The College Solutions Blog

January 25, 2009

Do you wonder if your family will qualify for financial aid and how much you can expect? You may be in luck. Events are being held around the country in January and February to answer financial aid questions and help families obtain the most financial aid they can. At the events you can talk with financial aid administrators and receive...

January 24, 2009

Don’t have the money to pay for an expensive college road trip? Schools are increasingly making it easier for high school students to get a feel for their institutions without leaving their homes. That’s the conclusion that I drew after reading a new study conducted at the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth, which explored higher ed’s embrace of new media. Here...

January 22, 2009

This is an exciting and nerve wracking time of year for high school seniors as they contemplate getting acceptance packages in the mail. Before making their final decisions, however, high schoolers should examine the freshmen retention rates of the colleges and universities remaining on their list. They should be extremely leery if any of their favorites has experienced a mass...

January 19, 2009

My daughter called me yesterday to complain about the cost of her college textbooks. One of Caitlin’s upper level Spanish books was going to cost her close to $200. She was thrilled, however, when she found a used older textbook edition — missing the CD — for a mere $15 online. Ironically, it’s the frugality of students like Caitlin which...

January 16, 2009

While back home in San Diego for her winter break, my daughter Caitlin managed to line up a summer internship with the Institute of the Americas at the local University of  California campus. It’s ideal when a college student can find a job or internship that compliments his or her major, which in Caitlin’s case is Spanish. So I’m thrilled....

January 15, 2009

Underclassmen have been attending classes at universities the same way for generations. Students plunk down in a large lecture hall and listen (sometimes) to the professor droning up on a stage. The difference for today’s students is that increasingly it’s difficult to fall asleep during these lectures because the halls are often so jammed that stragglers have to stand in...

January 13, 2009

Between my daughter’s sophomore and junior year in high school about 40 of her classmates disappeared. The students ditched the private girls’ school for one chief reason:  It was going to be impossible to gain admission to UCLA, the UC Berkeley or another top UC campus. The girls, and more likely their parents, decided that their best hope to earn...

January 11, 2009

My son’s principal holds a breakfast chat with parents each month and at the last one, Brett mentioned that he is always amazed at how few students at the end of each semester ask teachers how they might improve their grades. It should be a no brainer, Brett suggested, for students to ask their teachers if they can do extra...

January 10, 2009

It’s hard researching online colleges. U.S. News & World Report certainly doesn’t rank online schools and the publishing world largely ignores distant learning colleges. Visit a bookstore and it’s doubtful that you’ll find anything worthwhile. When I checked on Amazon.com, one of the only books that I found was more than eight years old. During a period when more people...

January 9, 2009

Is the College Board being sneaky? It sure looks like it. Last summer the College Board announced a new policy called Score Choice that would allow students taking the SAT, beginning with the March 2009 test, to decide which results to send to colleges. The College Board has traditionally insisted that all scores — even embarrassing ones — be sent....