103: How to Appeal a Financial Aid Award Letter

Ethan Sawyer  0:08  
Ethan Sawyer, College Essay Guy here, I'm all about bringing more ease, joy and purpose into the college application process. Welcome to the podcast where I interview some of the most brilliant minds in this college admissions world, I try and extract their genius, figure out how they're doing what they're doing, or just get their best advice and communicate it to you in simple, easy to follow language and steps. My goal here is to go beyond the basics, and you'll see that's true, especially in this episode, figuring out what are the inside things, the things that you may not be able to read on some other website, and, and, and, yeah, and bring it to you in a fun way. So today's guest is Jody Oken. She is rad, as you'll soon see, she's a huge Twitter star. She's got over 150,000 followers, people interested in what she has to say. She worked in the financial aid offices at Occidental, also known as oxy and Pitzer. I'll tell you more about her in just a minute. Get your pen and paper ready, because on this episode, we talk about the first thing you should do if you receive a financial aid award letter and you're disappointed, who should make the call to a financial aid office? Is it a student or a parent? You might be surprised at the answer. What you should literally say to a financial aid officer when you call them to make an appeal, why you shouldn't start off the conversation by just mentioning, oh, I got this other financial aid offer from this other school. Jody shares her five points to cover in an appeal letter, including what tone to take and how long the letter should be, the one thing students should do but don't do, and the one thing parents should do but don't do. And even, why do people always pronounce it FASFA? Just the hard hitting questions here, folks, heads up that the sound quality on this podcast is a little funky. It's totally my fault. I messed up the settings. But just like when you walk into a dim room where there's like dim lighting, and it takes your eyes a few minutes to adjust once you listen to it. And I know because I just listened through the podcast again, your ears will get used to it, but the content is great, so I wanted to share it with you. Don't forget to check out the accompanying blog post that I wrote with Jody called How to write a great financial aid appeal letter. All right, that's it. Enjoy the podcast. My guest today is Jody Oken. She's the founder of college financial aid advisors. She's helped 1000s of families, I was going to say, millions, navigate the financial aid process. Her background includes over 10 years in the financial aid industry. She has first hand experience working in the offices financial aid offices at Occidental Pitzer. She's the brand ambassador for Discover student loans. She's an about.com money expert, the about.com money expert, and recently featured as one of the top 30 social influencers. Oh, and by the way, just wrote an Amazon bestseller, secrets of a financial aid pro ladies and gentlemen, Jody oke and Jody, welcome to the podcast


Jodi Okun  3:02  
and formal. Curti, thank you very much. Thanks.


Ethan Sawyer  3:05  
Thanks for being here. It's really an honor. I feel like you're one of those humans where we kind of know each other but kind of don't know each other because most of our interactions are online. So it's awesome and rad and kind of strange together in person. What do you do and why do you do it?


Jodi Okun  3:23  
What do I do so I help families understand the financial aid process. So when I started working in financial aid, I felt that there was a huge disconnect between the colleges and the families and the way financial aid worked. And because I come from this college background, I have this passion. So when you hear me talk about it, I'm so passionate about trying to explain this complicated nerve racking system to families so that they can feel more relaxed and breathe. And so that's sort of what drives me. I'll help anyone just understand it, and I've opened so many doors for families, I feel blessed


Ethan Sawyer  4:07  
tell us about your book, my


Jodi Okun  4:09  
book. So I'm an author, and I'm so humbled when people say, Oh my gosh, I just read your book, but I did the project because I really wanted to write an evergreen book. I did not want to write a book, a how to book. I wanted to write a book of real family stories that have happened in my career, and then give them sort of Springboard points of how to start that in middle school, high school and millenniums. I'm kind of really into this after college experience. And so it was going to be a book that lasts forever, and there's a dream come true. And I love the process, and so I have a book now, yeah,


Ethan Sawyer  4:52  
what do you feel like you really got right in the book? Like, what do you feel like you nailed?


Jodi Okun  4:58  
I wanted to be a. Digestible book. And everyone who's told me that they read it loved the formatting, and that was really key for me. When you're a writer and you're writing a book, you have a specific way of writing or your and they thought, you know, the white space and the homework and the things that we did, they said, I read it in one night, and it answered all the questions I had, and that is the best feedback I think an author can ask for awesome.


Ethan Sawyer  5:21  
So I want to get into because people might say, Well, I have expertise in the financial industry, but financial aid industry is so particular and so perfect for what we're talking about today. I'm going to start off with a really broad question, but what has working 10 years in the financial aid industry taught you?


Jodi Okun  5:41  
It's taught me, you know, that it's, there's multi sides to financial aid. So, you know, as we know, in the United States, there's blended families, families that come from, you know, have, you know, all different kinds of facets. And so there's not one form or one program that fits the so many different kinds of families. So I really it's taught me to be open listen to everyone's situation and scenario, and to find out how best for them to apply for financial aid at the colleges that their students, whether we have student listeners or parent listeners, just kind of create Plan A for them. And I like that. It's all different,


Ethan Sawyer  6:23  
right? That's good. It feels that the college essay feels like is like, you kind of don't know what you're getting. There are some buckets, right kinds of things, but each person's different. Yeah. So today I want to focus on the particular challenge or problem or area of financial aid award letters and appealing those. And then I want to talk to Jody about all sorts of other things and have her give up for her best more, I mean, her best secrets. You can find them in her book, but I'm going to see if I can get her to give up even more goodies. Let's talk about this. Let's so student, a is accepted into their college. They're super stoked. And then they get the financial aid award letter, and they go, Uh oh, right,


Jodi Okun  7:02  
right. What


Ethan Sawyer  7:03  
do they do? Like, what? What's, what's your advice to students who get that, have that uh oh moment in terms of their financial aid award letter. So


Jodi Okun  7:12  
I think the uh oh moment, I'm a fan of breathe, take, take a breath. Exhale. If that was your first one, if that's the first aid award letter that came in and that was your first admission, I would say, celebrate the moment. Just take a minute and then look to see the other letters that are coming in depending on your list, the students list. So if we have student listeners or counselor listeners, depending on the list that they had, they're gonna have different kinds of letters. So you're gonna wanna compare whether they're state schools or public schools and privates to see what's going on, and if they're all relatively the same, then you know what needs to be done. Can you go to that school? Has the student had a conversation with the parent, or the parent had a conversation with the student to see what's the budget here. And then maybe the question is, Is there money on the table? And can we go back to the college? Got


Ethan Sawyer  8:12  
it so there's, there's even stuff before you, like, pick up the phone and call the college that you can do. And as you mentioned, it's looking at, okay, what do we have, right? What do we have to work with, right? And I imagine that having that information would be useful when it comes to making that call or writing that


Jodi Okun  8:27  
letter. Yeah. I mean, I'm a fan of the money talk, you know. So like in my book, we start off at eighth grade, like, have you had the money talk? Does the student know, you know, I only have x amount to go to school? Or does the parent say, hey, you know, whatever, we'll make this work, because you worked really hard in high school, and I think there's no judging in this. It's just, what are you going to do? Did you fill out the forms? Right? So all those questions have to happen before you can appeal. And are you going to appeal to all 10 schools, or eight or just your top three, and what does that look like? So I think there's a lot of questions to be asked beforehand, before you can even get to, okay, I'm gonna appeal this, right?


Ethan Sawyer  9:12  
So before we even get to, like, the nuts and bolts of writing the appeal or making the appeal, let's rewind for parents, for students who are a few years before, who are wanting to keep from getting to this moment right, to avoid having to appeal. What are some things that parents and students can do years before to make sure as much as they can that they know pretty much what to expect in terms of the financial aid that they're


Jodi Okun  9:37  
gonna get? Yeah, that's a great question. So I mean, first of all, you know, when the child is born, we can start that far back, you know, open, a 529, you know, think as parents, I mean, you and I are both parents, you know, you're going to want to save. So we want to try to save as much as we can. And then once your student is in eighth grade, high school, you want to start having that money talk. This is how. Much we saved. This is about how much you know we can afford. And then, and then making sure that they're applying to schools that meet the criteria, not just location, not just size, not just major, but fiscal fit. And so if you've had all those conversations, then you can dive into applying to schools and then applying to financial aid. Did I answer your question? You totally answered my okay,


Ethan Sawyer  10:25  
what I hear you saying is that fit is more than just, do I like the trees there exactly Greek community, it's like, oh, and also, we're gonna be able to afford it, right? And how much work can students and parents do to finding that out? Is there a way that they can know 100% for sure how much money they're going to get, or how close can they get them? What tools do you recommend, right?


Jodi Okun  10:46  
Right? So that was the piece I was getting to. So my favorite tool writing this down. I hope everyone the listeners are writing this down, net price calculator. So we use a lot of acronyms in financial aid world, so the net price calculator or the NPC, is what you should be going on. Every college is required to have a net price calculator on their financial aid website or on the College website. Parents, if you're listening, you can stay up all night and do the net price calculator for every college that your student is applying to, and it's anonymous, so no one's gonna know, and you can see, with your income, your assets, what that college is going to give you. And using I'm doing air quotes, no one can see me a ballpark of what to expect to pay that college. And every college, your expected family contribution might be different. So kind of, you know, do all the colleges that your students can apply to and use that net price calculator as your prep homework, which I hope you wrote that down.


Ethan Sawyer  11:50  
Pause the podcast if you haven't written that down, so they can do the net price calculator homework. And then even if, let's say the most prepared parent has gone through the steps and has calculated to the penny. Are there times when parents are sometimes still surprised with how the numbers come out? 100% 100%


Jodi Okun  12:08  
parents and families? You know, financial aid is a very chatty topic. It is in the news all the time. We are talking about it on the top all the time, and parents and students and counselors think that it's going to go one way, but sometimes it just goes the opposite way. There is a federal formula. So when you fill out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, there's a federal formula that takes into all the consideration of the components and spits you out. This is what your expected family contribution. This is what you can get when, if you're filling out a CSS profile, that formula is not public, so you don't exactly know. So you you know you're gonna need to kind of work through it to decide, you know what's gonna happen. And you know, I heard Johnny gets a free ride, but maybe Johnny didn't get a free ride. Maybe Johnny got a lot of loans, and you don't really know. So I think families are always surprised on what really happens, and maybe they should have got more money.


Ethan Sawyer  13:11  
So who should appeal? Jody, is it everyone? Are there certain people or certain circumstances where people shouldn't appeal? Talk to me a little bit about that.


Jodi Okun  13:21  
So because we have early FAFSA Now, which means that the FAFSA and the CSS Profile launch on October 1, you're using prior year tax return. So the family that should appeal is one, maybe the tax return prior is going to be different than the tax return that's going to be actual when that student starts school the following fall, makes sense. So let's say the income decreased, expenses increased for something, a family medical situation, someone moved out of the house there, someone maybe passed away. So anything around that, that family should appeal.


Ethan Sawyer  14:09  
Okay, so what I'm getting hearing you say is that if there was a big shift, if there is especially something that would say, hey, we don't have as much money as it looks like we have, right? Definitely


Jodi Okun  14:18  
should appeal. Definitely. Okay, so


Ethan Sawyer  14:20  
let's get into this. Then, how do you appeal? How does one appeal? What's it give us? Give us your best tips for how to do a great appeal. Is it a letter? Is it a phone call? Walk us through it.


Jodi Okun  14:31  
Okay, so I mean the first it could be a phone call. So if you're if you're not shy, so for all of our listeners today, if you're not shy and you're at the financial aid office and you feel like sitting down and talking to the financial aid staff. A plus. I think that's great. The more they can see you, talk to you see your student. I think that's a great thing. If you can't get there, give them a call. If you're more of a calling person and you need to hear a voice. Still, I would do that. I have some families who. Say, can I please just send an email? I don't want to call. I don't want to be there. Whatever your comfort zone is, contact them. They want to help if they can, and if they can't help, they're pretty much going to say, I'm so sorry. We can't help. But you got to get the process started. And the first thing is start the dialog. Hey, I got my financial aid award letter, and I want to let you know what's going on in our family that might be different that you don't know from the forms I signed or sent in. Make sense? Great.


Ethan Sawyer  15:32  
And so who should be the one to do that? Is it something that mom or dad should do, or is it something that a student should do? Does it


Jodi Okun  15:38  
matter? It doesn't really matter if this if the family has not brought the student into their financials, and that student isn't able to articulate those conversations, then you know the family should do it themselves. And it doesn't matter whether you know mom, dad or whoever does it, but mostly the custodial parent needs to do it. And


Ethan Sawyer  16:00  
So walk me through that phone call like, say, I'm somebody who is kind of terrified of making phone calls like this, but I would be willing to do it because it feels like the stakes are so high, because I really, really want to go to whatever school. What do I say in that phone call?


Jodi Okun  16:15  
Yeah, no, I think it's great. Okay, love role playing. So dial. We're dialing, okay, I have the phone by my ear now and be like, Hi, I'm Jody, and my daughter, Bobbi, she just applied to your school, and she is so thrilled. She got accepted to the school. But, you know, it's just really hard. We got our financial aid award letter, and the first thing is, is I don't understand it. So is there anyone there can help me understand? Like, what's a loan? What's the free money? Pause, wait, let the person answer. That person is going to tell you something, either write us a letter, or I'm happy to discuss. Let me get Bobby's file, and then they'll go ahead and tell you, this is what you got and this is why you got it, and you're listening, taking copious notes the whole time. Once you hear the answer, feel free to say, You know what I might need a minute to metabolize this. Can I just, like, think about it, or ask, talk to my spouse about it, ask some questions, and then can I call you back? Or if you have questions right away, you can say, Well, what about this? And they'll tell you. It will clearly tell you what the next step is, or the process in that office, write that down and do that next step.


Ethan Sawyer  17:32  
That sounds super simple, but it also sounds super smart, the pause. Talk to me about the pause. Why is the pause so important?


Jodi Okun  17:42  
Because the pause is important because parents have an agenda of what they want to say, and I want them to take a minute to listen to what's being said to them, because financial aid offices, they get audited. They have a certain process that they have to do with every file folder that they get on their desk, like I worked at Oxy. I have 25 file folders I have to go through step 123, and four. So it gives you a minute to take in and sort of roll it around your head and hear what they have to say to move to the next step. Because you may not, you may think the next step is one thing, but they may give you another step, which might get you further in your appeal.


Ethan Sawyer  18:24  
So in this imaginary phone conversation, give us some really good dumps, like, what are some things that parents said or students said to you that put you off? Yeah, give us some again not to do.


Jodi Okun  18:35  
I would I my first don't just don't compare schools right off. So please don't call and say University a gave me X amount of dollars, and universe and your university didn't give me the same amount that is going to be put off to me.


Ethan Sawyer  18:52  
Why? Why is that


Jodi Okun  18:54  
I have to evaluate packages as per the rules in my campus, and so we evaluate on certain criteria in my campus. And if you're really, if your student really doesn't want to come here and wants to go to that one, and you're shopping around, I might not need shoppers on my in my group or my class for this year. I might want to be looking for someone who really wants to come here, because so it sort of depends on the conversation not I mean, parents are feeling me out and I am feeling them out too. And how


Ethan Sawyer  19:32  
often are parents actually speaking with the person who could make the difference? Are there times when people would call you and whether they knew it or not that you were the person who had the power to actually make that decision. So


Jodi Okun  19:42  
that's great question. So it depends on, it's school by school. So it depends on the director. So every director, as you can imagine, you know, there's regulations and rules that come down from the Department of Ed. Every director is made up of dip. Some are very black and white. Some are gray matter. Some are a rainbow of color. So it depends on how they run their own. Office, some directors will only do the packaging, and they don't let the staff members. So then the staff members would then have to ask the director to give the appeal. Other offices that I've worked in, the staff member is able to give the appeal without asking the director. So it depends on how that office operates, and there's no way of finding out ahead of time. But


Ethan Sawyer  20:20  
it sounds like either way, the person that you're speaking with probably has some say or some sway over whether or not you


Jodi Okun  20:27  
right. So perfect example, I'm at Oxy. I talked to family a, Family A is pulling at my heart strings. It looks like it's all the errors appeal. I go in to director. I say to Director, hey, I have family a in my office, and here, you know, they had this happen and that happen, and you know, would you consider? And so she's going to maybe he or she will look at me and say, Hey, Jody, you know What's your thinking on it. And so yes, I could have that conversation. And so could the person who works next to me. She might go into the office and say, Hey, listen, this family is looking but, you know, I don't think they really need it. And then the director could then say to her, Okay, well, then that one's a no, and we'll give Jody the Yes. So it works both ways, depending on who's analyzing the folder. Interesting.


Ethan Sawyer  21:15  
So it sounds to me like, and you didn't say this, I'm making this up. You're kind of like, developing a relationship, at least temporarily, with this human on the other end of the line. And one of the things you maybe shouldn't do is saying, Hey, we're looking around and because I could imagine how if somebody like is out on a date with somebody, someone said, so what have you got to offer me? Because I've got this other offer right out back. Like, out back sounds a little creepy. I've got this other offer. Yeah, I might feel that way. I might feel like, well, then you should probably go see about that. And,


Jodi Okun  21:44  
yeah, and let's put the caveat in that, you know, let's say this student is someone they want really bad. We do have the software that says something to the effect of, you know, this student, we want the student, or meets certain criteria or something. So we're, you know, we are able to look at all the components, you know, through admissions and everything, to analyze the student and the family. But I would hold off unless the school actually says to you, and so let's kind of like give the direct answer. If the school says to you, who gave you what, and what did they give you? Then give it up, cool, but if they don't, then I would be vague.


Ethan Sawyer  22:24  
And are there any situations where that could hurt them, where the student revealing that information, it could actually get them to get less money, or is it usually a good thing to reveal that information? Usually helpful? In other words, does that make sense? Yeah,


Jodi Okun  22:39  
yeah. I was just gonna answer, I mean, you and so that's a question, I think, across the board, that parents so once you're given the money, you are given the money. So once it's not gonna be taken away, unless maybe your taxes were different or something happens down the line. But you should, they're gonna say, that's your offer. That's all we can do. So it won't hurt you, because that's your offer, and so down the line you should be okay, I answer your question. Okay, yeah, what are


Ethan Sawyer  23:08  
so are there any other things that you can think of that might, if you were the financial aid decision maker, put you off and make you maybe push a little less hard for a particular family based on experiences maybe that you've


Jodi Okun  23:21  
had I actually am not. I guess I've seen so many families I'm not really put off, but I am detail oriented, so I have seen it all and then some. So I will make sure that whatever a family is saying to me that they can back it up, or that they have proof of it, or that it follows a particular line. So I understand there's different scenarios in everyone's life. Life happens, and I'm open to hearing it, and I just want to make sure that you know, if you're going to tell the college or tell me as a staff member that you have proof that it's happened.


Ethan Sawyer  24:03  
Are there ever situations where it's useful for the family to like, and this is a tricky area where they need to like, get their story together. In other words, Were there ever situations? Here's maybe a better way of asking that, where you sense that people had really put together a story and sort of, I don't want to say lied, but fabricated stuff to sort of make things seem more extreme than they were.


Jodi Okun  24:26  
Okay, so I think that's a great question, and I do have a particular, let's just say, conversation that I would give back to a family. A family wants to get the most amount of money that they possibly can. Some families like to position themselves. I definitely don't work with any kind of families that do that kind of thing, but I want families to understand that if you're doing something to get yourself more aid, sometimes you end up getting yourself more loans in the long run than really getting that free money. So. So concentrate on what really needs to be done. Tell your story, tell it how it is, and go from there. That is the best advice I have, great. So


Ethan Sawyer  25:10  
what are some just jumping off of that? What are some good dues like? What are some things that people should have prepared? Say, coming into that conversation, the appeals conversation.


Jodi Okun  25:18  
So have all your documents ready. You know, have your tax return, have any letters that back up your conversation of why you had a loss of income, or maybe someone passed in your family, or, you know, someone's very sick and you have medical expenses. Bring those in if, God, so.


Ethan Sawyer  25:34  
Just to clarify what people should have documented medical expenses, should they have paycheck stubs? You know, these kinds of things. Yeah. So if


Jodi Okun  25:42  
you're using the current tax season or the past tax season, just what you get awarded. I mean, now in the current tax season, you get your w2 and you're like, oh my gosh, I made 20,000 less. Show that to them. The colleges have been told from the Department of Ed that once that new tax return has been completed, they can make an adjustment, as long as they can show proof. So that's a good thing to know. So if you did make less money in a considerable amount, then let the college know they're going to be happy to help you if they can. And you have proof of that. Great. So


Ethan Sawyer  26:15  
you've walked us through the phone call. Walk us through, let's say the school says, After that second pause says, put it in an email, send it to this address, walk us through a financial aid appeal letter or email. What goes into that?


Jodi Okun  26:28  
Okay, so I think it's just like a five part email, dear financial aid office, daughter is so excited to be a groundhog, and she's been waiting to be a groundhog since she was born. Two, we completed our financial aid documents, but we think that there's some information that you might need to know that's happening in our family that we weren't able to write on the form.


Ethan Sawyer  26:57  
Ooh, I like what you did there. So let's just recap. So one, there's like, some sense of like, it's positive, and there's a good sense of gratitude and excitement. So we're starting off on a good foot, right? And then I love the phrasing. In part two, there's some information you might want to know, so you're kind of peaking the curiosity, right, right? So do you recommend that students get really explicit right there and say, I'm writing, you know, to send an appeal. Or do you think it's okay to be a little more vague? And here's some stuff you might want to know. So I'm all about however


Jodi Okun  27:25  
you write. Write like, use your tone of voice, your like, your tone is going to be different than my tone. Like I write in bullets. I'm sort of a number girl. I don't write in complete sentences, but some people want to elaborate. I would try to keep it to one page, okay, but be specific. Say my income was this, and now it's this, or my spouse is sick, and this is how much we pay. So be specific in paragraph number two. Paragraph number three can be a, you know, a wind up paragraph or additional, maybe there's two problems or three paragraphs, and then the last paragraph is, please let us know if there's any documentation or anything else you need from us, we're happy to provide. And please also let us know what the next steps are. We don't know. And thank you very much. You know she really wants to be a groundhog. How


Ethan Sawyer  28:18  
specific in parts three and four? How specific do you recommend that people be? Do you say, I mean, would it be, we just basically need more money, or, you know, you we were awarded X amount of dollars, but given, like, you know, Would someone get as specific as saying, for example, this is how much money we made last year. This year it's now this much.


Jodi Okun  28:36  
Exactly here, the reason right, so don't talk about the award. Talk about this is how much we made last year, and this is now what our income is when you know Johnny is starting school in the fall, we changed it from Bobby to Johnny, but I hope everyone's keeping up. So yeah, it's exactly I made this, and now I'm making this right. My medical expenses were zero, but now they're 30,000 it


Ethan Sawyer  28:58  
sounds like a pretty straightforward just give us the facts. Yeah, is there anything besides the facts that you feel like can help folks and in terms of their, you know, in terms of making their case, or is it more of just sort of like, hey, just tell them the real deal and hope for the best?


Jodi Okun  29:14  
Yeah, I my favorite. I think I've said that like 10 times on this podcast, like, my favorite thing is. So here's another one of Jody isms, which is, I like to keep all the doors open. So if your student has applied to 10 schools, and they've done everything they can to gain admissions into that college, and you're helping with financial aid or counselors who's listening, or students, if you've done everything and you can open all the doors. This is the one time where colleges are actually going to close the door. No one else is going to close the door. So you want to make sure you've done everything, and that you never look behind and say, oh, you know, shucks. I should have, you know, applied or asked for more money. Just, just add. Ask. I mean, they're gonna say no if they can't, or they're gonna say yes, and here's how you do it. And I want to pivot on that and say, when they say, do this, if you can, then you might receive more money. But if you ignore it and don't do it, then that might be the piece where they gave you the opportunity to follow through on these steps, and you need to follow through. Talk


Ethan Sawyer  30:25  
to me about timeline. When should folks appeal and when the school says you need to do X? So these are two questions, how much time like? How soon should students act on that? So first question, when should students appeal? How soon after they get their appeal letter, can they kind of their financial


Jodi Okun  30:43  
aid award letter? Yeah, okay, so I think that that's a great question. So now that we're in early FAFSA, things are what I'm saying now is we're in a change here. So it kind of might flush out a little bit, but the minute you get your financial aid award letter, or several of them, let's wait till you get a few so you can kind of see how it's going. You can go ahead and appeal if you have something to appeal. If it's just because you feel like you want more money, that might not work. You have to be able to show that something changed from the time you filled out the forms. So the correct answer is ASAP, so appeal as soon as possible and follow all the directions they're telling you is,


Ethan Sawyer  31:24  
my sense is that when somebody in this, when a financial, you know, aid officer, says you need to send us this, that there's a ticking clock. Is there a ticking clock?


Jodi Okun  31:35  
There's a ticking clock in the sense that, you know, everyone has to commit by May 1. So may 1 is the ticking clock. So if, let's say you're, you're a California person who's waiting for the UCs, who's ever listening to this, and you're waiting and you're waiting and you're waiting, and they roll out on March 28 and you know you have to commit on May 1, that school is working as hard as they can on appeals. They're having meetings every day to see if you know they're going to accept appeals. But let's take the UCs, for example, they don't accept appeals unless you commit there. So you have to decide, okay, I'm going to go there, but I still might need an appeal, but that's not going to be looked at to even commit there. So there's all kinds of different pieces to the puzzle that are working. And the first step, let's, let's take it a step back, is the phone call to ask, what are your steps? What do I do? How do I do this? I need help. Does


Ethan Sawyer  32:30  
it matter? What other supplemental information? Or, you know, should I include a cool video of me, like dancing with my friends? Or should I make sure that the financial aid office knows that I won this recent regional event. In other words, you know, I'm already into the school, but does do outside things that I've done in the last few months? Do those count ever? Is that ever gonna get me more money?


Jodi Okun  32:53  
Yeah, so they're completely separate. So if you can imagine so at Occidental, the admissions office is in this beautiful building that's lovely with couches and TVs and cookies and juice, and it's lovely on the hill, and it's great in California. And then financial aid. We're in the basement in the back of the campus, so we don't have windows, so when we find out the admitted students, usually it's just a list and we have a formula to follow, so videos and that kind of stuff might work more in the admission section, but for us, it's strictly formula numbers grinding in that sense,


Ethan Sawyer  33:34  
yeah, because I worked with a student last year who appealed a decision. Past couple years, there been a handful of students who have had great reasons. Great reasons to appeal an admissions decision and have gotten in, you know, bent over backwards and created the videos. But what I'm hearing is, it's going to be about the numbers.


Jodi Okun  33:50  
Yeah, it's going to be about the numbers and sort of what's happening in your family's fiscal situation. Yeah,


Ethan Sawyer  33:57  
is it okay for me to appeal to just absolutely all my schools. Can I just send in the same letter or make the same call to eight or 10 schools?


Jodi Okun  34:07  
You could. I mean, there's no reason you can't like I think you know we're gonna probably like review that some schools won't accept them. Some schools will say you have to commit but you can ask. Maybe a rule of thumb is, if you're appealing a state school versus a private school, you know, at the state level, you might not be receiving or they might not take that into consideration, because maybe there's not a lot of money to be had there, but maybe a high ticket private like a 60 or 70,000 you know, might be able to do something. So you can do it across the board. I always try to encourage families like pick the top three or pick the top five. You should be weeding down at this point. And I think you might agree with me that you know students, when they filled out their admissions or wrote their beginning essay, was the summer of what their junior rising into senior year, hopefully they're now six months more mature. Yeah. And so they see things in a different way. They might have loved that school before, but now they might love another school. So really kind of hone in on parents, you know, helping students to sort of, you know, give us your top five kind of thing. Really great advice.


Ethan Sawyer  35:13  
What's the worst thing that could happen if I appeal? Am I? I could imagine a student going like, being afraid that they ask for something, that they're going to get rejected, that they're going to rescind. Has that ever happened?


Jodi Okun  35:25  
No, that's really never happened. So the worst thing that's going to happen is they're going to say no. And really the worst thing that's going to happen is not the conversation that the college has with the student or the family. It might be what the parents have with the student. So maybe the worst thing is they said no, and really, you guys can't afford that school, and you can't go there. And the reality of that, hopefully, has been, you know, dealt with, you know, several years before this, that, you know, we aren't going to be able to afford a $60,000 school, and this thing give us 20,000 and make it lower than that, a unit, you know, public university in your state. So them saying, No, you know, we kind of have to get used to comfortable in the state that this is what it is. This is how financial aid works, whether we like it or not. This is how it is now. So we have to do it this way.


Ethan Sawyer  36:21  
I'm asking one more question. So


Jodi Okun  36:22  
you said that was the last


Ethan Sawyer  36:25  
any advice that you would give for a student or a family who's gotten that No, they've appealed and they've gotten the No. What do you say to those people? You


Jodi Okun  36:35  
have to decide. I mean, this is the time to decide. And this is back to my conversation before, which is, if this becomes your baby, or this was always your baby, and you guys are going to make things work no matter what, and that includes this conversation about loans, then I want you to be an educated borrower. I want you to understand the terms. I want you to understand that this is times four or times five if you're in a five year program, or it takes five years to graduate from the school that you're picking so understand what this purchase that you're making and be a responsible consumer. Great.


Ethan Sawyer  37:17  
So in terms of like financial aid 101, like Jody has spent so much time thinking about and dealing with that, but I'm not even gonna like deal with that on this podcast. I'm gonna link to it in the show notes so you can see a really quick, you know, the terms that she mentioned. You can go through that and figure out exactly what you need to do. So I'll send you links to that and resources. While Jody is here, I want to ask her some advanced questions. So one of the things I'm curious about Jody is, what is something that students don't do, that you can't believe they don't do, that they should definitely do. And as much as you say it like they still don't do it in terms of financial aid, in terms of this, you know, a college application process.


Jodi Okun  37:55  
So the number one thing I want students to do is get email savvy, learn to answer your emails, open your emails, go to your student portal. Once you send in that admission application, you have a student ID and you have a password, get that portal activated. That is how the college is going to communicate to you. And if you say, I didn't get that email because you aren't in the habit yet. Please get in the habit. That's the number one thing that holds up financial


Ethan Sawyer  38:27  
aid. I want to put in a plug for there's a Have you heard of Dashlane? Tell me so Dashlane and there are other services like this. It's one of those that kind of stores all your passwords in one place in my computer. So you just click it and it basically, you know, is an add on for your browser and will allow you to just automatically put passwords in. So if you enter a password once, once you've got your Master Password, it just kind of puts everything in, so it takes off the burden of having to do that. And there are many of those out there like that. Okay, great. So getting email savvy. What about for parents? What's something that parents have to do, and most parents don't do


Jodi Okun  39:01  
it. File your tax return early and make sure that you keep all documents in a safe file on sort of file obsessive. So have a safe file that has all the documents that you're going to need for the first year and then for all those year app all those years after. So you're going to get a file for freshman year, a file for sophomore year or file for junior year and senior year. And if you have a victory lap, file for that year,


Ethan Sawyer  39:24  
awesome. Jody, why do people always pronounce it FAFSA instead of FAFSA?


Jodi Okun  39:29  
Because it's weird. Sometimes you have to, like, I make a mistake all the time. Like, we even, I did a video one time with zinc and Chegg, and I had to say it 25 times fast. It's just it's hard to put the F in front of the s and like you get kind of so then you'll notice when I see, do you guys notice how fast I talk? I never take a breath, right? So that's a Jody ism. So that's when I slow down and go Free Application for Federal Student Aid. I slow myself down because it's tough


Ethan Sawyer  39:58  
if parents make a. Lot of money, should they still apply for financial aid?


Jodi Okun  40:03  
Sure? Why not? I mean, they have to decide. So a lot of money is one thing. So we're not going to really talk about on the podcast, like, what a lot of money is. But some parents will say to me, Hey, Jody, listen. I don't want to change my lifestyle. I want to make payments. Because, you know, every college has a payment plan, so you can make payments, and I just want to kind of do this on my own time. So if that's the case, and you do want to take out a Parent PLUS loan, the Department of Ed owns the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, so in order to take out those loans, and we're certainly not pushing loans on this podcast, but we're saying, If that's how you want to do it, then you have to fill out the form in order to make the payments the way you want it to


Ethan Sawyer  40:48  
be. Talk to me about this IRS tool.


Jodi Okun  40:51  
Oh man, it's going so well. Early FAFSA, I'm a fan. Prayer, hands emoji, everything. Thumbs up. I was a fan. I'm still a fan. Actually, I'm still a fan. I'm bummed the IRS tool was one of the one of the selling points for early FAFSA, because parents and families would have their FAFSA done, they were able to link to the IRS, pull their information in their FAFSA would then become verified. And what that means, let's take a step back. What that means for colleges like Occidental, we'll just use them as an example. Sorry, oxy, I love you, but we'll use them as an example. We're a hard copy school, so we have to get everyone's tax returns and verify that the parents had done it, but now that the IRS was doing it for us, you know, cut down on a lot of work, but the IRS tools broken, and it is broken from now until the end, when commit day is May 1. What that means for families is number one, I'm going to give you tips, you guys, so you can write this down while you listen, because I know you're super coordinated. So the one thing is, you're gonna have to put in your information, tax information, man, in a manual way, just type it in. And then you may have to send your tax return to the school, and you may need to order an IRS transcript. So you just Google it, order IRS transcript for the year that you're applying for. And so that's all it means. You know, the IRS found out that there was a lot of identity theft out there, and the tool, you know, was not safe, so they had to shut it down. Gotcha.


Ethan Sawyer  42:33  
So you mentioned that that may 1 is commitment day? Should students commit before that? Or when should students commit? Is it, you know, April 30 or yeah, what should students consider before fully committing to a school? Okay,


Jodi Okun  42:46  
so there's three things I would say, hopefully I stay on my three tasks. One, if that's your school, you went early decision, you got to commit. Okay. Number two, if you're still comparing, if you're still comparing award letters, you might hold off on commit. You know, committing, because if you're going to talk to the school, if you already commit, they probably aren't going to change your financial aid award letter, because they know you want to go there. Number three, I am a huge fan of admitted student days we talked earlier about how a student fills out their college application for admission the summer before their high school senior year. That's six months they are six months older in the spring and admitted students days, that's when they bring out the big marketing things. They show you all their colors. That's where the parents go one way, and the students go another way. And if you can't make it to the Admitted Student day of the college because of traveling or expense, and you're, you know, applying to a school far away the my favorite secret tip is regional events. So many parents like, if you live in one county and you're super close to another county, you can go to that regional event and see what other students were admitted in your counties that are planning on maybe attending that school. You do not need to commit until May 1 so you can hold off as long that money is going to sit there until you send in your deposit. So go to admitted student days. They're so fun. They're fun for staff. You meet the dean of students, you see if your people are there, and that's where you want to be, and maybe you buy a t shirt. Okay? Jody, give us some tips for filling out the FAFSA. The first tip is go to that site. So go to it's F, A, F, S, a.ed.gov, so that's a site you want to be on,


Ethan Sawyer  44:49  
by the way. Are there? Are there other sites that are similar but are not that site? So yeah. So


Jodi Okun  44:53  
there are other sites that are similar that might have another dot, something after them, so don't go to those sites. Make sure okay. F, A, F, S, A, dot, E, d.gov, that's where you want to be. That's where your home is. Okay. And like I said, you you want your file folder that has your bank statements, your tax returns, W, twos, 1090, nines, all of that should take you 25 minutes flat, you should before you start go to FSA ID, create the student needs a login and a password, an FSA ID, and one of the parents needs a FSA ID, username and password. So you go on to the site as I'm typing, and you can't see me, and you put in your the students, FSA ID, put in their password, you log in, you answer all the demographics, you answer questions about the family. You make sure you count how many people live in the household. It's only students who are under the age of 24 and don't already have their bachelor's degree. So how many people live in the household? How many people are attending college? When they talk to you about your assets, you do not include your house or your retirement. You only include mutual funds, stocks, bonds, and this is a great tip, you guys, if you put your cursor in the box, a help menu will drop down and tell you exactly what you need to put in that box. So go for it. They also have live chat. I'm big fan of that. So while you're doing it, you could be live chatting someone. If they ask you, they ask you about your business assets. If you don't have over 100 employees, you do not need to fill in that question, but put your cursor there, read the criteria and see if it applies to you


Ethan Sawyer  46:55  
good ones. What about the what is the CSS Profile? What? What is it? Why do some schools require it? Why do others not require it? Yeah, so the CSS Profile


Jodi Okun  47:03  
is located on the College Board website, and we're all familiar with college board because maybe you know your student has taken the essay T or maybe not, but College Board holds this form. It's a 16 page document where they ask all kinds of questions they want to know about your house, your family members. They want to know about your business, all the siblings, what schools they attend, and that gives them the ability, maybe a selective private school, or some other private schools, gives them the ability to use University money and federal money to award your student. So that kind of segues into a part where we talk about, you know, should I apply to that expensive school? You know? What about that $60,000 school? Well, if you can use the FAFSA and the CSS Profile and apply to that school and maybe bring that schools price down that's lower than a public school, then maybe that becomes, you know, a point where maybe I do want to go to that school. So don't be afraid of the marked up school, because sometimes it's marked up and it can get marked down by using the CSS Profile and the information that it requires.


Ethan Sawyer  48:19  
So Jody, it's show and tell time, and this is the chance for each of us to share one practical or useful resource in our lives. Jody, what have you got? What have you brought for show and tell,


Jodi Okun  48:31  
show and tell, mindfulness. So starting each day by yourself, with yourself, setting an intention that everything that's happening in your life is, you know, you have the choice. So I get up, I do a stronger yoga every day, and that brings me to a mindful place that I can just kind of walk through life and sort of let it happen. So


Ethan Sawyer  48:59  
what makes a Chandra yoga like the right yoga for you? Because I know there's so many out there. It's


Jodi Okun  49:05  
peaceful. You practice on your own. It's not a lead class that's taught, and so you're doing the routine by yourself. And so you're doing not being interrupted in your thoughts. And so for me, that's really good when I have a busy day to just have that hour and a half or two hours in the morning, or it's just peaceful, and it's my time, and when I'm done, I'm able to just be me throughout the whole day.


Ethan Sawyer  49:30  
Cool. So my show and tell is an app called Headspace. No, it's great. So it's a simple app, and that's a meditation app, and it teaches you in just a few minutes a day how to meditate. If anybody out there is like, Yeah, I've heard about this meditation thing, but I don't know if it's for me. I'm not really into it. There's a guy who created an app called Headspace. Check it out. It's really easy. It's like, you know, it's, I think the first day is, like a minute or two, and he's got a really cool, chill voice and cool accent, and he walks you through this, like, 10 day process. It's. Three and so for folks who are interested in getting into meditation or just seeing what it's about, I recommend it. He's also given, and I'm forgetting his name, but I'll link to it in the show notes. He also gives a really great TED Talk where he kind of sets up the value of meditation and what how it can change our brains to transform our lives. So headspace, the app should recommend I'm


Jodi Okun  50:20  
totally downloading that.


Ethan Sawyer  50:24  
If there's one thing that you'd like students or parents or even counselors and teachers to remember that you said, what is it?


Jodi Okun  50:33  
There's life after college. It's not all about where we get in the first day of college, but life goes on and it happens, and so enjoy it. It's going to go by fast, and don't blink, because it's going to go by so fast, and more and more wonderful things are going to


Ethan Sawyer  50:51  
happen too. Jody, thanks for being on the podcast. Thank you. That's the podcast. Thanks so much for tuning in. If you're not already subscribed, feel free to click Subscribe so you can get more fantastic podcasts. And if you're not setting up for my email list, sign up, because I send out free resources like this all the time, and you can do that right at the bottom of the college sa guy.com home page. So that's it. I hope you have an awesome day as always, stay curious. You.


Transcribed by https://otter.ai