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McKinney Educational Foundations sponsors free seminar
EDUCATION: Learn about the college admission process.
By Jim Kilpatrick,McKinney Courier-Gazette
Preparing to apply for college can be a mysterious and confusing undertaking for many parents and high school students.
The seminar will be at Oct. 6 at 7 p.m. McKinney Boyd High School. The event is free and open to anyone interested in the college admission process.
“We want to help create the vision for college for the kids,” Darrell Slabaugh, executive director of the McKinney Educational Foundation said. “And we want to help those parents understand that complicated college admission process.”
The organization will be doing another program later in the year on college financial aid, he said.
“In February, we will be doing a program on how to fill out the Financial Aid forms,” Slabaugh said. “We want to assist in any way we can.”
Program advisors located, on the high school campuses helping find scholarships and money for students. Program advisors are employed by the McKinney Educational Foundation, Slabaugh said.
He added that the three program advisors were able to find $6.4 million in scholarship money last year.
These advisors have helped hundreds of students and parents each year to find funds for college. The MEF advisors have helped McKinney graduates find and receive $17 million in funds for college in the last four years.
“They work very closely with the high school counselors,” Slabaugh said. “They [program advisors] spend their days working with parents and students to help them develop their plan and apply for scholarships.”
The event will information on topics including how to select a college, the benefits of a university, junior college or vocational school, SAT vs. ACT and preparing for each, the college application package, costs, deadlines, tips for essay writing, scholarship searches and more.
“I’m estimating around 100 parents and students at this event,” Margaret Harsch, director of the advisor program, said. “We have seen about 75 families so far from the first two seminars.”
The program will be presented by the McKinney Education Foundation advisors, trained college-admissions and financial-resource counselors who are housed at each of the three McKinney high schools to educate students and parents about applying for college and seeking financial aid.
“College 101 will help parents understand the overall college process,” Harsch said. “It is like a primer to college for students that are unsure of what steps to take, how to choose a college and how to be prepared to apply for college.”
Lisa Frink, the mother of two McKinney North graduates. Her sons, Kade in 2005 and Kole in 2006 used the advisor program to help get scholarships.
“The program is just great,” Frink said. “I think MEF is a vision that benefits McKinney community and especially our students who graduate from our high schools.”
She added that the program maybe giving students the opportunity to attend college that would be able to without the grants that are available.
Contact Jim Kilpatrick at jkilpatrick@acnpapers.com.
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