Incoming High School Seniors: Time to Get Educated About Planning for College

College is only a year away for this fall’s high school seniors. Sallie Mae—the nation’s leading saving-and-paying-for-college company—offers a financial aid calendar and other useful tools to help students and their parents get educated about planning and paying for college. Sallie Mae’s financial aid calendar available at www.SallieMae.com/calendar offers the graduates of 2009 and their parents a monthly checklist to navigate the planning-for-college process. The calendar includes tips and resources on what to do and when, including: Discuss your classes, college plans, and test scores with your high school counselor. Request college applications from the admissions office. Or, use College Answer's Online Application Search to see if your school's form is online. Arrange campus visits. Verify that transcript information is correct. Determine which financial aid forms are required by your target schools. Run Sallie Mae's free scholarship search. This free scholarship award database contains more than 2.9 million scholarships worth more than $16 billion. It is easy to use and offers information in both English and Spanish. Students and families can start their free scholarship search today by visiting www.SallieMae.com/scholarships. Get some pointers on writing admissions and scholarship essays. Estimate your Expected Family Contribution (EFC) for financial aid purposes. The financial aid calendar, available at www.SallieMae.com/calendar, includes a ready-to-print financial aid checklist, a financial aid and college planning Google calendar and Sallie Mae’s 1-2-3 approach to paying for college podcast that examines the easy and cost-effective way to pay for college: first, use free money; second, explore federal loans; and third, fill any gap with private education loans. The calendar also includes information for high school juniors. Seniors and their families are encouraged to review the junior year list to make sure they have not missed any items. SLM Corporation (NYSE:SLM), commonly known as Sallie Mae, is the nation’s leading provider of saving- and paying-for-college programs. The company manages nearly $172 billion in education loans and serves 10 million student and parent customers. Through its Upromise affiliates, the company also manages more than $19 billion in 529 college-savings plans, and is a major, private source of college funding contributions in America with 9 million members and $425 million in member rewards. Sallie Mae and its subsidiaries offer debt management services as well as business and technical products to a range of business clients, including higher education institutions, student loan guarantors and state and federal agencies. More information is available at www.salliemae.com. SLM Corporation and its subsidiaries are not sponsored by or agencies of the United States of America.