FAP766: Admissions Wait Lists and Using LinkedIn
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Student Financial Aid News
+ Got some awesome mail to start my day from Nolan in Oregon: Thank you very much for publishing your Ebook on scholarships and making it free for students like me to access. Although I am a senior this year, I have enjoyed the fruits of my labor thus far with over $5,000 (and counting) of scholarship money. I definitely plan to keep using your guide on throughout college and I plan to pass it …

FAP763: The Dark Side of No-Loan College Admissions
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Student Financial Aid News
+ Great analysis piece on Inside Higher Ed about the darker side of colleges going no-loan
+ For colleges that go no-loan without being need-blind without changing the total amount of aid awarded, you effectively have more financial aid going to fewer students
+ Quick primer: need blind means that the ability to pay for school is not a consideration for financial aid or admissions
+ For the vast majority of private colleges that are not need …

FAP666: Social Media College Application, Tuition, John Phillips Sousa
Student Financial Aid News
+ Happy Veteran’s Day
+ The OLPC goes on sale today and is available for 12 days only. It’s a very, very inexpensive laptop. For $399, you get one for yourself, and one gets donated to a child in a developing nation
+ I bought one first thing this morning. Since it runs Linux, I’m going to bet that it can run Audacity. That means a mobile podcasting studio!
+ Inside Higher Ed: On Friday, the leaders of the House Education and …

I mentioned in a previous episode about the Social Media College Application. Applying for a job is relatively easy, all things considered, but a college application is a whole other ball of wax. The gold standard for college applications is the Common Application (PDF), which is used by more than 300 colleges in the US. Here’s what a social media version of the application would probably look like.
First, you’d have the Common Application itself, filled out completely, and linked on your personal web site. It would need to be encrypted …

FAP658: Interest rate cuts, temporary loans, single lenders, Matthew Ebel
Student Financial Aid News
+ Federal reserve cuts funds rate by 0.25% to 4.25%
+ Prime rate change to 7.25%
+ Upside: interest rates based on prime decrease
+ Downside: it seems the Federal Reserve is trying to stave off economic damage from the housing bubble by making lending easier, thus creating another bubble
+ Kind of like an alcoholic trying to stave off the effects of going sober by drinking heavily
+ From the Chronicle: The U.S. Education Department has sent a second round of letters …

FAP633: Expert interview with Yvonne Gittens 2: How to get into MIT, Audiopharm
Listen now:
[audio:http://media.libsyn.com/media/financialaidpodcast/20070926.mp3″>MP3 file
Expert Interview
+ Part 2 of the Yvonne Gittens interview
+ Ever wondered what a top school like MIT looks for in applicants? She’ll tell you, plus how much consideration you actually get in the admissions process – it’s different than you might imagine!
Promo
+ Private student loans from ActEducationLoans.com
Podsafe Music
+ Audiopharm, Last Ride
Reminders
+ Private student loans
+ Stafford loans | Other federal student loans
+ Student loan consolidation at StudentLoanConsolidator.com
+ FAFSA tutorials and free help
+ Financial Aid Podcast Show Notes …

FAP603: Preferred Lender Lists still in effect, Facebook parents, mail bag, Catie McKinney
Student Financial Aid News
+ New guide to our Stafford Loan e-Signature process
+ Working on a guide to our application itself
+ Kim Clark writes in: Anyway, if you’re looking for good stuff for your podcase, I thought you might be interested in the story we’ve just posted. I called around to see if the months of headlines about preferred lender list scandals had caused colleges to put lower-cost lenders on their lists. Unfortunately, many are still omitting the cheapest …

FAP459: How to get into college with lots of financial aid, $25K scholarship, ISAC, Sallie Mae, Douglas Spotted Eagle
Student Financial Aid News
+ Profits at The First Marblehead Corp. (ticker: FMD) were down 27% for the fourth quarter, compared with the same period a year earlier, partly because of changes to the firm’s securitization schedule.
+ They power our Act Education Loans and private student loans
+ Problems were reported this weekend with both the Medical College Admission Test and the SAT that some students took, The New York Times reported. On some …