Get a head start on college planning with Tim Shanahan
School just got out so it may seem like a funny time to be talking about planning for higher education. But our guest today, Tim Shanahan, tells me that summer is one of his busier times. If there is a rising sophomore (that’s right, high school sophomore) in your home, this is the time to start thinking about college planning. The next few months may be the best time to think about what school you want to choose and developing a strategy for making it as affordable as possible.
Colleges one of the biggest investments you will make. Doing some due diligence and planning can pay off in a big way.
Here’s my conversation with Tim Shanahan.
Steve:
Tim Shanahan from Class 101. Thanks for joining me. Thanks for talking for a few minutes.
Tim Shanahan:
Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.
Steve:
So of course, one of a family's biggest financial goals is sending kids to college and there's a lot to it, not just choosing college, but how to get the right deal, how much you're going to have to pay. And so you help people with that, I appreciate your sharing a little bit of your expertise with us. Let's just start with getting the best shot at the right school for your child, you'd said before that there were three secrets to doing that. So what are the three secrets to getting the best shot at the right school?
Tim Shanahan:
Absolutely. So one is creating a college list. And when I say that really working with a student to find out what we say are their factors. What's their major? What is the size of the college they want to go to? What is the distance, how far away? How much is the college going to cost? How much money do they give and the culture of the college? So these factors and building a list to have a student look at these factors and teaching them how to analyze and look at these factors to make sure they're making the right choice for them. That's a huge thing. And so really teaching them how to analyze things beyond just the food is good or the dorms are really nice or it's really pretty or I heard it's fun. And not that those are unimportant things, but there are only a small bit of a much bigger piece.
Tim Shanahan:
And that bigger piece is things like showing students to look at things like retention rate, which is the percentage of freshmen who returned for a sophomore year. Or what type of internships does the college offer? Or what's their reputation on the major they're interested in, what's the employment statistics? All these things that we've kind of teach the students, so we create this list based on their factors and then we show them how to analyze this list in a much deeper way than maybe they've ever done before.
Tim Shanahan:
And then kind of that third part of that whole key is then going to actually visit those colleges because no matter how much analysis we do and how much you look at videos and all these statistics, at the end of the day, the students got to go out and visit the college before they really know. And that can be easy or that can be tough, right? It's easy if you have a bunch of local colleges, going to visit is fairly easy. If you have colleges spread it out across the country, that can be a much more difficult task, obviously, but still critical to make sure that you're getting the right college for the student.
Steve:
Yeah. So how do you handle, or what do you say to families where the child has just said, "Oh, I want to go to Harvard. I want to go to Notre Dame, whatever." Because they like the name or because of whatever. How do you get them engaged in that conversation?
Tim Shanahan:
Yeah, absolutely. So, I mean, when we first start meeting with a student, we'll get, like I said, all those factors, what do they think they want out of college? And we'll start creating a list based on what we think is best for them. And then we're always very upfront and honest and blunt with our students. So if I have a student who says that they want to go to Harvard, I say, "Great, this is what it's going to take to get to Harvard. Let's see what your grades are now. Let's see what the averages are. What are your SAT or ACT scores?" Because we give practice tests. This is where you got to go. And so based on where you are, we'll do everything we can to get you there, but realize that if you're starting here, unless you'd get to this point, your chances are 1%, let's say, of getting to Harvard or 20% or 50%, whatever it might be. But I think being open and honest with the students, showing them right upfront exactly what they need to do to get to these colleges that they want to go through is very important.
Steve:
Okay. Now of course, one of the big factors at least for the parents is the financial aspect of it. And the basic, most fundamental of those forms when you start negotiating with colleges or looking at them, this is the FAFSA, the Free Application for Federal Student Aid. Did I get that right?
Tim Shanahan:
Yes, you did.
Steve:
And so as people fill those out, what are some of the most common mistakes that people make that you want them to keep an eye out for?
Tim Shanahan:
Sure. I'd say that the first and single biggest mistake that families will make is they fill out the form too late. So October 1st of your student's, when they're first going to college, October 1st of their senior year in high school is one the FAFSA opens for families to fill out. And the families that we work with, I always encourage them to fill that FAFSA out during the month of October and preferably even the first half of October, because the timeliness of it is important for certain colleges and certain scholarships If they want to have in, by a certain deadline, oftentimes by November 1st, that FAFSA in to be considered for certain scholarships that the college offers. And so that's the single biggest mistake we see is a lot of people think that, oh, I can do it in December, January, February, and you can, and you'll still get aid and things like that, but to maximize your efforts and chances earlier is better. So I definitely, that's the one big thing, the single biggest thing.
Tim Shanahan:
The other thing that I see oftentimes with families is if they doing it on their own, putting the incorrect assets on the FAFSA, and if you put assets on there that don't belong on there, you can ruin your chances for aid. Also, for instance, retirement assets, 401k, and IRAs and pension funds, those things don't go on the FAFSA. But the FAFSA, even though it's not an really super complex form, if you actually look at there's over 80 pages of instructions and things like that, and instructions are not always the clearest and so sometimes people will get confused and ended up putting on assets that don't belong. And like I said, that will kill their chances for aid oftentimes. So those two, I think, are right off the bat are the biggest things I see with families.
Steve:
Okay. And then beyond that there's the whole area of scholarships. So what kinds of tips can you offer people on how to secure scholarships?
Tim Shanahan:
Yeah, so scholarships. So one, there's a lot of misconceptions out there about scholarships. People hear about all different types of scholarships. There's obviously academic and merit scholarships, there's athletic scholarships, there's outside scholarships that companies give and things like that. Far and away, the biggest chance or the best chance to get the best scholarships are merit scholarships offered by colleges. And these don't necessarily go to just the very top students, very solid students, even B students, B plus students can get merit scholarships, it's about knowing which colleges to apply to first of all. Some colleges do show you the money so that's part of that college list is knowing what colleges to apply to.
Tim Shanahan:
And then actually understanding that that is the single best way to get a lot of money. And so really GPA, a student's GPA in high school, their SAT or ACT scores can mean a huge difference, a three point difference in ACT scores can make a huge difference in the amount of money and merit money that you get offered by a college. So I think that people need to understand that those academic merit scholarships from the colleges are the best way to get aid and to get the most aid. And it doesn't just go to, like I said, A plus students.
Tim Shanahan:
And coming back to, like we said, with the FAFSA, applying early, applying to college early also is critically important because those merit funds start to dry up as they start to give those away and accept people. So very, very important to be on the early side for those as well.
Steve:
Okay, great. That's really good advice. So you talk about timing of applying for colleges and that kind of stuff. So let's think about the planning process, does the process of starting to weed through colleges and get ready for colleges and those things, when's the best time to start really seriously planning for college?
Tim Shanahan:
That's a great question and one I get asked quite often, I tell people from me personally, in Class 101 when we're working with students, we prefer to start with students in their sophomore year in high school and preferably early in their sophomore year, like right at the beginning of the sophomore year. Now, part of that's going to depend on frankly, the maturity of the student and things like that, some students are going to be more ready in sophomore year than others. But all things being equal that's a great time to start because it gives us really all of that 10th grade year, that 11th grade year to do lots of planning, to do things like build that college list and help them not only, because a lot of times they're not going to know exactly what they want out of a college, but help them figure out what they might want out of a college, help them with testing that we give them, what career opportunities are out there for them and what they want to major in.
Tim Shanahan:
Building their resume because colleges like to see a well balanced resume, so if we start early, we can note deficiencies in a resume, you're doing a lot of this, but you don't have any volunteer activity or you're not doing that. So it allows us time to build up their resume and make that stronger. Also to work on the grades, to work on SAT, ACT study all these different things. It gives us a lot of opportunity so that by the time that senior year rolls around, we have been working, we have a great resume, we have great scores and we can put everything in the application and hopefully get the best money and the best colleges for that student.
Steve:
Okay, great. Now it isn't a lot of the stuff that we're talking about, the job of the guidance counselor in school?
Tim Shanahan:
And people ask me that quite a bit too. So guidance counselor is what people have to understand is they have, first of all for most schools, guidance counselors are working with 100 and 150, 200 kids depending on the school that each one of them has. And getting the student into college is only one very, very small part of their job. A bigger part of their job is just getting the students through high school, getting them class selections and making sure they can graduate. Obviously different students have higher needs sometimes with things going on, even family issues or problems, guidance counselors have all these things they have to deal with, with many times over 100, 150 students. And they put in very good work, but they just don't have the time to spend really literally hours and hours with a student to do all the things to get them ready for college and to help them with their applications, to help them with their essays, scholarship searches, all those things.
Steve:
Okay, great. And I mentioned that you work at a company called Class 101. Tell us a little bit about what Class 101 does and where people can find you.
Tim Shanahan:
Sure. So Class 101, like I said, we're college planning company. We've been around since 1997. We have locations in more than 23 states right now, over 50 locations around the country, which is great because we actually have a great network that we work with each other, we're able to lean on each other. I mean, I've been out literally hundreds and hundreds of colleges, but there's 4,000 plus of them, I haven't been all of them. So I can lean on some of my other compatriots to talk about a college that maybe I haven't been to. And I can then relay that to the student.
Tim Shanahan:
But Class 101, we're a full service college planning company. We do everything. Everything's based around one hour meetings with the students where we'll meet with students, if they're a junior we're meeting with them once every four weeks, if they're a senior meeting with them once every two to three weeks, for an hour at a time doing everything, helping them build their college lists, help them with SAT and ACT study, helping them find scholarships, helping them do their applications, editing their essays, all of the different things, helping them decide on a career or a major.
Tim Shanahan:
So it's really a full service and complete comprehensive college planning service that we work with the students. And we've had great feedback and there's nothing better than finding out a student, they're excited, you're one of the first people they tell what they got on their SAT score, even before they tell their parents sometimes. Or even better, when I hear about they got into to the college of their dreams or things like that, that's great. And so I mean, people can find us on the web, www.class101.com is a great place to start. And like I said, we have locations all around the country and you can search for the location to find where your nearest one is.
Steve:
Great. And we'll make sure we put that in the notes as well. So Tim, thanks very much for talking with us for a little bit.
Tim Shanahan:
Thank you. I appreciate you having me.