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Meridian's curriculum is designed to prepare students for both traditionally and progressively structured colleges. Students take the ACT college entrance exam as well as any required SAT subject tests. Students not only have a transcipt showing the courses that they have taken, they have the products of their projects including their year-long Junior/Senior Research Project to share with colleges. These efforts demonstrate a student's initiative, analytical skills, problem posing, problem solving, writing, and creativity. Students will be able to distinguish themselves from students who have not had the opportunity to do real, complex, original academic work.
Resources
- Naviance - Sophomores through seniors, you can access your personal Naviance college search and preparation pages by clicking here: connection.naviance.com/meridian. Once you have registered (there is a link on the sign-in page), you login with your email address as your username and with your chosen password.
College Searches
As you search around for schools, in addition to Naviance (and the many books that we have at school), these three search tools are quite helpful:
- CollegeMatch: This site lets you enter a college that is of interest to you and suggests schools with similar characteristics (sort of the Pandora of colleges) www.citytowninfo.com/college-match.
- College Board Criterion Search: Similar to Naviance but with slightly different search variables that might be helpful at times (hit the Submit and Continue button at the bottom of each screen) collegesearch.collegeboard.com/search/adv_typeofschool.jsp.
- College Board College Search: Get the overview on specific schools of interest www.collegeboard.com/student/csearch/index.html.
These websites below may also be of help (and other links are on the resource page of Naviance):
- fairtest.org This site provides a list of institutions that do not require standardized tests for admissions.
- www.petersons.com Good search tool.
- www.collegeview.com Another useful college search engine.
- www.aucc.ca/can_uni/index_e.html For those interested in Canadian colleges and universities.
- www.cisabroad.com Assists American students in finding colleges in England, Ireland, Scotland, Italy, Spain, Australia and New Zealand.
Financial Aid Resources
Basic Definitions:
- EFC = Expected Family Contribution
- COA = Cost of Attendance for a given college
- Need = COA – EFC
- Unmet Need (Gap) = COA – EFC – (loans + grants + work study)
For many aspects of the college application process, the College Board site has excellent resources. It is worth exploring for both students and parents: www.collegeboard.com. For a complete guide/walk-through the financial planning process from years ahead of time to weighing offers, visit apps.collegeboard.com/fincalc/ep/wizard-home.jsp.
Massachusetts Educational Financing Authority (MEFA) – www.mefa.org – provides lots of information on planning, savings plans, loans, and financial aid. Their two main savings plans are:
- The U.Plan Prepaid Tuition Program: www.mefa.org/saveForCollege/UPlanPrepaidTuitionProgram.aspx
- The U.Fund 529 College Savings Plan: www.mefa.org/saveforcollege/ufundcollegeinventmentplan.aspx
FAFSA – The Free Application for Federal Student Aid or FAFSA is the financial aid application form you will need to apply for federal and state student grants, work-study, and loans.
- Description: www.collegeboard.com/student/pay/scholarships-and-aid/8341.html
- Main site: www.fafsa.ed.gov/
Profile - CSS/Financial Aid PROFILE® is the financial aid application service of the College Board. More than 600 colleges, universities, graduate and professional schools, and scholarship programs use the information collected on the PROFILE to determine eligibility for nonfederal student aid funds.
- Description: www.collegeboard.com/student/pay/scholarships-and-aid/8374.html
- Main site: profileonline.collegeboard.com/prf/index.jsp
EFC Calculators
- For a very quick estimate of expected family contribution: www.finaid.org/calculators/scripts/quickefc.cgi
- For a more accurate and flexible estimation:
apps.collegeboard.com/fincalc/efc_welcome.jsp - For a full simulation of the FAFSA process (most time-consuming, most accurate): www.fafsa4caster.ed.gov/F4CApp/index/index.jsf (click on the link on the right to start)
For a detailed explanation of student loan types (including federal government Stafford loans):
Scholarship Searches:
- Through your Naviance page, click on National Scholarship Search.
- College Board scholarship search: apps.collegeboard.com/cbsearch_ss/welcome.jsp
- FastWeb: www.fastweb.com/college-scholarships/scholarships.
- FinAid: see www.finaid.org/otheraid/ for other sources.