Financial aid articles

The 10 best schools for financial aid packages.
http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/departments/college/?article=Top10FinancialAid07

The 10 Deadliest Mistakes Most Parents Make When Applying For College Funding-- And How To Avoid Them...
http://www.collegerecruiter.com/pages/articles/article306.php

Best Values in Public Colleges
http://www.kiplinger.com/personalfinance/features/archives/2006/09/pubcollege.html

The Great Scholarship Quest
http://www.kiplinger.com/personalfinance/basics/managing/college/scholarship.html

Trim your College Costs
http://www.kiplinger.com/personalfinance/columns/drt/archive/2006/dt060809.html

Who Pays for College
http://www.kiplinger.com/personalfinance/magazine/archives/2006/09/msk.html

Searching for scholarships

Now is the time to do your research for scholarships. What research you ask? It is important to the process that you are registered with scholarship search sites that will allow you to read about different scholarships that you may be eligible for.

Some useful sites are:
www.fastweb.com
www.collegeincolorado.org
www.scholarships.com
www.collegeanswer.com.

Each of these sites has a scholarship search component.
Please, please, please be aware of so called Scholarship scams. These are organizations that charge a fee to apply for the scholarship.
See www.finaid.org/scholarships/common.phtml

Also be wary of any services that provide scholarship searches for a fee. Typically these services will get information from you and provide you with a report of scholarships you can apply for. Sometimes these reports are full of information that you could have received from the free services. If you decide to use a paid service, be sure they come highly recommeded from known references.

Applying for scholarships does take a lot of work on your part. Often, essays are required. Applications have to be completed fully and correctly. You must be a master of organization to meet deadlines and have all materials ready.
You may need letters of recommendation from teachers, counselors, and community members. It is time to ask teachers for these letters. When you do this, you should have a profile ready or resume that a teacher can use to help craft your letter. Mr Lentini can provide you with the blank profile for you to fill out.

The thing to remember about this whole process is apply early and often.

Getting the school year started off right

So now we are in our 4th week of the 05-06 school year. The end of the 1st grading period is over on September 23rd. How are you doing so far? Have you kept the commitment that you made to being successful this year?

Some students have questions about what it takes to be successful in the classroom. Let me tell you that the strategies that successful students use can be duplicated by anyone, including you. They include excellent attendance, attentiveness and participation in the classroom and thorough studying and homework completion.

Attendance is for most of us, totally controllable. While there are times that students or someone in the family gets sick and th student cannot attend. Call for your homework immediately. If you feel well enough to get through the day, do so. Ditching a class should NEVER be a part of what you feel is acceptable. Developing good strong attendance habits are extremely important.

Attentiveness and participation are two aspects of the school day that some students struggle with. "This class is boring" or "I'm too tired to pay attention" are a couple of statements I have heard students make. Making statements such as these will instantly prevent you from maximizing your success in the classroom. One way to engage in the class is by taking notes. Taking notes helps you in 2 obvious ways. You cannot help but pay attention to the teacher when you are note taking and you will have a record of what the teacher finds to be important enough to be on the test. Good note takers can then review their notes and be prepared for that big exam coming up.

Finally, your homework is a vital part of your success. I have heard so many times students say that the reason they received a D or F in a class was because they didn't do the homework. Teachers use the assignments that they give you as a major part of your grade. Each time you fail to turn something in, you receive a ZERO for it. Those that do homework thoroughly report that it usually takes them about an hour to complete it. One hour a night can mean the difference between a B or a D or F in your grade.

Many students start the school year with goals related to their success. Some say they are trying for a 3.0 average, some straight A’s; others just want to pass all their classes. What ever your goals are, the hope of reaching them can quickly vanish if you don't use the proper strategies to achieve them. Please see me (Counselor Lentini) if you need special assistance on improving in one or more of the areas I have discussed. I am at North High School all day Tuesday and Thursday and on Fridays from 7:15 to 11:00. I am at Thomas Jefferson the other days.

A. Lentini

College Invest Student Loans

Some of you will take out student loans to finance your college. There is news you need to be aware of to save you money.
You should take out your loan through COLLEGEINVEST.
Your fine mayor, John Hickenlooper just announced a new program for DPS graduates. If you earn a bacholor's degree (4 year) within 6 years of graduating high school, you will have up to $1500 of your loan forgiven. That means your loan principal will be reduced. Free Money, the best kind. This is true no matter which college you attend. There are similar but smaller loan forgiveness programs with COLLEGEINVEST if you graduate with an Associates degree (2 year) or graduate from a vocational education program.

You must GO TO http://www.collegeinvest.org/GRADS/ to get details and register.

Also don't forget to register for the COF if you are going to school in Colorado at https://cof.college-access.net/cofapp/createAccount.do

Let me know if you have any questions.
Thanks,
Mr. Lentini

Mini Courses at DU

I just received information about very cool Mini Courses at DU. You can take these courses at NO COST. They want Juniors or Seniors with a 3.0 or better. Some of the courses are Electronics for Music, Making of a Computer Chip, Nanotechnology, Robotic Programing and Interfacing, Computer Controlled Systems. These are only 2 hour courses designed to enlighten and raise your interest in the subject.

See Mr. Lentini ASAP if you are interested in any of these. They are filled in a first come first served basis.

Community Service Volunteering

Many of you have heard that you should be contributing your time, giving back to your communtiy, volunteering at a community service organization, but you don't know how to get started.

When top colleges and scholarship foundations are reviewing applications, very often, one of the key components to how they decide who to accept is the quality and commitment that you may have to "community service." The word commitment is very important to understand. An impressive community service record is one that shows a certain dedication to an organization or cause. This means that you are fairly involved in an activity, that it is important to you and you spend time giving your talents to that activity.

It is less impressive to the scholarships and colleges that you volunteered a few hours here and a few hours there. While going down to serve meals at a homeless shelter twice last year for a total of 15 hours is very kind of you and probably made you feel good, this type of activity is not what could help you stand apart. Perhaps you became a regular at the homeless shelter, working for them a few hours every week. Then, as part of your experience, you thought of a fundraiser, clothing drive or food drive that you conducted in your school or neighborhood for the benefit of the shelter. Now, you are becoming a vital part of that organization and your accomplishments are impressive.

Now people understand that not everyone wants to work at a homeless shelter. You all have the opportunity to take one of your interests and develop a community service project and commitment to it. Suppose you are a nature lover and you wanted to help clean up your community. Maybe you are a bmx stunt rider or skate board afficianado and you can help teach younger kids to learn stunts. Perhaps you have a great interest in animation and you want to start a club at a middle school. There are many ways you can take your interests and contribute to the community.

Not everyone has developed interests and can come up with projects on their own. You can use a community service search program called...svnusa.org. This is a website that will help put you in touch with organizations in the Greater Denver area that you can volunteer with. You don't need to come up with your own ideas. There are many established groups that need you. They need committed students to help and contribute their time regularly.

Look into it and act on it. Those students who are being recognized for outstanding community service are doing it during their 10th and 11th grade years. You can't wait until senior year to get started. You have questions? See Counselor Lentini and he can help you get started.