JRA Educational Consulting Blog

 

The 2015-16 Florida Financial Aid Application (FFAA) will be available online as of December 1, 2014. The Office of Student Financial Assistance (OSFA) website at www.FloridaStudentFinancialAid.org provides the FFAA to students seeking state scholarship and grant awards for the 2015-16 post secondary academic year.

This single application is used to evaluate the student for the programs listed below...

Topics: Florida Public Schools, College Admission, Educational Consulting, Financial Aid

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This year, both FSU and UF require students to complete this online self-reported academic record as part of the application process. Apparently, some students aren’t getting it quite right, so FSU has issued some clarifying instructions. The most common errors are:

1. Mistakenly entering non-academic courses
2. Failing to enter all courses for the entire senior year
3. Listing only a repeated class without showing the initial attempt and grade earned

Topics: Florida Public Schools, College Admission, Educational Consulting

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Regardless of a college’s deadline date, do not wait until the night before to submit the application! However, once you have successfully submitted an application…please don’t forget the final pieces of the puzzle. The devil is always in the details, and you’ve got some details to look after!

Topics: Florida Public Schools, Common Application, Test-Prep, College Application

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Applying to UF or FSU? Don’t forget to complete your SSAR (Student Self-Reported Academic Record) instead of sending your official high school transcript. In fact, don’t send a transcript unless you’re accepted and make a commitment to attend one of these universities.

Both FSU and UF recommend that you complete the SSAR before submitting your application – and, luckily, they use the same SSAR, so you only have to complete it once if you’re applying to both of them.

Topics: Florida Public Schools, Test-Prep, College Application, SSAR

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Think you know your GPA? Guess again! Colleges rarely use the GPA that you see on your transcript; rather, they recalculate it using criteria that are essential to their specific admissions decision-making process. Since your academic record is the #1 factor in college admissions, it's important for you to evaluate it in the same way colleges do – and to be certain that you're also “calculating” which colleges are the right ones for you!

Topics: Florida Public Schools, College Admission

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The University of Florida has made a major adjustment to the admissions process for undergraduates this year. Admissions representatives from UF are calling it SAR: the Self-Reported Academic Record. In the past, the University of Florida, like most universities, required applicants to have transcripts sent directly to the university. That is no longer the case. As of 2013, applicants are required to enter their courses and grades from grades 9-11 and in-progress courses from grade 12 into a form that is part of the online application.

Topics: Florida Public Schools, College Admission, College Planning

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The most popular campus in Florida makes admission tougher each year. In order to increase the number of students who can enroll in UF’s undergraduate program, the school has created a special school term under the umbrella of its Innovation Academy (IA). IA is actually a novel enrollment model that operates on a spring-summer calendar. In a move to balance out the number of students on the campus throughout the calendar year, UF will enroll IA students who will take UF courses on campus during the spring and summer terms only. IA students cannot take fall semester classes on campus during the entire period of their undergraduate degree program.

Topics: Florida Public Schools

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