College have made their decisions, and once the initial euphoria or despair passes, high school seniors need to evaluate their options. They have until May 1 to make their final decisions, and with student debt reaching one trillion dollars, cost has become the primary factor for many families.

Financial aid packages are often disappointing. Even if your Estimated Family Contribution (EFC), as determined by the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), is $30,000 and the cost of attending a college is $55,000, that doesn’t mean you will receive $25,000 in grants to cover the difference. Aid packages generally are a mix of grants, loans and work-study employment, except for a few wealthy institutions that are able to provide packages that do not include loans. Private colleges that ask for the CSS Profile form in addition to the FAFSA will use institutional methodology in awarding non-federal aid. This can result in a higher family contribution.

Then there is the fact that most colleges do not have the resources to meet full financial need. There can be a substantial gap between the student’s demonstrated need and the aid package. And they don’t necessarily allocate those resources equally. Many colleges use preferential packaging, offering the best aid packages to the students they don’t want to lose to another school.

It is possible to appeal a financial aid package, and colleges have been getting more appeals in recent years from families impacted by the recession. If a parent has lost a job, financial aid officers can use professional judgment to increase an award.

Some parents try to negotiate an increase in a merit scholarship, but that is less likely to be successful. It doesn’t hurt to ask as there may be cases where an award is increased, but remember that financial aid officers are hearing pleas from students in desperate financial straits. If a family does not need the money, financial aid officers are reluctant to divert limited resources from students who need the funds to be able to attend the school.

Whatever you are asking for, it’s important to be honest, respectful, and courteous. While admissions and financial aid officers do want the students they admit to enroll at the college, like most people, they don’t respond well to threats or manipulation. If a parent calls and says that other colleges are offering more money and this school needs to come up with a better package or his son will go elsewhere, he may be told that he should do just that.

Even if you can afford to pay full fare at an expensive college, you may be wondering if it is worth the cost. As competition for admission to the most selective schools has become more intense, many high-achieving students have been turned away. Those students have gone to other colleges and raised the quality of schools that might previously not have attracted such strong students. This means there are more excellent colleges out there, and unlike the most selective schools, many of them offer merit scholarships.

Some families are concerned that attending a less prestigious college will mean fewer job opportunities. This is a real concern and admitted students and their parents should use the next few weeks to do more research. If you will be visiting the school, go to the career services office and ask for list of companies recruiting on campus this spring. Ask where recent graduates are working or attending graduate school. You might also want to talk to graduating seniors and ask how satisfied they are with the career services, and whether the school helped them get internships as well as job offers. How happy are they with the education they received at the college? Did financial aid keep pace with the increase in costs over the four years or are they graduating with significant debt? If they had it to do over, would they choose this college again?

Younger students who will be going through this process in the next few years can learn from older siblings and friends. Seeing someone receive a merit scholarship worth $15,000 or $20,000 a year can be very motivating. Freshmen and sophomores have time to improve their academic record and juniors can still make sure their college list includes schools that offer merit-based aid and where they are in the top quarter of the applicant pool.

Preferential packaging means having a strong academic record is also important in securing the best need-based financial aid package. All of this means if you work hard and earn excellent grades and test scores, there could be a real payoff. If you spent 40 hours preparing for the SAT, and that effort resulted in a $10,000 a year scholarship, which would add up to $40,000 over four years, you would have earned $1,000 an hour. Even the best babysitting gig doesn’t pay that kind of money.

Many students are anxiously awaiting the results of their early applications before they invest time in other applications.  This is a big mistake.  Many colleges received more early applications this year, and competition for admission will be intense.  Early Action applications were up 14 percent at Northeastern and 25 percent at University of Chicago. Schools with binding Early Decision plans also saw significant increases.  Early Decision applications were up 15 percent at Northwestern, 17 percent at Emory, almost 20 percent at Boston University, 23 percent at Duke and 33 percent at Pomona.

Not all colleges had more early applications. Yale saw an 18 percent decrease in Early Action applications, which is probably because Harvard offered an Early Action option this year, and these schools don’t allow students to apply early to other colleges.  The new Harvard early option probably also accounts for modest decreases in Early Decision applications at Columbia and University of Pennsylvania.  But all of these schools may see increases in Regular Decision applications.  Students need to submit their strongest applications.

That’s why it’s important to keep working throughout this month.  Getting a rejection in mid-December can be a crushing disappointment, and it is very hard to recover from that emotional blow and do your best work on seven other applications when you have just two weeks till the early January deadlines.  While it may be difficult to push yourself to work on applications now while you’re waiting to get into your favorite college, it will be much harder after a rejection.  If you have finished your other applications and you are denied or deferred by your early school, you will be very relieved that your applications are ready to submit.  Best case scenario is that you are accepted at your early school, and in that case you will be so excited that you won’t care about the unnecessary work you did on other applications.

Students who did not submit early applications really have no reason to wait, and if they haven’t completed an application yet, it’s especially important to get started.  In addition to writing essays, you need to complete the activities/community service/work experience section, and you want to write those descriptions concisely and accurately.  Admissions officers appreciate an application that is clear and easy to read.  Print out the application so you can proofread it.  You may find that some of your activity descriptions are cut off, requiring you to rewrite them.  All of this takes time.  Add the stress of rushing to finish seven supplements in the last few days and you are more likely to make mistakes.  You also risk your computer or the server crashing, or a winter storm that knocks out your electricity right before the application deadline.  

Once you submit the Common Application to one school, you cannot make changes to that application.  If you applied Early Decision/Early Action and now want update your awards, activities or test scores, or would like to tailor your application to one college, you can create an alternate version.  After you log in, go to the Instructions page and scroll down to “Application Versions” for step by step instructions.  The alternate version will have all the information from your first version and you can edit as you wish.  However, any documents you uploaded will not transfer to the alternate version, so be sure to upload your essay to the alternate version.

Remember that with the Common Application you need to submit the application, supplement and payment separately.  Students sometimes think that once they submit payment, the application automatically follows.  Since it can take up to 48 hours for your payment to be processed, waiting until the day of a deadline means your application might not be submitted in time.  Check the My Colleges page to confirm that your applications have been submitted.  You can also see if your counselor and teacher have submitted their forms.

If you have questions as you’re working on the Common Application, the “Help” button at the top of the Common Application will take you to the Applicant Support Center.  If you don’t find the answer to your question there, you can contact technical support.

While some seniors are immersed in application essays, others still need to finalize their college list. Wherever you are in the process, you want to continue learning about colleges so that you can prepare your strongest applications.

Admissions officers will be offering local information sessions and visiting high schools throughout the fall. Check with your school’s college counseling center for a schedule of college visits.  Prepare questions to ask about the college, ask for a business card and follow up with an email thanking the admissions officer for visiting. It’s also a good idea to mention something the representative told you about the college that resonated with you.

Many colleges have special programs for prospective freshmen during the fall, so if you haven’t visited the schools on your list, you might want to plan on seeing some of them in the next couple months. If you can sit in on a class or two, even spend the night in a dorm, you’ll know if it’s a place you can really see yourself. Visiting a college can also enhance your application, as you are demonstrating interest, and you’ll be knowledgeable enough to write a more compelling “Why are you applying to our school?” supplemental essay.

Some colleges have changed early application options this year. A number of schools have established earlier deadlines, which allows more time for admissions officers to review applications. Being able to notify students earlier can also help win over students who may invest emotionally in that college before hearing from other schools.

If you plan to apply Early Action to University of North Carolina, you need to know that the deadline has been moved up to October 15. Harvard and Princeton have added a new Single Choice Early Action option, with a November 1 deadline. University of Virginia will offer a new Early Action option, with a November 1 deadline. University of Rochester has added an Early Notification option, with a December 1 deadline.

A number of schools have earlier deadlines for scholarships or honors programs. For example, University of Southern California has a January 10 application deadline, but if you want to be considered for scholarships, you need to apply by December 1. Some public universities have November 1 priority deadlines for scholarship or honors program consideration.

If you are applying to colleges that use the Common Application, you will find a helpful grid that includes application requirements and deadlines for all members: https://www.commonapp.org/CommonApp/MemberRequirements.aspx.

Check with each college on your list to make sure you have accurate information about application and financial aid deadlines.  

If you plan to submit early applications, it’s especially important to get started on your essays so that you have time to complete several drafts. You need to build time into your schedule for weeks when you have too much schoolwork to even look at a college application.

If you are applying to Common App schools, or other colleges that require teacher recommendations, be sure to ask your teacher in the next few weeks, especially if you need the letter for a November 1 early application deadline. 

A calendar with all of your deadlines will be extremely helpful. Include registration deadlines and test dates for any final SAT, ACT or Subject Tests. In addition to official application deadlines for each college, create your own deadline for each application at least a week or two before the real deadline.

You are more likely to make mistakes if you’re racing against the clock when proofreading an application. If that’s not enough to motivate you to finish your applications early, how about the fact that some schools require you to pay the application fee before you can submit the application? Since it can take a day or two to process your credit card payment, this is not something you want to be doing five minutes before midnight on the deadline date.

Most private colleges, and some public universities, will ask for a midyear report, which includes your fall semester grades. This will be the final piece of the application, and you want your grades to be as strong as possible.

While you can’t fill out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) until January, you can learn about the financial aid process at www.finaid.org. If you plan to apply for scholarships not awarded directly by colleges, be sure to register with www.fastweb.com or another scholarship search engine. 

Make a schedule for application tasks so that you know exactly what you need to do each week. This process will be much less stressful if you start now and pace yourself.

How will you benefit from attending our college? What will you contribute to our college? While you may not see these questions on college applications, if you have answered them in your applications, you will be setting yourself apart from other applicants and making a persuasive case for your admission. 

Students sometimes lose sight of the fact that colleges are academic institutions, and they are looking for people who love to learn. Someone whose idea of fun is discussing Kant’s moral philosophy will take full advantage of the opportunities for intellectual engagement in college. When admissions officers read an application from a student who has demonstrated this kind of love of learning by pursuing opportunities beyond her high school classroom, they know she will benefit from attending their school.

Many students have taken years of piano lessons, but one of my students is so passionate about music that she also led monthly workshops to study composers, because she believed that learning about their personal history would help her understand their music. She attended music festivals and entered competitions, where she embraced new musical perspectives. She wrote poetically about her love of music, and was accepted at several highly selective colleges because admissions officers understood that she will be committed to learning from professors and peers.

Admissions officers make assumptions about what you will contribute to their college based on what you have contributed to your high school or community. The more selective the college, the greater the impact your contribution needs to have in order to stand out. While tutoring children in a shelter for homeless families is certainly a valuable contribution, organizing a program to match every child with a mentor, recruiting other students to participate, and expanding that program to other shelters would have the kind of impact that stands out.

If the activities you pursue have a theme, you can focus your application on that theme, which helps admissions officers get a clear picture of your values and interests. When an aspiring anthropologist has volunteered every Saturday at a museum, taken anthropology classes at community college, and spent a summer on an archaeological dig, he will be able to put together a cohesive and compelling application.

But not everyone has a defining intellectual or career interest, and students shouldn’t feel pressured to choose one area to pursue in depth just because it will look good on applications. In fact, balancing a scientific or technical side with an interest in something artistic is another way to stand out. A young woman who loves science and wants to major in physics, but also writes poetry that she reads at a local coffeehouse would be very interesting to admissions officers.

Summer is a good time to explore your interests by getting involved in community service or research opportunities. If you can’t find an established program, try creating your own.

For example, a student who is on his school’s basketball team might combine his love of the sport with community service by volunteering to coach or organizing a program for children at a recreation center.

One of my students found a scientist who was doing research that sounded interesting, so she arranged to meet him. She ended up volunteering in the lab and enjoyed it so much that after spending much of the summer there, she decided to continue volunteering during the school year.

Find something you love to do and any impact it may have on your college applications will just be a bonus.