The College Solutions Blog

September 29, 2014

I am excited that you have joined me in my online course, The College Cost Lab! The best way to make college more affordable for your family is to become a smart college shopper. And that is my No. 1 goal for this class – empowering you to make the best decisions as you contemplate your college choices. The last...

September 22, 2014

High-achieving students who apply every year to the Ivies and other elites schools have heard the grim statistics about how ridiculously hard it is to get into these schools. That reality, however, doesn’t deter students from applying even though it’s pointless for most of them. Ambitious teenagers aiming to attend the nearly impregnable schools at the top of the rankings...

September 14, 2014

If you have a teenager who will be heading to college some day, you probably are frustrated and confused. It’s hard to find answers when you are looking for ways to cut your college costs. It’s equally frustrating for financial advisors, high school counselors and independent college consultants who would like to assist their families make college more affordable, but...

September 9, 2014

I am eager to get to know everyone who is taking this class! One of the neatest parts of this class is that it has attracted people from across the country. Your classmates include parents from such states as California, New York, Michigan, Massachusetts, Texas, Hawaii, New Jersey, North Carolina, Georgia, Pennsylvania and Washington. I also want to welcome the college...

September 8, 2014

Today’s college blog post was written by Bruce Reed, a principal at Compass Education Group, a popular test-prep firm in California. In the past, Reed explores whether students can gain an edge by strategically picking their SAT testing dates. This is the last in a series of expert posts about ACT and SAT scoring. You’ll find links to the other...

September 3, 2014

Below you will find all the course resource guides. To make sure you always have them, I’d highly recommend that you download them onto your computer. Your Step-by-Step Blueprint to Cut Your College Costs Your Smart Blueprint for Selecting Colleges The Ultimate College List Builder A Guide to Building the Perfect College List The Ultimate List of the Nation’s Most...

September 2, 2014

This is the time of year when high school seniors aiming for prestigious colleges and universities contemplate applying Early Decision. When students apply early decision, they promise that they will attend if the institution accepts them. Students must make this commitment before they know what kind of financial aid or merit awards the school might provide. Because students are supposed...

August 25, 2014

My son Ben is heading back to high school this week. Ben graduated from Beloit College in May with a degree in mathematics, but his new school year started this morning at Lincoln High, a predominantly Hispanic school in Denver.  He will be spending the year as a teacher-in-training in the classrooms of two mentor mathematics teachers. Through the Teacher...

August 18, 2014

I’ve looked at plenty of college essays over the years and the vast majority of them have been b-o-r-i-n-g. The essays that I’ve seen have usually been guilty of one or more of these no-no’s: 1. They lacked details. 2. They didn’t convey the student’s voice. 3. They covered too much territory. (Writing about something that lasted seconds, minutes or...

August 13, 2014

To learn more about the recruiting process, I talked with Avi Stopper, a former college athlete and a co-founder of CaptainU, which could be called an athletic LinkedIn that helps student athletes to connect with athletic coaches. Stopper, who is a former men’s soccer coach at the University of Chicago, launched CaptainU when he was in the school’s MBA program....