Vinh-Hop Ngo

Job Shadow Review

I did my job shadow alongside Bill Wells, the Director of Financial Aid at Wake
Forest. I emailed him as soon as I got an email from Ashley Phipps, and set up a
time to meet with him during the day. Before the job shadow, I looked up Mr. Wells
online and looked up what a director of financial aids job is, so that I could get a
general overview of what to expect. Then, I prepared and wrote down on my pad
folio six questions that I could potentially ask Mr. Wells about his experience. I met
Mr. Wells in his office in the financial aid department, which is in Reynolda Hall. I
learned that Mr. Wells job basically consists of looking at how much each family can
pay to attend Wake Forest. He looks at two applicationsthe FAFSA and the CSS.
The FAFSA concerns a familys eligibility for federal funds, while the CSS determines
how much institutional funds a family can get. Mr. Wells then looks at the value of a
familys property, business, house, and investments as well as verifies the
information with tax returns to determine a familys eligibility. He then calculates
the Estimated Family Contributionif it is less than the total cost of attending Wake
Forest, then the student is eligible to receive financial aid. He says that the financial
aid offices commitment is to keep loans as low as possible for all students.
His busiest time of the year is during the March-May period, when all the
financial aid applications come in. He spends 15 minutes per award every day,
determines each applicants EFC and writes a lot of reports. He writes about two
dozen reports a day. There are 6 other people in the office who work under him and
do awards; 4 people answer questions on the phone or through email, and there are
financial counselors as well. There are a total of eleven people on the financial aid
staff who all work under Mr. Wells. When hiring, Mr. Wells says he looks for people
who like numbers and can clearly communicate and work well with each other as
well as with students. So, candidates have to be both numeric and verbal. Mr. Wells
himself has to be a good communicator as well, because he gives presentations to
many high schools in the state and also serves on various committees. There is also
a lot of technology involved on the job because they have to make sure they keep
up with the new implementations that the school uses.
Mr. Wells graduated from Wake Forest with a degree in History and received
his masters in History at UNC Chapel Hill. His advice is to major in something that
you truly have a passion for, because an undergraduate degree nourishes your
intellectual life for the rest of your life. He never majored in anything finance
related; he only interned in the financial aid office at UNC while he was pursuing his
MA degree in higher education. He says that he chose financial aid over teaching
history because he felt it was more fulfilling to help underprivileged students get to
college than to teach history to uninterested high school students. He says that to
get into the field of financial aid, one should get a really good liberal arts
education, understand humanity and variations among cultures, attend a graduate
program in higher education, and get an internship in the financial aid office. The
most personally valuable part of this experience was learning that it does not
matter what your major is as an undergrad; just study what you love and it will
nourish you for the rest of your life. I was impressed with all the knowledge about

history and different cultures that Mr. Wells had, even though he works in financial
aid. Financial aid is not an option that I will prioritize, but at least now I know what it
takes to work in financial aid and that I dont have to major in finance or business to
work in this field. It is a lot of work just like any office job, but the rewarding part of
this job is that you get to help students get the college education they deserve.
Financial aid is much more about people-helping aspect than it is about the numbercrunching that I initially expected. I discovered that it is definitely a more personally
fulfilling of a job.