College Planning Source

We were overwhelmed by the application process when our older daughter was ready for college. A family friend referred College Planning Source! CPS helped us navigate through the maze of paperwork, guided us to the right colleges and worked with us in filling out FAFSA forms, etc. We would have been lost without all the guidance of CPS. A couple of years later it was time to repeat the process with our younger daughter. Once again we leaned on CPS! With their help, both our daughters are in great colleges and we are grateful to CPS and their staff who patiently guided us! Thank you, CPS!

Thanks to CPS our two kids received valuable assistance in getting through the stress of the college application process. They suggested the kids open up their options to several institutions based on various factors. Then with their help, we were able to successfully get through the financial aid maze so we could afford for both kids to attend colleges of their choice – not an easy task with the cost of college these days. Now one has graduated and the other will soon do the same in June. College Planning Source has been awesome and Michelle is a topnotch financial aid advisor!

The first year I signed up with College Planning Source was great, they were welcoming, informative, friendly, and kept me updated, and the greatest bit was, I didn’t barely have to do any of the work myself! For 500 $, the starting fee, I could get my FAFSA taken care of, as well as my siblings for one year. What a deal! I ended up having to constantly remind them of my brother and his forms, although in the end it worked out so that was fine. When I was speaking with Michelle, who at the time I was there was the CEO, everything was fine. Having such a great experience with them, I decided to rehire them to do it again this year, and after paying another 500 $ fee I was met with a lot of silence. Small confusing requests and reminders, minimal contact, a change in personnel, so there wasn’t one specific person handling my case anymore, it’s now about 3 people and each one needs a reminder of who I am. Not only this, after sending in the requested information, I did not receive emails confirming the reception of the materials, and I was also not immediately informed that things were not working out. I waited THREE MONTHS to find out that I had to request some papers and send them to my school, a process which takes weeks if not a whole month. During these 3 months, I was not sitting around thinking they handled it, because I sent several emails asking of things were going well, if I needed to provide any more information, or if there was anything else I could do, and they would either not respond to the email at all of say «the retrieval tool can take 4 – 6 weeks to work»… well, they had about 12. So ultimately, there is a problem, they can do nothing about it, and the inner workings of the IRS and financial aid organizations of my school are a mystery to me, which is why I hired them in the first place. I may not be attending university next year, but if this works out, I will never trust them to handle my things, or any other «financial planning» company.
All in all, if it’s your first try and they’re trying to woo you, you might be just fine. But I feel like they don’t give your case much attention and there’s a lot of miscommunication. They are untimely, unresponsive, and uncaring. Go ahead and give them a try, but watch out for these warning signs during your consultation (and don’t fall for the charming jokes or smiles, they all disappear when you strictly communicate via slow emails anyway).

Now that I have both of my teenagers at UC Santa Barbara I can stop to thank College Planning Source and their entire staff. I can’t even begin to tell you how much you they have helped our family.
With two UC degrees, I thought I was pretty smart until I tried to help my kids apply to colleges, and then apply for Financial Aid. Was I wrong!!! They filled the void of both high school counselors and financial aid counselors.
Each of my kids started out really knowing very little about where to apply, what their real chances were of getting in, what a particular college would be like, etc… CPS was able to build rapport with them and help them come to smart decisions on where to apply, how to set their expectations and then fill out the college applications.
They went back and forth so many times helping with the college essays, what to put on the applications, etc. That in itself paid for the fee. Everything else was like icing on the cake.
Also, let’s face it, filling out the FAFSA is like doing your own taxes, you need to hire someone who knows what they are doing — and College Planning Source knows what they are doing. There is no question that they were able to significantly help us reduce the cost of attendance for our kids.
I tell everyone that I know with prospective college students that they need to call t right away. Working with them was one of the best decisions I have ever made.