Jay's HOPE Blessing Bag Community Service Campaign

Last year, Westfield donated well over 120 Blessing bags for Jay's Hope to distribute to their families who have a child with cancer for Thanksgiving. We are hopeful that our upper school families will be able donate 150 bags this year.

If you are unfamiliar with the blessing bags, here is what they must contain. 

The Blessing Bags are packed in a decorated bag. Inside each bag, you include:

$20 gift card to Walmart or Kroger to purchase the meat for the meal

1 package of Instant Mashed Potatoes

1 can of Gravy (jars break, so the can or packet mix is best)

1 can Green Beans

1 can Chicken Broth

1 Package of Stuffing Mix

1 Package of Cornbread Mix

1 can of Fruit or Fruit Cocktail

1 box of Jell-o

1 boxed Dessert

1 can of Cream of Mushroom Soup

1 can of Crispy Fried Onions

1 can of Cranberry Sauce

Students will receive five hours of community service for each bag. 

Bags are due to Dr. Morton by November 3rd.

 

 

Help Your Student Adjust to College Academics

Suzanne Shaffer

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There are so many milestones in any parent’s life. Your baby’s first steps, their first words, the first day of school, and their first girlfriend or boyfriend. But there are few occasions more momentous than the day you send your teen or young adult off to college.

You will probably be feeling bittersweet about it. You're delighted they're on track to succeed in life and learning to become an independent adult, but you may also worry that college will be a difficult transition. You will no longer be able to see them every day to help with their health, or their homework. You won’t know if they are struggling academically unless they tell you — and many students struggle without ever telling their parents.

Psychology Professor Drew C. Appleby, Ph.D. asked students enrolled in his freshman learning community to describe the differences they were experiencing between their high school classes and their college classes. His students identified several differences and said that “both the amount and difficulty of the work they were required to do in college classes has increased significantly from high school.”

They also listed time as a factor, citing the greater amount of time it took to complete assignments and the limited time they had to learn new material because of the faster pace of classes.

Additionally, they noted that learning was their responsibility and not that of the professors who led their classes. One student wrote, “You did not have to do reading assignments in high school because your teacher taught you everything that was in your textbook that you had to know for tests. In college, if you do not do your homework, you have no crutch to lean on. You are much more on your own in college classes.”

Your new college student should be prepared to adapt to a different type of academic environment in college. Discuss these six key strategies with them before they leave for college and reinforce them during their college years.

1. Dealing With Academic Freedom

Students receive less direction in college than they did in high school. In college, your student has the freedom to choose their academic major, their electives, their professors, and the number of hours they attend class.

This freedom, though exhilarating, can also be overwhelming. College gives your student the opportunity to pursue self-exploration and discovery. They're free to pursue subjects and interests they enjoy and steer clear of the things they dislike. But balance is key, and the first semester should not be overloaded with more credit hours than your student can handle.

Encourage them to set realistic goals. And remind them that freedom comes with responsibility. They should work closely with their academic advisor and make sure they are on track to graduate in four years or less.

2. Managing the Increase in Study Requirements

Your student will quickly discover they will do very little "work" in the classroom. Instead, professors expect students to pay attention and take advantage of class time for learning: listening to lectures, taking notes, and participating in discussions.  Since most lectures move at a fast pace, your student will be responsible for deciding which points are important to write down and review later.

Homework and outside reading are critical in college. Tests and midterm and final exams will also be based on the work your student does outside the classroom. They will spend much more time doing homework than they ever did in high school, and you won’t be there to be sure they are doing it.

Encourage your student to create a study schedule based on the amount of work assigned and the time to complete it. My daughter did this religiously with her reading assignments. As she was assigned a book, she counted the pages and scheduled a specific number to read each day. That way she wasn’t cramming to finish the book before it was due. Include study time to review class notes and highlight any information that might be on a test, midterm or final.

3. Tackling College-Level Academics

For many college students, transitioning to college-level academics requires adjusting their habits and expectations. It requires improved study habits and a mindset to accept the changes in academic settings. Classes are larger, often in huge lecture halls. The pace is faster with lengthier reading assignments. Standards are higher and grasping the material requires concentration. Professors expect them to show up for class, pay attention and do the work.

If your student tends to procrastinate, college might provide a wake-up call. Waiting until the last minute to read a book, complete an assignment, or study for a test isn’t as easy as it was in high school. The material is more difficult to grasp and retain.Professors may have little compassion for the student who doesn’t turn in work on time or gives excuses for a poor grade due to lack of preparation.

That said, professors and TAs (teaching assistants) want your student to succeed, and they offer study sessions and office hours for students who need extra support with a topic or project.

Coach Your Student to Communicate With Professors >

4. Managing Their Time

You won’t be able to micromanage your student in college and they'll have many distractions to deter them from the main reason they are attending college — to learn and eventually get a degree. There will be scheduled class time and group project time, but no one will be making sure they attend.

In college, your student will be given assignments that require large time commitments. Term papers, semester projects and preparing for finals make up a large portion of their grades and your student is responsible for managing their time effectively to complete these assignments on time. They should read the syllabus provided and make note of assignment deadlines and test dates.

There will also be a learning curve when it comes to balancing their time between academics and a social life. Your student will have free time to use as they choose and should most certainly take advantage of activities and opportunities on campus. But they should also learn to prioritize their studies and say no when the activity interferes with study time. Setting boundaries and managing time is crucial to your student’s academic success.

5. Adjusting to Different Teaching Styles

In high school, teachers teach the content of the textbook to help their students understand the material. Often they hand out notes and study guides. Professors, on the other hand, may lecture nonstop, bringing in additional background information, and even discussing research related to the topic. It’s up to the student to arrive prepared (by completing assigned reading in advance), take good notes, and review after class.

At some universities, introductory classes are taught by graduate student teaching assistants. In this case, your student may only see the professor a couple of times during the term. Every professor and TA has their own teaching style. Some your student may like and others they may not. But learning to adapt to these styles is a part of adjusting to college.

Tips for helping your student if they struggle with an instructor's teaching style >

6. Asking for Help

Most new students have problems adjusting to the college learning environment. Colleges provide plentiful resources to assist those who ask for help.

When your student feels overwhelmed, remind them to seek help on campus! The tutoring and campus writing center, their academic advisor and even their professors can assist when asked. Professors have office hours and are more than willing to answer any questions related to their course materials.

These valuable resources are available to all students and your student should know where they are on campus and how to use them.

College academics may be a challenging adjustment for your student. They shouldn't despair if it takes a semester or two to get the hang of things. If they make use of the resources the school offers, stick to a study plan, and manage their time wisely, they'll adapt — and thrive.

 

Everything you need to know about the new FAFSA® changes

From Sallie Mae

The Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA®) is the gateway to getting federal student loans, scholarships, grants, and work-study for school, but there can be so much confusion around it.

The FAFSA® used to be a super long application that took a lot of time and effort—that’s now a thing of the past. The FAFSA® for the 2024-2025 academic year is the new and improved version. I asked 20+ year financial aid expert Ed Recker about these changes.

Here’s the breakdown.

Why is this year’s FAFSA® different?

Ed: This year’s FAFSA is different due to two congressional acts: the FAFSA® Simplification Act and the Fostering Undergraduate Talent by Unlocking Resources for Education (FUTURE) Act.  The two acts combine to shorten and simplify the FAFSA®, update the underlying formulas, change some naming conventions, and make it easier to transfer financial information to the application.

What are the new changes to the FAFSA®? What should students expect?

Ed: The FAFSA® has several changes this year. Here’s what students should expect:

A new opening date
The opening of the 2024-25 FAFSA® has been delayed from its usual date of October 1 to “December 2023.”  The U.S. Department of Education hasn’t announced an official open date yet, but don’t worry—the December open date is for the upcoming year only. The FAFSA® for future years will open on October 1.

Fewer questions
The FAFSA® itself will be much shorter. It’s estimated to go from about 118 questions to about 36 questions for most users.

Role-based questions
The FAFSA® is now role-based—the roles are either “student” and “parent.” Students will now only see questions relating to them, and parents will only see questions relating to them. Each will have to log in separately to complete their section of the FAFSA®.

Easier financial information retrieval
The old FAFSA® used to require families to compile a lot of their tax information to submit—not anymore. The FUTURE Act Direct Data eXchange (FADDX) is a huge reason why the FAFSA® is so much shorter. The U.S. Department of Education can access the majority of your financial information behind the scenes from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) through the FADDX, and all you need to do is check a box. You won’t see any of this financial information in your FAFSA® at all or in your FAFSA® Submission Summary (formerly Student Aid Report).

More schools can be listed
Students can now list up to 20 schools on their FAFSA®, as opposed to the previous limit of 10.

No longer need to share where students will be living
The FAFSA® no longer asks what a student’s housing intentions are (on-campus, off-campus; with parent), so students will want to be intentional in making sure that various offices (admissions, financial aid; student housing) know their housing intentions.

Families with private entities must report their net worth
The net worth of small businesses and/or farms, for those who own such entities, must now be reported on the FAFSA®. They were previously exempt from reporting this so, although it will not impact everyone, it’s a big change for those that fall in these categories.

Having family members in college no longer matters
The number of members of your family in college is no longer factored into the federal formula, which could impact those students who have siblings in college at the same time.

New names for indexes and reports
There are a few naming changes. The Expected Family Contribution (EFC) is now the Student Aid Index (SAI), and the Student Aid Report is now the FAFSA® Submission Summary.

What is the difference between the Expected Family Contribution (EFC) and the Student Aid Index (SAI)? What does this mean for students?

Ed: Both are index numbers that the U.S. Department of Education, state agencies, and colleges and universities use to determine what types of aid, and how much of that aid, a student is eligible for.  However, due to the EFC’s name, people often confused it as the amount their college would cost, or how much they would have to come up with out-of-pocket in order to attend college. The naming convention change should help clear up some of that confusion. The big change is how the number will be calculated. Both are very detailed (and boring), so I’ll spare you, but it should mean additional free money for many FAFSA® filers who would not have been eligible for federal grants under the old formula.

When are the new opening and closing dates?

Ed: The specific open date for the 2024-25 FAFSA® has yet to be determined, but the U.S. Department of Education said that it will be sometime in December 2023. They have also stated this new date is for one year only, and the open date will revert back to October 1^st for future years. 

The closing date will be June 30, 2025, but you should file it much sooner than that. Some aid is first come, first served, and many states and schools have their own filing deadlines much earlier than this.

What is your advice to students applying for FAFSA® this year?

Ed: Pay attention to announcements and find out what the exact open date will be, and what state agencies and colleges/universities are doing with their own deadlines.  We recommend that you complete the FAFSA® as early as possible.

Talk to your family about who needs to do what. Remember, the FAFSA® is now role based, so students and parents will have to log in and fill out their own questions.  

Where can students go if they have additional questions about the FAFSA®?

Ed: Students can go to the official FAFSA® site to stay up to date on all things FAFSA®, get their FSA ID, and ultimately complete the FAFSA®. They can also check out Sallie Mae’s FAFSA® page, YouTube channel , and webinars page for helpful FAFSA® tips, tools, and resources.

As you start to think about submitting the FAFSA^® this year, keep these things in mind:

Get an FSA ID
You need a Federal Student Aid (FSA) ID before you start the FAFSA®. Unlike previous years, you can no longer start the FAFSA® without already having it.  We recommend that you make your FSA ID at least 3-5 business days before you plan to apply, as your application has to be validated by the Social Security Administration, which can take some time. There is no open/close date on when you can get your FSA ID, so do it ASAP!

Apply ASAP
Apply as early as you can to get as much federal aid as you can! A lot of financial aid is first come, first served. You won’t want to leave any money on the table.

Apply even if you’re not sure you’ll get any aid
The FAFSA® is free, so there’s no harm in applying. You never know what kind of federal student loans, grants, or scholarships you could be eligible for.
 

Double-check any changes with your financial info

• If your financial situation has drastically changed, make a note and contact your financial aid office after you’ve submitted the FAFSA® to talk about completing a special circumstances application.

You can correct your mistakes after you submit

• If you make a mistake or accidentally left something out of your application, you’re in luck—you can correct them and re-submit.

Complete the FAFSA® every year

• Make sure you apply each year you’re in school to renew your financial aid. The FAFSA® isn’t a one-and-done thing—make sure you don’t miss out on aid by forgetting to resubmit!

There may be a lot of new things about the FAFSA® this year, but don’t be intimidated! The whole process is going to be so much easier and less stressful: new doesn’t mean bad, and it’s definitely a good thing in this case! Just make sure you stay in the know and submit your FAFSA® this year.

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Should You Guess on the SAT or ACT?

From: Princeton Review

Have you ever heard of the infinite monkey theorem? It says that a monkey, given an infinite amount of time to type randomly on a typewriter, will eventually type out the complete works of Shakespeare. Given an infinite amount of time to fill in answers on a standardized test, a high school student could also randomly bubble in all the correct answers—eventually. Unfortunately, you will not have an infinite amount of time to guess all the answers on the SAT or the ACT. You will probably end up guessing on some of the questions. And that’s OK! You should guess when you don’t know the answer, when you’re running out of time, or when the question is going to take way more time than it’s worth. We’re going to help you guess strategically so that you can maximize your points—even when you don’t have all the answers.

The Guessing Penalty

First things first: There is no guessing penalty, so you’ve got nothing to lose by guessing. That wasn’t always the case. Prior to March 2016, the SAT did have a guessing penalty; a quarter of a point was subtracted from your raw score for every wrong answer. Since right answers were worth one point each, random guessing was likeliest to result in a score of zero. (With five answer choices, you’d pick the right answer about 20 percent of the time. You’d get 1 full point for the correct answer and lose 0.25 points for each of the 4 wrong answers—all of which would sum to zero.)

When the College Board revised the SAT in 2016, they made it more like the ACT, which has never had a guessing penalty. At present, a wrong answer on either test does nothing to your score—it won’t hurt it, but it can’t help it either. Many students (and their parents) remember the old guessing penalty, and they are afraid to take a chance on a question. That fear of guessing incorrectly can prevent students from picking up a few extra points. Don’t be held back! All you need is a solid guessing strategy.

When to Guess on the SAT and ACT

As you work through each question of an SAT or ACT test, ask yourself, “Can I answer this quickly and accurately?” If the answer is “Yes,” then do the work carefully and answer that question. If the answer is “Maybe,” then save that question until you’ve answered all the others that are better matched with your skill set. If the answer is, “Heck, no!” fill in an answer right then and there. You may think you’ll have time to come back to it, but if you don’t, and time runs out before you fill in that bubble, you will have no chance of picking up that point.

What to Guess

Let’s start with the questions on which you’re totally guessing: What should you fill in? We recommend that you pick your favorite letter and use that for all “blind” guesses. Over the course of the test, some of those are bound to be the right answer. We call this your Letter of the Day, and having one saves time. Since the ACT alternates answer letters, with odd questions having answers (A) through (D) or (E) and even ones having answers (F) through (J) or (K), you’ll need two LOTDs for that test. When you need to guess, just pick your favorite letter(s) and go for it.

You may have heard that the correct answer is most often (C). We don’t know how this rumor got started, but it is definitely not the case. In our analysis of the correct answer for the multiple-choice sections of the eight SAT tests released between 2016 and 2018, the answers are split pretty evenly, as you’ll see below.

Correct Answer	Percent
A	22.3
B	26.7
C	25.3
D	25.7

Although (B) has shown up as the right answer slightly more often, you can see that each answer is correct about 25 percent of the time on the SAT. This pattern of roughly equal frequency among the answer choices holds true for the ACT as well, and it is by design. If the correct answer really were most likely to be (C), some students would pick up on the pattern, and it would give them an unfair advantage. Feel free to pick (C) if you’d like, but know that any LOTD you choose is likely to get you some points in the long run if you use it consistently. If you guess on 20 questions over the course of the test, about 5 of those should match your LOTD. Yay, free points!

How to Guess Better

You’ve seen how you can improve your score by guessing from four or five answer choices; now imagine how much further you could improve if you only have to guess between two or three Your odds of guessing the correct answer would increase considerably! Often, trying to eliminate an answer or two is the best approach when you are not sure of how to solve a question, or when you do not have time to work it through completely, but you feel comfortable enough to do more than guess blindly. And the great news is that there are a lot of ways to eliminate answer choices.

Math

On Math questions, ask yourself if there are any answers that just don’t fit. If, for instance, the question said the value must be odd, then get rid of any answers that are even. If there is a figure, check if it is drawn to scale. (On the ACT, all figures are, and the SAT will note when they are not.) If it is drawn to scale, you can use the figure itself to estimate line lengths, angle measures, or even areas, and then eliminate the answers that aren’t likely.

Science

On ACT Science questions, a pair of direct opposites in the answer choices will usually indicate that one of those two choices is right. (We suspect that the ACT test writers think you can get that the concept is important, but not correctly ascertain the relationship.) If you see direct opposites, eliminate the other answers and pick one of the opposites.

Reading

On Reading questions, the test writers often include options that are extreme—using words like all , none , or every —or alluding to intense emotions like disgust or rapture. These outliers are rarely the correct answer, so eliminate them before guessing.

English/Writing and Language

On the verbal section that tests grammar (English or Writing and Language), it is not as easy to eliminate answers without working the question, but there are still some opportunities. For example, did you know that a period and a semicolon are interchangeable on these tests? If you see two answers with the same words, and the only difference is a period versus a semicolon, eliminate them both—they are essentially the same answer! The same is true for “therefore” and “consequently.” One could not be right if the other were a choice, so you can eliminate both if you see them presented for the same question. Also, if you spot any slang words or phrases, such as “spot-on” or “weirdnesses” (an actual answer choice on College Board Practice Test 6), eliminate those, and choose a more formal word such as “ideal” or “anomalies.” Finally, look for an answer that’s significantly shorter than the others—it’s often correct. (“DELETE” is correct more often than chance would indicate!)

How to Transform Guesses into a Guessing Strategy

Once you’ve eliminated an answer or two and made your guess—especially if you’re working on a practice test—be sure to learn from the experience. Check your answers, and keep track of how often your guess was right. It may sometimes feel like you always get down to two answers and then pick the wrong one—because those incorrect answers stick in your head. But that’s probably not the case. Once you start keeping track, you can celebrate the times a guess went your way and earned you an extra point. Do this every time you practice for the test, and you will start to get a great sense of when and how to eliminate answers. You’ll also see, as your score improves, that informed guessing—and even blind guessing—are crucial parts of a solid test-taking strategy.

 

Apply Free to GCSU - September 13-22!!

We're celebrating fall all week by waiving our application fee for fall 2024 first-year and transfer applicants beginning tomorrow, September 13, through September 22. We invite you to fall in love with Georgia College & State University and take advantage of our free application period.

Here are just a few reasons why students always fall for GCSU:

• We have over 140 student organizations on campus that make it easy to get involved!
• U.S. News & World Report ranks us as #7 in Top Public Schools and #8 in Most Innovative Schools in the South.
• The historic Georgia College campus looks just like a movie set. Visit us to see for yourself.
• GCSU is one of the top three most selective public universities in Georgia.

Your application must be submitted between Wednesday, September 13 at 12 a.m. EST and Friday, September 22 at 11:59 p.m. EST to qualify for the application fee waiver. View all of the application materials and details on how to use a fee waiver at gcsu.edu/applynow.

On Common App - Use code: "GCSU2024FW"