Every college planner tells you when things are due. This one tells you how to pay for them.
Track one: getting in
Grades and course levels, activities and growth, testing, letters, essays, the list, the applications. Every page tagged in pink.
Track two: paying for it
The seven ways to pay, net price, merit, aid forms, reading offers, appeals, and the true four-year cost. Every page tagged in gold. This is the half nobody hands you.
More than a checklist
Ready-to-send emails for every ask
Read every aid offer like an insider
See the real four-year cost
Financial aid appeal steps, scholarship strategies, and 17 email templates to help get you more money.
9th Grade: Build the Foundation
10th Grade: Look Around, and Look at the Price
11th Grade: Get Ready Now, Not Later
12th Grade: Apply, Compare, Decide
Protect the GPA, start the activity record, ask about fee waivers, and have your first honest family money talk.
Run your first net price calculator, take the PSAT as practice, learn your state's merit requirements while there is still time to meet them.
Build your balanced college list, ask for recommendation letters, draft your essay, and filter every school by cost before you apply.
File aid forms the week they open, compare offers in four buckets, appeal where the facts support it, and pick the school that costs your family the least.
Not sure where to start?
There are seven ways to pay for college. Most families only know two. Take a two-minute quiz and find the funding paths that fit your student — scholarships, early credit, fee waivers, work programs, or something else entirely.
Angela Robles, M.Ed., M.A., academic college counselor. 27 years in higher education. Mother of five — each one took a different path, and not one of them had to go broke to get where they were going. This planner is the closest thing to having a college consultant at your kitchen table.