Making College Dreams Come True, Regardless

Trevor Ramos of Pasadena-based College Funding Remedies has a message for students:

Yes, you can go to the college of your dreams after all – even if your GPA is not super high and your family isn’t rich!

“I help students get scholarships at these universities and also other alternative ways to save money on college expenses,” says Trevor Ramos of College Funding Remedies.

He adds, “I teach the parents how the financial aid system works and the scholarship system works so that they’re picking the right school that is not only a great fit academically for their students, but also affordable for them. And I also counsel them on all the different ways of aiming for a school, and their college spending options, so that they’re not getting into a lot of debt between the parent and the student.”

Ramos is a foremost college financial aid consultant who provides important information on how your children can graduate with a prestigious four-year degree, often for literally pennies on the dollar. Some of Ramos’ clients even graduate debt-free.

He himself knows how it feels to be on the bottom where the choices seem few.

Ramos recalls telling his school counselor the schools on his college dream list, topped by first choice Boston University. (That, despite having a 2.8 GPA and average SAT scores.)

The counselor told him, “Trevor, I don’t really think those are right kind of schools for you. What I recommend you do is go to a community college. Maybe if you get your grades up from a 2.8 then you can go to a Cal State.”

It became a challenge for him. He set out a goal to prove his school counselor wrong.

Ramos took it to heart; he became obsessed with getting into Boston University. He studied how others made it to good colleges or universities and spent a good number of hours in bookstores and libraries to understand “how the system works.”

His efforts paid off.

“I was able to get myself into Boston University even though I was significantly below average statistically. When I went in there, Boston University had a 3.5 average GPA for students. I got admitted. I had a 2.8 but I had a very, very great relationship with the admissions person, got a lot of feedback. So that’s how I led to getting accepted and getting a $41,000 scholarship in my first year, and at that time, it was $45,000,” he recounts.

It was then, Ramos says, that he decided “There really is a ‘will’ word. If there’s a will, there is a way,” echoing the cliché.

It was this pivotal moment in Ramos’s life that created his desire to help other students live their dreams, he says.

Trevor continued, “Some people will give me the same story that I had. ‘My counselor told me to just drop my list of schools and gave some schools that I never heard of. And then I heard about you and now I know that it’s possible.’ That gives me some satisfaction.”

Ramos does not label all counselors as givers of “bad advice” to students – he stresses rather how impressed he is by the work of high school counselors in local private and public schools.

According to him, the reason he can give a better outcome is because he has more time to work with students, gleans a better understanding of their particular situations and polishes a strategy that is appropriate to a particular scenario.

“A lot of times you’ll find that I’m telling the same student something different than a counselor and the reason is a lot of coaching can be done in order to actually achieve the outcome,” he said.

He advises students to come and visit him so they won’t suffer from the misleading myths that surround the college application process.

Ramos insists that to fully understand the system, students and parents must get the inside understanding so they would know the options available to them and not rely on second-hand information that might not be correct.

Clearly, he wants to remove the fear of hearing “no” or the phrase “it cannot be done.” You have to find the courage to look for opportunities that are available to you because that was what he did, he says, encouragingly.

“I did not accept that it was just impossible. I went out there and I seek the information and I was not afraid to hear “no.” And as long as you come out it with that attitude, a lot of great things can happen.”

Ramos added that he holds local workshops several times throughout the year in the community from San Gabriel Valley to West Los Angeles and San Fernando Valley. He also has kits that he mails out for parents who want to learn more about how this process works. The kits explain them how the entire process works and they can kind of Mailing the kits allows parents to study the information in the comfort of their own home.

Soon, Ramos plans to release more videos and conduct webinars available to families that are just too busy to make it to the workshops. “I just want to get as much information out there and it’s completely free. I just want the parents to know all the information out there so that they can understand how to deal with the situation if there are options,” he continues.

For more information, call (866) 568-8647 or visit http://collegefundingremedies.com/.