And to invite the community out because it's a good time to ask questions, just general financial aid related questions, or how do I complete the papsa anything like that.
Well, you know, financial aid is something that a lot of folks are concerned with when they have students and who are maybe juniors or seniors in high school. They realize all of a sudden, my goodness, my kids got brains, my kid's got potential. Wow, okay, we might want to fight at college here how do we do this? And there are so many parents who are in this for the very first time, and maybe they've never gone to college or attended a university. You're even at training school.
So this is like a whole new world for them. Is that why this night exists?
That is it's actually interesting because our director of admissions is going into this process herself. Her son is getting ready to graduate, and so she's like also so at OAKWU in admissions oversees Chloe and some of the other counselors there, but she's like, oh, my goodness, I need this information as much as just the community, because how do I pay for college? Where do I look for scholarships? How do I apply for the pelgrant or maybe I need to take out some loans. So this night we'll
answer a lot of those questions. How and where do I even start?
Now?
Chloe, you just wrapped up being a student. You just graduated May all right, and you've already been working in the admissions office prior to graduation, but now you're full time A little bit of a different thing here. What was it like from a students perspective going through this?
Yeah, it was crazy. Had I started this four years ago, started with FAFSA and everything like that, and honestly, it was a nightmare. I didn't have anything like a FAFSA night or anything like that to really guide me in this, and my parents were like, I have no idea what this is.
So once I got.
To college, I talked to financial aid. We got through the fastest stuff. But yeah, I mean if we had a resource like this when I was in high school going into college, it would have been a world of a difference in the whole experience.
Wow, I can imagine. You know, we're we're going through this period of time with a lot of folks who now have graduating seniors. Y can give me a lifeline here, you know, And this is the lifeline. Now where are we holding this on the campus?
So we are holding this. Do you want to talk about where we're holding it?
Yeah, I can.
We're going to be in the Chapel, which is you can't miss. It is the first big building once you get on campus. You're just gonna go on campus and whatever you're coming, it's.
Like that huge building we're gonna be up.
You can either go through the top entrance or the bottom entrance and there'll be doors. It'll be greaters to be like, hey, you are in the right place. No leave. So yeah, there'd be people. There's gonna be snacks and drinks.
So yeah, what time we opening the doors.
We are opening them at six o'clock and we're actually encouraging if you're a parent, you're somehow related to a student becoming a student, potential student. Maybe you're a current student somewhere else and you're just needing more information. Maybe you're a counselor at a high school or over at Tri County Tech, anything like that where you're dealing with
students who might be graduating. This is also we also have a special counselor corner for them so that they can get resources that they can take back to Central or to the high school or anything like that that they can actually have conversations with their students to give them directions. So good, we're going to be kind of hitting.
Up counselor for the counselors.
Exactly exactly doing our best right now.
This is an interesting process here.
I remember that my parents, of course, they never went to college, but I was a a fellow who got married, I guess, right out of high school, and then decided I better go to college. You know, straight a's aren't going to do me too good, you know, just sitting there.
And I did. And it was my father in law who attended. He was a music professor and.
He said, he you don't know what you do and I said, nope, I haven't a clue. And he walked in and he did a lot of the talk, and then he did a lot of everything there to get me and just all taken care of. And he said, you won't have to worry about too much until you graduate.
Then you have to worry about a lot. Yes, and he was right, but it was manageable. And that's what happened.
It was all manageable, and you got to go in but ready to receive all this information and also to be patient enough to kind of breathe and then really examine it.
I guess because it's going to be a lot of information.
I understand it is it is, there is a lot of information. I will say our job as financial aid at OAKLU is to help make the process as easy as possible for the students. I'm sure most people have heard about the FATS of fiasco for twenty four to twenty five and how there's been a lot of flitches because they've been working through redesigning the FAFSA, and the overall idea is to simplify it, and for most people
they did simplify it. I actually went through the FAFSA just to see what it was like, and it was I completed it in like five minutes, and I thought, did I miss something. I don't have a student that I need it for. I just wanted to see what the process was like. But then you have others who are maybe have more challenging situations for sure. So our job is to help students through the process to make
it as simple as possible. Because we're going into they're looking to open up the new FASA for the twenty five twenty six school year, and we want to make it as seamless as possible for most students. It is a simpler process. There are less questions on the FATSA than there's ever been before, so and then financial information is gathered from the irs, so there's not a lot of need most of the time to go find your taxes you know that you might have somewhere.
Well, I've done that before with the first six kids.
Yes, so hopefully it'll be a simpler process. But that's what we're there for, is to help through the process and to we do it all the time, but we understand the families. This might be the first time they have somebody going through the process, or maybe they've gone through it once or twice, but we deal with it every day, and so we're there to help handhold as much as we need to and do as much guidance as we can.
Well, yeah, I got a question for you being an envisions counselor what's it like seeing these fresh priests, pre freshmen coming in going What do I do?
Yeah? How do I do it?
Honestly, sometimes I chuckle a little bit because I was there. I mean We've all been there, you know, when you start something new and it's just kind of like, you know what, it's gonna be okay, but I know that you're really nervous right now, you know. I just kind of sometimes just want to hug and be like, you know, it's gonna be okay, Like you don't have to be nervous, like you know, fresh the nerves. The nerves are good though, Oh yeah, they're normal.
Yeah.
If you're not having a little bit of butterfly activity, you ain't a live Yes, so they do calm.
Down, yes, oh yeah.
After they are here for about a week or they're in conversations with you, they're like, oh okay, Like sometimes people just build things up in their.
Head, but most of us do. Yeah, it's a human Yeah, it's yeah the unknown for sure.
And then once you do a little bit of know and then you can exhale.
Yes, yeah, it's like okay, a little.
Goes a long way.
Yeah, that's what we're going to be doing tomorrow night with this very special night and again tell everybody exactly what to expected, what time, and everything else like that.
So the doors will open at six o'clock on oakwu's campus. The address is twenty two to oh one Silver Lake Road, so come up. Like she said, the chapel is right there on Silver Lake. You'll see a big admission sign. There's a parking lot up top, but if there's no parking spaces, just park down below when there's an entrance down below. It will actually kick off at six point
thirty with the talk of all things financial aid. We'll go for about about half an hour with slideshow presentation, that type of thing, take notes, we have water pins, all those kind of things, and then we'll let everybody meet the financial aid team. My assistant director Amber will be there, My Financial aid counselor Robin will be there. AJ who's our financial aid processor, will be there. They'll be part of our panel for or the FAQ session at the end. So we will present a little bit
that direction, but then we'll open it up. So if you have questions, come with your questions, write them down. We are willing to answer anything. It doesn't have to be related. Like we said, this is strictly for the whole community to come out. You might be going somewhere else, but just want answers and that's what we're holding this nice so.
You're blessed to be the host for this, and like I.
Said, i'll be speaking to so I hope that's okay to say.
You will be.
Oh and there will be cookies afterwards, so stay for the cookies and are if they pre register I believe, do they get in.
For some drawings? Yes, I believe.
I believe we're doing some giveaways.
Did we just go to your website and go to.
U yes, I think on the missions there's a link to sign up to pre register.
All right, well, very good.
Yeah, So I want everybody to make sure you get to that as soon as we're finished with the program exactly, and then get that all taken care of.
Some of you can multitask, but I've seen most y'all. It's it's one at a time.
But anyway, it's going to be great, great information. And I know that you too, and everybody with your team put a lot of hard work into this, and it's it's gonna be uh gonna be interesting. I'm going to go in there with a lot of parents, uh tomorrow night and uh go I be there.
Oh good, oh good, I'll be there.
A lot has changed and uh, and it'd be interesting to watch the calm kind of come.
Over them too, I hope.
So we had a lot of good questions when we held it last year, so we were able to answer a lot of questions. If we don't know a question, will let you know we don't know a question, but we will follow up with that and get you an answer.
All right.
I want to thank you both for coming in here today and enlightening us here.
Thank you. Bath Night.
That's right at Oklahoma Wesleyan University. Doors open at six.
Talk. It's going at six thirty.
Cookies, cookies, lots of cookies, lots of cookies.
And we'll teach you a little bit about how you can manage and navigate the ins and outs of getting your.
Child ready to go to college. Thank you very much for being here, Thank you for having us. Yeah,