I often remind families that the college admissions process shouldn’t be treated like an anxious life-and-death struggle; it’s an exciting time to be enjoyed. But one element that does add pressure is the permanence of many common mistakes. If you make a bad color choice when painting a room in your house, you can always re-paint. But if you forget to take required standardized tests, miss an application deadline, or neglect to take a required class—there’s not much you can do to fix those missteps. And those missteps will likely affect your college options.
Here’s a list of the most common financial aid mistakes, courtesy of Mark Kantrowitz, and just about all of them are easy to avoid once you’ve been warned. And here’s a past post of mine to minimize mistakes in college planning.