Trevor Ramos is the author of How To Get Free Money For College and a College Admissions & Financial Aid Consultant. In the past 12 years, he has helped families with 9th, 10th and 11th graders to get scholarships and grants to attend expensive universities. His specialty is helping foreign and domestic students attend selective American universities.
Trevor is a graduate of Boston University and holds a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration with an emphasis in accounting. He is a Certified College Planning Specialist (CCPS) through the National Institute of Certified College Planners (NICCP). He is also a member of the National Association for College Admissions Counseling (NACAC), the International Association for College Admissions Counseling (IACAC), and the Western Association for College Admissions Counseling (WACAC).
Trevor’s true secret to success came out of his own personal need. He was awarded $178,000 in financial aid from Boston University despite thinking that community college was his only option. After his own personal successes, he decided to devote his life and career to helping parents and students get accepted to the college of their choice, receive thousands of dollars in scholarships and grants regardless of their income and assets, and pay for college without borrowing or using retirement money.
If your child wants to attend one of the United States’ most selective universities such as Stanford, Yale or Harvard, I suggest hiring a college consultant during the child’s 8th grade year. If your child wants to attend a less selective university, they can start in the 9th, 10th and 11th grade. The main idea is not to wait until your child’s senior year to start planning for college.
The two most common college funding solutions are need-based aid and merit-based aid. When a family is using need-based aid to get a scholarship or grant to pay for college, they are targeting schools that offer generous financial aid packages based on the family’s income and assets.
The other strategy is merit-based aid. This is trying to get a scholarship from a college based on the child’s academic accomplishments. As long as the school offers academic scholarships, the student must usually be in the 25% of all applicants to compete for these scholarships. Some US schools do not offer need-based financial aid to international students, so merit-based aid is often pursued by international students.
If the family is able to establish residency in a state, they can also receive in-state tuition at the universities within the state. They can also receive near to in-state tuition rate at universities in neighboring states through a regional tuition reciprocity program.
There are also private scholarships students can apply for through foundations, charities and non-profits to name a few.
My book is entitled How To Get Free Money For College: The Ultimate Guide To Sending Your Kids To The Best, Most Expensive Universities For Pennies On The Dollar. I also hold webinars. You can also join my email list at my website along with a Facebook group that I co-administrate called “Parent of College-Bound Students.”