Are you a Financial Aid Champion?
School counselors and college advisors provide essential support for students and their families throughout the college application and financial aid process. This year, we’re recognizing those of you who are Financial Aid Champions for the hard work you do, and providing an easy-to-follow checklist of events and steps designed to help students access financial aid.
All counselors/advisors who earn a minimum of 100 points from completing best practice items provided on the checklist, will be recognized over the summer at the Financial Aid Summit.
Note: Participation is optional.
Rules and Details:
- School is a registered C2C Site.
- Counselor, college advisor, or other school representative registers to attend Financial Aid Summit. Registration Coming Soon!
- School completes the Financial Aid Champion Checklist (with a minimum of 100 points earned) and provides all required data and documentation by Wednesday, April 30, 2025.
If you are planning to participate in completing checklist items for recognition at the Financial Aid Summit, fill out the short interest form.
Using the NC FAFSA Tracker, check how your school did last year and determine a feasible goal for your school to achieve that shows growth and improvement compared to last year’s end of April FAFSA completion rate.
Follow these steps to see your school’s end of April FAFSA completion rate:
- Select the school tab
- Search for your school
- Hover over last year’s completion rate for the month of April
- Create a CFNC.org account using your professional (work) email.
- Submit request to add ProTools access to your account.
- Submit Finish the FAFSA Report access request.
Visit www.nextncscholarship.org/toolkit to access flyer, social media posts, digital displays and PowerPoint presentation slides (all toolkit items are available in English and Spanish).
By achieving the FAFSA completion goal for your school, you will receive the assigned 20 points for that item. Extra points are available if you meet one of the following:
- Improved FAFSA completion rate from previous year by 5%+ (extra 10 points)
- Improved FAFSA completion rate from previous year by 10%+ (extra 15 points)
You can earn extra points by providing bilingual assistance at your FAFSA/financial aid events. You will receive additional points as follows:
- Bilingual support is available throughout the event in person or virtually to assist families in completing the FAFSA (extra 10 points)
- Handouts or other informational items given at the event were available in more than one language (extra 10 points)
For a bulletin board to fulfill this checklist item it must predominately contain financial aid information such as FAFSA, scholarships and grants, loans or work study. Note that if you only have access to one bulletin board at your school, switching out the information will count as having two bulletin boards (it is not a requirement for them to be at separate locations if that is not a possibility at your school).
Share college access email alert form with the trusted influencers at your school to get them signed up for email alerts.
Please use this form to upload all documentation to be recognized as a Financial Aid Champion at the NC Financial Aid Summit. All supporting documents that show you completed a checklist item must be submitted by Wednesday, April 30, 2025. Acceptable documentation includes pictures, screenshots of email communication, and event flyers.
Note: Participation is optional and only completed applications will be accepted. Your application must include all necessary documents to be considered complete. Email [email protected] with any questions.