Admissions & Financial Aid Early Planning for Families

Hello and I'd like to welcome you all to our webinar entitled applying to UConn information about the admissions and financial aid process. My name is Vern Grainger, I am the director of admissions here at the University of Connecticut myself and my colleague from the Office of Student Financial Aid. Danielle Rosetti will be tag teaming this.

This presentation tonight where again as the title implies, is designed to help use parents better understand the process for applying to new versity of Connecticut. So we have a lot of great information to share with you, and I want to thank you all for taking time out of your schedules to participate in this webinar. A few housekeeping items to go on before we.

You know, move forward with the presentation.

OK.

That we cannot see you or hear you, so we may some may. We may be saying something that makes you so excited or makes you angry and you're waving your hands and trying to get our attention. Unfortunately we are not able to see you, so I'm just want to keep that in mind as you're going through the webinar, we will be sending out a copy of this recording to all of you, so you will be getting an email later on with this this presentation.

So please don't don't feel the need to scribble down copious notes because something appears on the slide and you're afraid of it going away and you're not getting that information. We're gonna send this same exact presentation to you all so you don't have to worry about that. We do have a questions box on the bottom right hand side of the screen, so please continue please, as we're doing the webinar, post your questions.

We do have staff on hand from the Admissions Office and student financial aid who are going to be in the background. They are going to be answering your questions. Uh, the ones that we don't get through during this webinar, we will follow up with answers to those questions, but please don't wait until the very end to send a question. Go ahead and post it in the box and again we have staff on hand who are going to be answering those questions.

After the program, if there's something that comes to mind that that you think of and you wanna ask a member of our teams, uh, my last slide, I will be going over some contact information for admissions as well as student financial aid, and you can send an email to us anytime of day and get the answers to your questions. So again, thank you all for participating in this program and hopefully the information that we share with you is going to be helpful for you as you're advising.

Your your your children, your your friends about the admissions process. So first thing I want to introduce as far as my conversation with you all is about Yukon Big picture and our belief in the one Yukon philosophy. And that means that that Yukon is available all throughout the state of Connecticut. We are not only the flagship institution in the state of Connecticut.

But we are also the state's land grant institution, and so that's something that's very, very important that that that we are do everything we can to support both of those missions. And so we believe in the power of the Yukon brand. And we believe in making sure that we are providing an accessible education to all corners of the state of Connecticut. So you can see on the screen our different campuses, the main campus.

In stores which is in the upper right hand corner, but you can also see Avery Point which is down in the New London area to the South East of the state to the southwest you see our Stanford campus, which is down in close proximity to New York City. In fact, there's a train line that goes directly from Stanford to New York City, so folks are able to access New York City very easily from the Stanford campus to the north you see the Waterbury campus.

Conward, Waterbury and and Yukon, Hartford. So all of those campuses.

Again, provide all of our students with the opportunity to access a high quality Yukon education. No matter where they are. Something else of note. To point out about the map is that you can see our geographic location makes us accessible to two of the top metropolitan areas, not only in United States, but an entire country. For that matter. You can see Boston to the north and New York City to the South, and that access is something that we talked to students about as one of the selling points.

To UConn, is that not only you're going to get that high quality education, uh, but we're going to allow students to have X access to markets that are gonna be very, very advantageous when they're seeking out those internships or looking up for those first jobs after graduation. So our location is something that I want to start my conversation out about. We are very proud of the diversity that UConn has to offer, and we talk about diversity in many different forms and.

One form of diversity, uh, that we we talk about is in the students who comprise the university, so you can see on the screen the statistic of 45% of the entering students in the fall 2021 class at stores were students of color one in three students were our first generation students and you can see the number 7 which represents the the cultural centers that are available.

At the university and those cultural centers, by the way, we encourage all of our students to take part and visit and participate in those cultural centers. We believe that the strength of the university is is the fact that we do have students from all different backgrounds, all different cultures, and that appreciation and understanding and learning about the different cultures. It can only add to the learning environment, learning experience of our students. So that's something.

That we're very, very proud of, and we want to emphasize diversity as one of the true strategic pillars about the university.

Another form of diversity that we like to talk about is our academic diversity so you can see some statistics around our academic diversity over 115 different majors to choose from at the university, and you can see the other forms of diversity that we talk about the minors and the concentrations and and and where that really comes into play and why it's really advantageous and really benefits our students. Is that, hypothetically?

The student comes in and they are an engineering student. Uh, engineering major. They take that first engineering that first calculus course their first year at the university and they they say to themselves, you know engineering may not be the program for me at a lot of universities, that student may be forced to consider transferring out to another university because their Plan B program may not be available for them at the university, but but at.

Yukon, just because of the great diversity of academic programs that we have to choose from, the chances are to that student's gonna be able to find that Plan B academic program at the university. So the academic diversity is something else that we are very, very proud of, and it adds to the number of options that students have to take advantage of at the university.

And you can see the schools and colleges at the university that those there was. 115 Plus programs are are are placed within, so you know and everything from our College of Agriculture, Health and Natural Resources. That's one of the foundational groupings of programs regarding the academic experience at the university. We have a large liberal Arts and Sciences college, so those programs from your Englishes to your.

Psychology communications are available in that we have a two year AG program I mentioned earlier. Agriculture has found that one of the foundational one of the early programs at the founding of the university, and so we also have that two year act program in addition to the four year program and you can see the other programs on the screen so.

That academic diversity across the spectrum is something that that, again, that diversity is something that we spoke about something else. I wanna talk about and I'll talk a little more about it in the next couple. Slides is are the different enrichment opportunities that are available to students. So so you know about the majors and I've talked to you about the schools and colleges, but those enrichment opportunities can add to the learning environment that students are able to experience at the university, so the honors.

Program is a great opportunity for students, uh, to take advantage of. The Honors program is it's something that the students are able to get considered for by completing. I'm having a completed admissions application, you can see the number of students who enrolled in our honors program. So the great thing about that is that we do offer that that really enriching program through honors at the university that students who choose to take part in it.

Can can take advantage of, but honors is not. It is one of many different opportunities to take advantage of that truly enriching academic experience and Co curricular experience at the university, whether it be again honors, whether it be the special programs that I'm going to talk about in a second, whether it be education abroad, and on and on. So we offer many of those outlets that students can take advantage of. So again, I mentioned the special programs, another one of the enrichment.

Opportunities that we have available for students and you can see, uh, the special programs that we have available for students in law and medicine and in dental medicine. The great thing about the special programs is that they offer students the opportunity to get that that advising to to in essence be and a pathway towards ultimately gaining admission to one of the professional schools.

Uh, at the university so so they do offer those students that opportunities to make those connections. Uh, with our faculty with the the staff in those professional schools at Yukon. December 1st is an important date that I'll talk more about as the presentation goes on. But December 1st is very, very important for priority consideration for those special programs that you see on the screen.

In addition, priority consideration for our honors program as well has that December 1st priority application deadline. So in order to get that priority consideration, we encourage students to make sure they're submitting a complete application and I'll talk about in a couple slides what constitutes a competitive complete application for admissions consideration 2 to university. Another important.

The thing around that December 1st deadline is that it also gives priority consideration for the merit scholarships that are offered that that are awarded through the Admissions Office and so just simply by having a complete application submitted into our office by December 1st. That ensures a student can get priority consideration for our merit scholarships at the university. So again.

If you only remember a few things that I talk about during my portion, again, remember the importance of December 1st and how that allows a student to get priority consideration for not only merit scholarships, but the Honors program and our special programs. I want to also give a reminder to continue to send the questions to us. Make sure you're posting those again, don't you? Don't have to wait until the very end. We do have staff from the Admissions Office.

Uh, from the financial aid office who are in the background? Who are answering the questions real time? So continue to send those questions our way.

So again, I mentioned a couple times a complete application and why that is so important. And and and these are all the things that constitute a complete application. So the first thing is the academic record you'll see on the screen. The self reported academic record, also known as the SSR for students who applied for this fall fall of 2022, the SRAR was optional for all.

Students and we had talked about how that will be required for all students who are enrolled at domestic high schools who are applying for admissions consideration for fall of 2023. So that's an important thing to keep in mind about the completion of the self reported academic record. It is, as the title implies, the student goes and they're they enter their courses, their course level, and the grades.

And we will be using that in our application review. Once a student is admitted and if they make the decision to enroll at the university, we will require that official transcript to be sent sometime in summer. But self reported academic record is going to be required for students from domestic high schools who are applying for first year admissions consideration. There is a personal essay that is a part of the application that is required, although 2 letters of recommendation.

Optional, we would strongly recommend that all students submit those letters of recommendation. They allow us to have more of a window into the full picture about an applicant, so we do encourage students to submit those two letters of recommendation, although again, those two letters of recommendation are optional.

You also see that test scores the SAT or the ACT are both both optional. They've been optional for the past two application cycles. They're going to continue to be optional for the fall 2023 application cycle. We are currently in a test optional pilot. We are studying the SAT ACT and the results from this test.

Personal pilot, by the end of this year we hope to make a final decision of whether we're gonna make the test optional permanent or whether we're going to continue with the pilot. But we would be sending more information about that out to students down the line, but for again, fall 2023 applicants. The SAT is test optional, and it truly is. Test optional not only for admissions, but for honors for those.

Merit scholarships. I talked about it from the admissions office that we will that we will consider applicants for as well as those special programs. So test optional truly means test optional. Getting more into the application piece you can see on the screen those core courses that we want to see in our applicants when we're looking at an application for admissions, you can see them on the screen. I'm not going to go read them verbatim off the screen.

Uh, many of the colleges and universities that that your your child is looking at probably have these same core courses as a part of the requirement. So again, there's not going to be much of a surprise about those, but but again, just wanna make you familiar with those as a part of the application review process.

So again, I talked about earlier, UM, how we are continuing with the test optional pilot, and so you can see on the screen some statistics of the students who entered at the university the past year. It's going to be the previous year.

We we put these on the screen and we make them available for you because one of the questions we always get asked is that should I submit my test scores? You know what things should I consider whether to submit my test score or not and one of the things that that we provide to give students an idea on whether or not to submit those test scores. You can see the mid 50% range of those students who did submit a test score.

Because again, test scores are optional as a part of the application process. Because of our emphasis and how we review applications or doing that holistic review. And I'll talk a little more about what holistic review means for us. The test score is not has never been even when test scores are were required, never were a make or break factor in our application review process, they were looked at as they continue to be.

Looked at for students who do submit their test scores, but I do want to emphasize to you when we talk about test optional it. It truly is not a nod and a wink that that we say we're test optional, but but really we want you to apply. We want you to submit those test scores. That is not what we are saying and that is not how we practice our review regarding test optionals. So again they are available. They're they are a factor that we will look at for students who do submit them.

But you should feel confident in your child. Should should truly understand that if they choose not to submit their test score, uh, that is their prerogative and it is not going to disadvantage the student at all for admissions or those other processes that we were view applications for in our admissions and review process. So I spent a little more time talking about this slide. But again, I want you all.

To really hear from me directly about how test scores are used in our review process and how we truly are test optional in our application review process.

So talking about that holistic review process that I mentioned a few minutes ago and and and that is really the foundation of our application review process. So you've probably heard that term, holistic review. If you visited admissions office websites or you've done reading about Yukon or other selective universities, selective admissions universities, and truly what it means is that.

There are many factors that we will be looking at that we will be considering when we're when we're looking at an application for admissions consideration, you could see some of those factors that we are looking at that we were analyzing and reviewing. When we do take a look at an application so you can see rigor, we want to see the type of courses that the student is enrolled in and we want to see how well they're doing in their courses. So we want us to take a look at their.

Academic performance if a student submits a test score, we will look at their test score. But again, if they don't submit it, that will not be something that we will be considering in the application review process. You know, we wanna see what type of involvement that they have, and it's not just one or two set activities that that fall under that involvement umbrella. It could be your school activities like your.

Your student Government student council, UM or or different clubs or athletics at the school. But it could also be your your your work and commitment to the place of worship or volunteering or working at a job outside of school. All of these fall under that umbrella of involvement that we value in our application review process. Personal qualities are important as well and the reason why those are important is that.

One of the goals of the review process at UConn is that we want to build a class of students who are going to be able to contribute to the the community at the university. The learning environment at the university. So again, personal qualities. We want to see that students.

We want to know about the students character. Uh, that's why. Again, one of the reasons why we encourage students, even though they're not required, we do encourage students to submit those letters of recommendation, because, again, they they help us get that full picture about the student, their ability to be successful at UConn, and their ability to contribute to the community at UConn. So all of these things are very important to their whole. To our holistic review.

Process one is not necessarily more important to the other. They are all a part of that review that we will go through, and ultimately what we hope to do. As I said, was to build a class that will be able to contribute to the community that will support the educational mission that we value at at the university. So so note about the holistic review and how we go ahead and take a look at the application.

Of all of those things that I talked about as a part.

Of what makes a complete application, those will all be reviewed as a part of our holistic review process. The final thing I want to say about holistic review is before moving on, is that for this fall fall of 2022 we received the record number of applications. So for the first time in Uconn's history, we received more than 40,000 applications for for admissions consideration to UConn. So one of the questions we always get.

Mask is that, well, somebody actually look at my application and and I wanna emphatically say that all applications for admissions consideration are reviewed by a member of the UConn team. So so there will be members of the the admissions team at UConn who will be reviewing every single application, so that's important for you all to keep in mind that all the components of the application.

Will be reviewed by somebody on the UConn admissions team. So again I want you all to take heart that we truly will be looking in and considering all the pieces of the application of the final things. I wanna talk about right now are those first year application deadlines and making you all aware of those so you can see on the screen the first thing December 1st. I talked about this date a number of times. The importance of.

December 1st as far as getting priority consideration for not only admissions, UM, but for merit. Scholarships for special programs and our honors program as well. So if we want to get that priority consideration, December 1st is an important date. January 15th is the deadline for priority admissions. Consideration for first year applicants to the stores campus. So making sure complete application is in.

At the very latest by January 15, although as I've said, a number of times we would really encourage you to get it in by December 1st so your students can get full consideration priority consideration for all of those opportunities that I talked about February 15th. Danielle is going to talk more about this but but I'll just say it's the FAFSA deadline for financial aid eligibility for all campuses. So to get that priority consideration for the need based aid the FAFSA application.

Uh, February 15th is important. March 1st is the date that we will notify all applicants all on time applicants. Uh, not only of an admission decision but also their financial aid award notification. So students will log into their applicant portal, the same place where they went to go ahead and apply for admissions. They will be able to access that admissions decision and if they were admitted our admit it, they're going to be able to see.

Their financial aid notification. So all this will take place. They'll be able to access it at the same place their applicant portal on March the 1st, and then May 1st is that date that is the application deadline for first year students, but it's also the date that we tell students that they need to let us know if they plan on enrolling at the stores campus in order to confirm their spot in the fall.

Class Fall 2023 class at UConn. So important information. I wanted to share with you again. As a reminder, this information will be emailed to you so you will get information you'll get to see all the slides. Not only that, I went over but Danielle will be going over in a second with you as well. You'll be able to see that information and then finally let me just give another reminder to make sure to sit put to send your questions, post them in the.

In the box and we have admissions and financial aid staff who are behind the scenes who are answering your questions, so I'm going to turn it over to Danielle, who's going to pick up the presentation about the financial aid information.

Alright perfect thank you Verne. So good evening everyone. As Verne mentioned I will be discussing a quick overview of the financial aid process as well as some funding opportunities that are available to our students.

So the first step in the financial aid process is for students to complete their free application for federal student aid. This is commonly referred to as the FAFSA. Students can submit that application by downloading the MYSON 8 mobile app or online by visiting studentaid.gov.

How important reminder on students do need to create what is called an FSA ID? The FSA ID will serve as the electronic signature to complete the application, so again, both a student and a parent will need separate FSA ID's on. This also provides access to the FASFA. This is the electronic signature and then this also provides you and your student with access to other federal sites that you may need to submit some documentation.

So students will complete the 2023-2024 FAFSA and this becomes available on October 1st. Students do need to submit their application annually.

We do encourage students to utilize the IRS data retrieval tool. So what this tool does is it transfers tax return information from the IRS directly into the fasfa and it ensures accuracy of information being reported.

Once the student has completed their application, they will receive what is called a student aid report. A link is emailed to them and the student aid report goes over pretty much an overview of the application and also provides the student with the expected family contribution, which is what our office utilizes to determine financial aid eligibility.

So for students who are completing the fasfa, there are certain eligibility criteria that students must meet, and this is only for the federal student aid. So students must be considered a U.S. citizen, or an eligible, noncitizen students must also be enrolled or accepted into an eligible program of study, and then students must also maintain the institutions published satisfactory academic progress policy.

Now we also have options that are available to our undocumented students, so students who are not eligible to complete the FASFA and are considered undocumented may be eligible to complete the institutional aid application. So funding on for this type of application would be in the form of institutional aid.

Students would complete this application, which is similar to the FASFA online and we would notify the student of their eligibility and approval and create a financial aid aid offer letter so students can find more additional information about the institutional aid application as well as the application itself online. By visiting financially.uconn.edu back slash, undocumented students and the link is available on this slide which will be shared on after this presentation.

As well.

So we'll get into some types of aid that students may be considered for at Yukon. First off is the Gift Aid on Gift Aid does not require repayment. There's also financial aid in the form of self help aid, commonly referred to as loans and loans. Do need to be repaid. And then lastly, we do have employment opportunities available to our students so they can earn income while they are enrolled at school.

Alright, so we'll get into a little bit more detail regarding the Gift Aid opportunities available at Yukon, so Gift Aid may take several different forms on. There are the federal Pell Grants which are offered to students based on the completion of their fasfa. There's the Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity grant very long word, we call it SEOG for short. Students are awarded this base again on the determination and completion of their fasfa. There's also the Roberta B Willis need.

E Grant this is for eligible Connecticut residents. And then there's university grants.

Gift Aid may also take the form of scholarship opportunities, which may include the Roberta B. Willis need merit scholarship. Again, this applies to Connecticut residents. There's UConn merit scholarships, which, as Vern mentioned, is awarded through the Office of Undergraduate Admissions. There's also departmental scholarships available to students on, depending on their major and then lastly, we do accept private or third party scholarships.

All right, so moving along on as I mentioned, students may be considered for financial aid in the form of loans. So when a student completes their fasfa, they are automatically considered for federal student loans. This may be in the form of the federal direct subsidized loan and or the federal Direct unsubsidized loan.

Both of these loans have a fixed interest rate. The only difference between a subsidized loan and the unsubsidized loan is the way the interest accrues. So with the federal direct subsidized loan, interest does not begin accruing on this loan until a student is 6 months out of school, whereas the unsubsidized loan will begin accruing interest once it has dispersed to the fee bill.

Another form of a federal loan is the federal direct parent plus loan, which we will get into further detail in the next slide. And then lastly, there are private or alternative loan options available to students. We do recommend students exhaust their federal options first, simply because private or alternative loans can have variable interest rates, they can have less forgiving repayment plans. So we just like our families to make sure they read the fine print on private and alternative loan funding, and we do offer a suggested.

Under list available on our website, if that is something that you and your family would like to consider.

OK, so as I mentioned previously, there is a federal loan option that is available to our parents, so this loan is available to eligible parent borrowers of dependent undergraduate students. This is a federal loan and in order to be eligible for this type of loan, a parent would need to complete an application along with a credit check for approval so the application would be submitted online via studentaid.gov.

And then a parent, once they're done completing the application, they'll be notified right away if they have been approved or not for the loan.

If their credit was approved for the loan, then the parent will need to complete a loan agreement which is called the master promissory note.

And then repayment for this loan does begin 60 days after the loan has fully dispersed, and this typically happens in the spring semester.

And on the parent plus loan does also have a fixed interest rate.

OK, so on the University of Connecticut, does offer several employment opportunities to our student, so we have two different programs. The federal work study program and then student labor. Your student may see on an offer of federal work study on their financial aid offer. Federal work study is funded through the US Department of Education and is typically awarded to students with the most financial need.

So even though your student may not see a federal work study award on their financial aid offer, it doesn't mean that they cannot be employed at the university. They certainly can obtain a job through student labor. The only difference between these two employment opportunities is where the funds are coming from. So the work study program is funded by the Department of Education, whereas Student Labor is funded from the hiring department.

In both of these cases, students will earn a paycheck for the hours that they work, so their aid will not get applied to their fee bill. Instead, they'll get paid like they would any other job. We have several employment opportunities available on our website, which is on the slide financially.uconn.edu/studentjobs.

OK so I will wrap up the financial aid section with just an important on timeline of some dates to keep in mind October 1st is when the FASFA or free application for federal student aid as well as the institutional aid application becomes available. Our federal school code for the FASFA is listed on the slide on. Students do need to complete that application annually so we just like to make sure we share that every year. Students will need to complete the FAFSA or the institutional aid application for review.

On beginning January is when students will start to receive reminders. So if they have not submitted their fastball, we want to make sure that they are getting that fascia in by our deadline on and so students will receive email notifications about that.

Which leads me into our deadline. So Yukon does have an on time filing deadline of February 15th. This is so students can ensure they're getting their maximum financial aid so very, very important date. You want to submit your FAFSA as well as your institutional aid application. By that February 15th deadline.

And then, as Vern mentioned previously, beginning March 1st is when students will start to receive their acceptance notifications, which includes their financial aid offers.

And with that I will turn it over to Vern.

Alright, just a few things I wanna wrap up in in talking about connecting with the university is is very important for you all to be aware of. We we're very proud to be able to offer multiple opportunities for for you, your your your students. To learn more about the university so and those opportunities are available both in person as well as online so.

Yeah, right now we are doing the Daily Campus tours. Uh, for prospective students gonna be taking place all throughout the summer? Uh, and and so I encourage you to go ahead and and go to the website that you see on the screen. The go ahead and get access to go ahead and sign up for our campus tours in the fall. We are going to have our campus visit days. The big Open house type programs that will take place in the fall will have multiple dates.

To be able to provide different options for you, we'll also have be offering we'll. We'll be resuming our Husky for a day program, so over the past year and a half due to COVID, that was one of the visit opportunities that that we put a freeze on, but we were excited to be able to resume those in the fall, and they provide those more intimate opportunities to visit to be able to see a classroom.

And and so to just grow for a great opportunity in person, uh, to be able to make those connections. So to some of the in person opportunities, our staff will be visiting high schools and doing college fairs throughout the country. So encourage you to make sure you're visiting our website to see about the when we're going to be in your areas in the fall, but we also have a number of online opportunities that are available so you can see.

That that you, your students, are able to register for a virtual information session. So if you're not able to come on campus for one of those opportunities, we do have virtual information sessions that are available. We have virtual campus tours that are available as well, and we also offer those virtual one on one admission chats. So if you're not able to come to the the UConn campus and to our physical space to to speak to an admissions.

Umm, staff member, you can go ahead and sign up for virtual one on one admissions chat and and so all this information all these ways to connect with the university. You can find those at the website that's located on the screen, so we want to make sure that you're aware of these opportunities to learn more to connect to get all of your questions answered about the university. So as I said at the beginning, I wanna thank you all for taking the time out of your schedules.

To learn more about the university about our application, our admissions process, uh, as well as some very important information about financial aid, you can see on the screen, uh, ways to connect with us so you can see both the Office of Undergraduate Admissions, the Office of Student Financial Aid. You can see our website, our email address, our telephone numbers. So after the formal presentation, if you think of something that you forgot to ask.

Please do not hesitate to reach out to our offices. Uh, we are available from our offices are here to be of assistance. To be able to answer your questions, we know it's a lot of information that we shared with you and so we want to make sure that our folks are available to be able to answer your question. So be on the lookout for an email of this PowerPoint presentation that we put together that has all the information that we talked about.

During this webinar, so this is going to include the the webinar that we shared this information for. For with you all so again thank you all very very much for taking time out of your schedules to be here. I'm in and we wish you all of the best and have a great rest of the day.