Class 101 is a national college planning franchise that helps high school students get into better colleges and qualify for h ... igher amounts of scholarships and financial aid. We address a common problem: the college application process is complicated, competitive and stressful, resulting in students who don’t get enough, or any, financial aid and often end up at the wrong school. Class 101 offers a unique program to address this issue, and it starts during the early years of high school. Students work individually with a college planner and meet once a month for hour-long sessions throughout the year. The sessions prepare the student to take ACT and SAT tests, improve GPA, work on building a large list of schools that are a good fit, prepare a high-performance resume for colleges, write a powerful essay, visit schools, complete applications ahead of schedule and navigate the scholarship and financial aid processes. Students that go through the Class 101 program have some dramatic results: the average American high school student applies to two or three schools and receives about $20,000 in scholarships and aid. Class 101 students apply to an average of 10 schools and receive more than $200,000 in scholarships and aid. Our students also tend to stay in school. The dropout rate for incoming college freshmen is high — as many as one in three first-year students never make it to their sophomore year. The dropout rate for Class 101 students is less than 1% — far below the national average. read more