incomes higher than $65,000, the engines assume, logically, that the multiple rises exponentially from 1. The more your savings or your assets, your financial need is deemed to be less, so you're likely to receive far less in aid.

The Federal Student-Aid Estimator, the official net price estimator of the Department of Education, uses an X factor of approximately 0.53. That is, if your income is $100,000 a year, it assumes that your family's net assets are $53,000. Conversely, if your net assets are $300,000, your annual income is deemed to be $566,000 a year. At such asset levels, you can be sure that you will receive no need-based aid.

The College Pricing Ladder

The top line for the college cost of attendance is the sticker price. But just like when shopping for a car, no one pays the sticker price.

How much your family pays for college is unique, much like an airline seat. It is mainly dependent upon FAFSA's and CSS's determination about how much both programs think your financial need is.

Federal grants and college cash awards, funded through college endowments, bring down the sticker price. These are monies that do not have to be repaid, so they're a great bargain. The so-called "full-ride" awards are essentially cash awards from colleges that will not charge tuition fees at all. Tax credits and deductions make up the remaining components of the "free money" bucket.

The "Net Price" is simply the difference between the sticker price and the discounts the family has been offered. Remember that the family is ultimately responsible for the Net Price.

Net Price estimates tend to deviate significantly from the sticker price largely for private colleges and universities - which tend to offer tuition discounts. For public schools, the tuition sticker price is fixed by state law and falls into two categories - the discounted in-state tuition or the more expensive out-of-state tuition. For many families, in-state public colleges represent the best bargain because they are more affordable and there's always a college that will accept a student, regardless of high school performance. For some students, it may be worthwhile to consider out-of-state colleges that may offer in-state tuition benefits in that state for specific majors - generally on a reciprocity basis.

 

Working your way up from the bottom of the image above, the first number is called the Estimated Family Contribution (EFC), now called the Student Aid Index (SAI). Learn how your SAI is calculated. This amount is a result of the FAFSA engine's computation (the Student Aid Report, or SAR) when you file your FAFSA application - and is nonnegotiable unless family circumstances for costs and income change. The EFC is the minimum the family must pay, and is like a deductible when filing an auto insurance claim. 

The difference between the EFC and the Net Price is called the Gap amount. The Gap is always the responsibility of the family. It can be met by family savings or borrowing. The borrowing could be a subsidized or unsubsidized loan offer from FAFSA. Or it could be from a Parent PLUS loan which has more generous limits but much higher interest rates. Or it could be from a private bank. Students who win work-study awards are contributing to the Gap amount, but with their sweat rather than with cash.

Source: Department of Education

 

To review a typical loan schedule so that you can estimate your monthly payments on a student loan when you know the Loan Amount, Interest Rate  (e.g., 5.30%), Loan Term in Months (e.g., 120) and the Number of Monthly Payments in the First Year (assuming you want to make more than 12 payments), use a mortgage calculator. 

 

Glossary of Terms, Image Courtesy: The University of Texas, Dallas

Our takeaway

Take a minute to study the example graphic above of a college with a sticker price of $75,000. This is today the average published cost of attendance at most Ivy League and world-class institutions. Notice how various pricing components kick in above the family's EFC. A $40,000 - $50,000 EFC determination is normal for a U.S. household with two children with both parents working in professional jobs. Remember that families must pay at least the EFC amount, no questions asked.

A Note About Rao Advisors Premium Services
Our promise is to empower you with high-quality, ethical, and free advice via this website.  But parents and students often ask us if they can engage with us for individual counseling sessions.

Individual counseling is part of the Premium Offering of Rao Advisors and involves a fee.  Please contact us for more information.

How important is STAAR?

Image Courtesy: Texas Education Agency

By Rajkamal Rao

Visit any Texas school campus during the second school term of every year. As the calendar moves closer to March and April, the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR) fever is everywhere. Teachers spend several minutes during each class preparing students for the test.  At home, parents urge their children to study hard. Children look up from their iPhone screens and utter a characteristic, uncaring "Uh huh."

So, just how important is STAAR? In Texas, you can't move up a grade without getting a passing STAAR score. Texas is one of 13 states in which you can't graduate from high school without passing the so-called exit STAAR EOC tests.

The truth is that STAAR is more an evaluation of how well schools are teaching children. It traces its origin to then-Governor Bush's No Child Left Behind (NCLB) vision which ultimately became federal policy: Teachers and school administrations work all year to teach students, so if students are indeed learning, a test ought to measure how well schools are doing.

A school that tests well is rated high by the state in annual rankings, and this helps the school's brand. A school that doesn't score as well may qualify for additional funds from the state. A school that consistently doesn't do well faces a risk of closure or even a state takeover.

So how does STAAR impact an individual student's performance? Other than as an official platform to practice taking standardized tests like the PSAT/SAT/ACT, very little. As long as the student earns a passing score on STAAR, no one cares about how well a student did. When a student is in middle school, the school may use the best STAAR test results and "recommend" him/her to Duke TIP, but this is of inconsequential value. [We are philosophically opposed to all Duke TIP-type programs for high school students as we repeatedly point out at our seminars and in one-on-one sessions with families].

The more important truths are these: Contrary to myth, STAAR scores are not reported on a student's TEA grades. School districts are not allowed to use STAAR scores to calculate GPA, weighted average GPA or class rank. No college admissions committee asks you for a STAAR score like it would for the SAT or ACT. The National Merit Scholarship award is not made on STAAR performance but actually on a student's PSAT performance.

The Various STAAR Tests

Younger Grades

Grade 3 - reading and mathematics (English and Spanish versions)
Grade 4 - reading, mathematics, and writing (English and Spanish versions)
Grade 5 - reading, mathematics, and science (English and Spanish versions)
Grade 6 - reading and mathematics
Grade 7 - reading, mathematics, and writing
Grade 8 - reading, mathematics, science and social studies

High School End-of-Course (EOC) [Exit tests]

Grade 9 - Algebra I, English I, Biology

Grade 10 - English II
Grade 11 - U.S. History

Our takeaway

STAAR is not as consequential a test as some may have you believe. We urge families to relax and prioritize time to help students do well on their traditional in-class tests and exams to improve grades.


A Note About Rao Advisors Premium Services
Our promise is to empower you with high-quality, ethical and free advice via this website.  But parents and students often ask us if they can engage with us for individual counseling sessions. We are indebted and privileged to have earned their trust in matters which are so important to them. Please check out our public Google reviews to see what they say about us.

Individual counseling is part of the Premium Offering of Rao Advisors and involves a fee.  Please contact us for more information.

How many times should you take the SAT/ACT?

By Rajkamal Rao

 

If you ask a parent a simple question: "How many times would you have your children take the SAT/ACT?", you can be sure of getting different responses.

Twice is the most popular, although three times is not uncommon. Some parents may even say four times.

But you rarely hear "just once." And this has baffled us.

Why not just once?

There are very few things that children do in school that they repeat. You don't retake the STAAR or your end-of-term assessments. You rarely take an AP or IB exam again. But why do we seem to make an exception for the SAT/ACT?

One reason is the way that these tests are marketed.  Both the College Board and ACT pry on families' anxieties by intensely promoting the SAT and ACT as tests in which students can improve their grades if they take the test multiple times. They throw in dubious research which supports their claim that students taking tests a second time often score 100+ points more on the SAT and 3-4 points more on the ACT. While this may be true in many cases, we don't know how students would perform the first time if they're told that there's no option to retake the test to improve their score.

They also talk about superscoring - a practice used by colleges wherein a student's best scores across multiple test administrations are considered - as a way to close their pitch. If you get a 700 on Math the first time you take the test and a 760 the second time, colleges which superscore will take your second test administration for your Math score. If you got a 720 on Reading the first time but a 680 the second time, colleges would take your Reading score on the first test. With colleges being this generous, why shouldn't you take the test multiple times?

There are several problems with taking the test multiple times. First, not all colleges superscore and colleges that do superscore do it differently. Read the College Board's blog on the topic. Even they concede that superscoring is a super confusing idea. 

 

Second, the idea of taking the SAT the first time more as a dry run should be insulting to most smart students - we have the PSAT for that very reason! 

 

Third, the Khan Academy, the College Board's official partner for the SAT, has upwards of 2,200 official test questions to practice on, in the comfort of home.
 

Fourth, the College Board's own inventory of 8 official tests - previously administered - gives students the chance to take the SAT 8 times at home before going to the test center. Click here for our post on how best to prepare for the SAT/ACT for free.

 

The College Board knows all of the above well - which is why they offer Score Choice which allows students to select which scores or sets of scores they want to send to a college. With Score Choice, students can control which score reports, by test date, will be sent to each college. Our point is if that the College Board lets you junk certain scores, why should you even take a test when you're not that well prepared?

 

There are several advantages to taking the tests just once. Prepare well - really well - and go take the test. If you feel you're not prepared enough, postpone the test date to the next available date and prepare in the interim. But go with the mindset that you are only allowed to take the test once, and that your career depends upon it.

Sure, this elevates your stress level a bit but there are lots of circumstances in high school where you're not permitted a do-over. Your all important National Merit Scholarship Test depends only upon your PSAT-11 test, which is given only once. When you apply to colleges and you're invited to an interview - like for job interviews throughout your career - you can only do this once. Life rarely gives you second chances for the same opportunity, so let's start tuning our minds to this grim fact.





Think about the stress levels after you complete the SAT/ACT knowing that you have done well. You never have to worry about taking them again - which frees up time to focus on grades and extracurricular activities.

Our takeaway

Take the SAT or ACT just once and hit a home run. The collateral benefits of so doing are numerous.

A Note About Rao Advisors Premium Services
Our promise is to empower you with high-quality, ethical and free advice via this website.  But parents and students often ask us if they can engage with us for individual counseling sessions. We are indebted and privileged to have earned their trust in matters which are so important to them. Please check out our public Google reviews to see what they say about us.

Individual counseling is part of the Premium Offering of Rao Advisors and involves a fee.  Please contact us for more information.

What should we make of the college admissions scam?

By Rajkamal Rao

 

 

Stanford University. Image: Rao Advisors

This week saw the Department of Justice prosecute the largest college admissions scam in the country's history.

The details of the scam showed that the perpetrators thought they were not in America but in some banana republic. Sit-ins taking the SAT/ACT for students or doctoring score sheets, parents faking the mental conditions of kids to be granted special accommodation privileges to take the tests, doctors writing fake prescriptions and certificates to confirm these medical conditions, eager consultants Photoshopping images of student faces into the pictures of established athletes and creating fake athlete profiles, athletic coaches in colleges accepting bribes to recommend students with fake profiles to college admissions committees - acts like these are common in other countries.

But the United States proved again that flawed though it may be, its relentless pursuit of justice caught the bad guys after all. These self-serving, unethical and narcissistic people will spend years in prison and will wonder each day if an Ivy League admissions offer was really worth it all.

How serious is all this for your teenager?

Actually, it's not serious at all. The college scam got a lot of attention for a couple of days but as it happens in our 24x7 news cycle, the story has slowly started to wither away. Other breaking events such as the Boeing 737 Max 8 grounding and the horrible Christchurch terror attacks have taken hold.

More than 99% of parents and kids would never think to cheat in the manner described by the U.S. Attorney's office in Boston. Even if some of them did, they wouldn't have the resources. Those in the scam paid upwards of $50,000 to secure a 1400 score on the SAT, something that most of our students do for free by practicing on Khan Academy. The entry point for making donations to the top schools - and receive favorable consideration - was set at $10 million. This wealth threshold does not even represent the top 1%; it probably involves the top 0.01%.

Advocates of eliminating all college admissions tests - such as FAIR - will try to exploit the scandal but they will fail. There is substantial evidence that both high school GPAs and scores on college admission tests are excellent predictors of academic success. The University of Chicago may have decided to go test-optional, but the rest of the elite group of schools will continue to use SAT/ACT tests to evaluate student quality. Four million students took the exams this year alone.

Also, the second cohort of scam participants tried to get in through the athletic back door. This shows a weakness of admissions policies of U.S. schools because college sports are a huge revenue maker for them. Head coaches in the Big Ten conference often make more money than the presidents of other colleges.

As long as ESPN continues to beam college sports, student-athletes will always be in demand. And even if athletic coaches are under additional scrutiny in the wake of the scandal, there will always be a disproportionate number of under-qualified students who will make the top schools because of their so-called athletic abilities. Athletes are known to be significantly preferred over other students who exhibit the same proficiency in other extracurricular activities, such as debates, drama, or music.

According to NACAC, more than 8 million high school students play a school sport. But of that group, less than one percent will go on to play sports at the collegiate level. And even fewer of those will ultimately go pro.  So unless your teenager is not an athlete angling for an athletic scholarship, nothing about college admissions has really changed. Basic college admission factors such as grades, strength of high school courses (AP/IB, Dual Credit, Honors), SAT/ACT scores, college essays, class rank, extracurricular activities, teacher and counselor recommendations, demonstrated interest in the schools that you wish to attend - are fundamentally the same as they were before the scam.

Our takeaway

The basic rules for obtaining admission to the top colleges have not changed.  The scam - and the intense social media attention that it generated - has shone a spotlight on corrupt admissions practices and this should help clean up the system a bit.

Meanwhile established practices which many consider unfair, such as legacy admissions (when you're given bonus points during application evaluation because a sibling or family member attended the same school) and athletic preferences will continue.

A Note About Rao Advisors Premium Services
Our promise is to empower you with high-quality, ethical and free advice via this website.  But parents and students often ask us if they can engage with us for individual counseling sessions.

Individual counseling is part of the Premium Offering of Rao Advisors and involves a fee.  Please contact us for more information.