YCBK 98: Why Your EFC Says You have to pay so much for college

In this week’s episode you will hear

In the News (8:17): In this week’s news segment, an article from The Atlantic, “College Admissions Hysteria Is Not the Norm”, by Alia Wong. A focus on highly selective schools obscures the experience of the vast majority of American undergraduates. Ms. Wong wrote this piece as a great reminder to us all that the majority of students are not facing the ultra-stressful admissions process in trying to get into highly selective schools – which tends to dominate media headlines (Length 19:22).
https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2019/04/harvard-uchicago-elite-colleges-are-anomaly/586627/

Chapter 98 of 171 Answers (27:39): We are in Chapter 98 of 171 Answers we we’ll be talking about why the EFC can sometimes say that families need to pay an outrageous amount of money.

We talk about all of the reasons why the EFC is a false measure of what a family can actually afford to pay for college.Mark helps us determine how our kids should go about understanding the academic requirements and steps that it takes to achieve the careers that they are considering, and decide whether or not they would want to stick with that relevant major in college. (Length 15:42)

This week’s question (43:21) wants to know how boarding schools prepare kids for college.

Anika shares her experience having had two kids attend boarding school and Mark shares how boarding schools uniquely prepare students for college but he also discusses some surprising ways in which boarding schools are overrated in their preparation for college. (Length 17:18)

This week’s interview (1:00:39) Mark continues his interview with Emily Griffin, Director of the Loeb Center for Career Exploration and Planning, at Amherst College in – How can you evaluate and fully utilize a college’s career center – Part II. Emily answers the following questions:

Is there a demand in the job world for students who get degrees in things like history, English, philosophy, etc.
Emily shares the top skills that employers are looking for.
How can you evaluate the various career centers as part of my college process?
Can you trust the statistics career centers put out about the percentage of students with a job after 6 months? (Length 24 minutes)

Mark’s recommended resource of the week (1:13:27) is Department of Education’s Net Price Calculator Center: https://collegecost.ed.gov/net-price

College Spotlight (1:27:17) :College Spotlight: UAB

Don’t forget to send your questions related to any and every facet of the college process to: questions@yourcollegeboundkid.com

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Every episode of Your College-Bound Kid will align with a chapter from the book 171 Answers to the Most-Asked College Admission Questions. To get a copy visit 171answers.com and if you want to see what future episodes will cover just click the red button “See exactly what 171 Answers covers”.

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