Welcome to the Counselor Zone
At your fingertips, High School Counselors/Personnel, College Admission Counselors, library and community agency staff have access to a centralized source of information concerning college planning, paying for school, and career planning information for students and their parents, as well as information concerning ISAC's programs, processes, and resources.
Counselor Message Board
The Counselor Message Board is updated each week. New messages for the week are identified by the symbol. Items under the More section, located toward the bottom of the page, provide links to information on topics that were recently listed on this Message Board.
A State Legislative Update, dated May 14, 2008, contains the most recent status of bills which pertain to ISAC-administered programs and education in general.
A May 14th e-Message reminds high school counselors to register for an informational session about the Illinois Electronic Transcript Exchange. Sessions are being offered on May 20th and May 22nd. Details (including session locations and how to register) are provided in the e-Message.
A posting at the Federal Student Aid for Counselors Web site announces site outages that have been scheduled in order to allow the Federal Student Aid data center to be relocated. The next outage will take place between Friday, May 16th and Saturday, May 17th. Details, including specific dates/times and a listing of impacted Web sites, are provided in the posting.
If you attended the 2008 Illinois Association for College Admission Counseling (IACAC) conference and have not yet submitted a conference evaluation, you may do so online via the "Conference Evaluation" link that appears at the Conference page of the IACAC Web site.
The most recent Federal Update, dated May 7, 2008, provides information regarding President Bush signing the Ensuring Continued Access to Student Loans Act of 2008. The Federal Update is available via the Federal Information section of the e-Library.
An updated version of the Comparison of Teacher Education Programs, now containing information about the Federal TEACH Grant, is available in the Gift Assistance Programs area of collegezone.com, under each program - Minority Teachers of Illinois, Illinois Future Teacher Corps and Illinois Special Education Teacher Tuition Waiver, as well as in the TEACH Grant section of the Federal Programs area.
Lists identifying the 2008-09 Robert C. Byrd Honors Scholars were sent by ISAC to high schools on April 24, 2008. At the same time, recipients were sent notification letters that contained Eligibility Certification forms and Rights and Responsibilities documents. Remind your graduating seniors who have been named Byrd Honors Scholars that they must return the Eligibility Certification form to ISAC on or before July 15, 2008, so that their college will be able to request payment on their behalf for the fall term.
High school-generated sixth semester rosters for the 2008-09 High School Scholarship Programs (HSSP) are due to ISAC on or before September 12, 2008. Submitting the rosters will prevent ISAC from generating a roster at a later date. Further details are provided within the Program News section for HSSP, as well as in an April 14, 2008 letter to high schools.
More
Upcoming Unavailability of Federal Student Aid Web Sites
U.S. Department of Education's Federal Aid First
List of ISAC's Participating Lenders
State & Federal Aid Estimator
Federal Student Aid's FAFSA4caster
FAFSA Completion Information
Most Recent ISAC Communiqué:
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