Can someone break down this whole college thing for me?? I am SOOOO confused!!?

Question

Ok, I have a ton of questions and hopefully you can help me with at least a few of them. What is the average cost of a college freshman's 1st year? Can an adult male (32 yrs) get financial aid? If you have your GED, and no SAT scores, what test will you have to take if any? and can you get exempt from it, and how? What courses should you take? How long does it take to get 90 college hours? Can you do most classes online, or just certain ones? What all is required to get admitted into college? What do you basically have to do to get into college?? LOL...I know these are a lot of questions. I dont expect answers to all of them, but I am freaking out trying to get my husband some help about getting into college. I am so lost trying to figure out all of this. I went to cosmetology school at my local junior college right out of high school in 2002 and never had to do all the things he is having to do. Thanks for all the info, and any extra tips you can give me would be great!! God Bless!

Answer 1

When someone has been out of school for many years and wants to start college, the best plan is usually to go to a community college. Almost every city and county has one.

Community colleges are cheap, but they usually have some pretty good teachers and they teach all the basic subjects that you need to get started.

I would strongly recommend that your husband go to the local CC and have a meeting with the admissions counselor. The counselor will be able to give you the correct answers for his personal situation. They are used to helping people with this stuff... they do it every day. :)

Meanwhile, you might also consider going to the local library and asking the librarian to help you find a book on applying to college. There are several good books about this and they should help you get a better view of the whole system.

ps forget that stuff about Yale and Johns Hopkins. Those schools are aimed at 19 year old star students from well to do families. They are not set up for non-traditional students. In your situation I definitely thinkyour local community college is the way to get started. After that the sky is the limit!

Good luck!

Answer 2

In terms of cost, there is no set answer. My daughter's freshman year at the University of Texas (tuition, fees, room, board, books, miscellaneous) was $17,000. My nephew at Yale was somewhere north of $40,000. At a community college, maybe $2500-$3000 (no living expenses included). Public vs private, community college vs university, in-state vs out-of-state, and one state vs another state, they all figure in the cost equation. Given the information you provided, you need to start at a community college, which is definitely the least expensive, plus they're used to dealing with adult learners and non-traditional students. Financial aide? Probably, but most likely to be subsidized loans rather than grants or scholarships. Go on-line and fill out a FAFSA. In terms of tests, it varies from state to state. In Texas, you would need to take a college readiness test called the THEA. In Texas, a recent high school graduate can exempt from the THEA by scoring high enough on the state exit-level (11th grade) accountability exams. My guess is that at your husband's age and with a GED, there isn't going to be any way to exempt. If you're looking at a 4-year school, you'll definitely have to take either the SAT or the ACT. Best bet - go by the admissions office at your nearest community college and see an admissions counselor. Courses? Depends on whether you're going for a degree or some sort of certificate. If you're not sure, start with a basic core curriculum (English, history, a lab science, and a math class). Since your husband has been out of school a while, while you're at the community college admissions counselor, take the placement tests. Math is going to be a challenge. The test will tell you where you need to start, math-wise. On a semester system, 12 hours a semester is considered a full-time student. Most full-timers are 15+ hours a semester (my daughter was 17 hours in the fall, 18 hours in the spring).. Generally, 30 semester hours are required to be "promoted" to the next level, so 90 hours is about 3 years. As far as on-line courses are concerned, it varies with the school and the course of study. Some classes DO NOT lend themselves to successful on-line classes (like math and lab sciences) and some do (like English and many social science classes). This is just my opinion, but I do this for a living. A caution about on-line classes. A major part of the educational experience is the interaction with professors and other students. You really don't get that on line. If you can pick up a textbook and master the material, on-line courses may be ideal for you. If you're a hands-on kind of person, or if you are not a visual learner, be wary of on-line courses. Finally, concerning what to do to get into college, the big step is the first one. DECIDE to go and COMMIT to making it happen. Then go the the admissions office at your nearest community college and make an appointment with a counselor. Do some aptitude and placement testing, choose a path, and get after it.

Answer 3

You must call your local community college to find out a lot of these answers. He should start at the community college to get his general education required courses out of the way, so cheap that way compared to the university.

What does he want to do?

If nursing, tell him to get the LPN at the local trade school (takes 15 months) and then work on weekends as a nurse while he goes to college to get the BSN.

Won't he qualify for a Pell Grant? Ask at the community college. I'm sure he has to take either the SAT or ACT. He better study his old algebra and geometry books. The math part is all algebra and geometry. You can take about 6 or 7 courses going full time depending on how smart he is and what he is taking. 6 x 3 credits per course = 18 credits per semester, which is about the typical load (some take 15 credits per semester). So at 18 credits a semester, it's about 5 semesters to get about 90 credits.

Just call the local community college and ask all your questions. Everyone is as lost as you at first.

I hope he's going into something good like engineering or accounting or nursing (anything in math or health care) so he will earn a decent income.

Buy the way, why doesn't he go to the local technical college? In 2 years he will have a decent trade and more of a guarantee of getting a job than he would necessarily have with a college degree. Plenty of folks with college degrees working at McDonalds, you know.

The following is for teenage students who want to go to great colleges:

When I called Johns Hopkins U to ask, they said they "look" at the 9th grade scores, but they don't calculate those scores when they figure out your GPA. They look at your grades in only CORE ACADEMIC CLASSES (sciences, English, social studies, math, maybe foreign language, I'm not sure) for grades 10 and 11 and half of 12th grade when they decide who to admit. They add up all the grades for the core classes, take the average and that is your GPA that they work with. 90-100 is an A, 80-90 is a B, etc.


Want to know what else they said?
Only 21% of the applicants are accepted.
They look to see if you took the hardest courses offered at your school.
Did you have leadership roles in all of your after school activities?

75% of the kids admitted to JHU have a GPA between 3.7 and 3.8

They like to see volunteer work and good letters of recommendation from your teachers, but the high school transcript is the most important thing. If that doesn't look good, nothing else matters. They don't want to hear about potential, they want to see what you have done.

Typical ACT score of those students who are admitted: 30-34 composite (top score is 36)
Typical SAT score of admitted students: 1350-1500 in the old SAT (top score was 1600 then)(800 in math and 800 in English is top score on old SAT)

The lady in Admissions said that they don't really care much if you made National Merit semi-finalist. They care about how hard your classes are and what grades you got in them.