The College Solutions Blog

October 28, 2013

If your family will need to depend on financial aid to attend college, your best bet is to find a school that will offer an excellent financial aid package to your child. A great way to assess the generosity of any school is to look at the percentage of financial need it typically meets for its students. Teenagers, who earn...

October 23, 2013

For years, George Washington University has told families that it observed a need-blind admission policy. Students were accepted regardless of their ability to pay.  GW’s student newspaper wrote an excellent article this week that revealed that the university’s stated need-blind admission policy was actually a need-aware practice. The university admitted that it put hundreds of students on its wait list...

October 21, 2013

The Common Application emailed the lengthy letter below to the counseling community on Friday, which college consultants, high school counselors and anyone with a high school senior might like to see. In the email, the nonprofit apologized for its continuing problems and for being too slow to respond. Let’s hope all the problems are fixed soon! If you missed it,...

October 16, 2013

College blog post update: Since I first wrote the post below, there have been more developments in the continuing Common App fiasco: More schools are extending their Common App deadlines for Early Action and Early Decision. Here are the names of some of them:  Duke, Roanoke, Marist, Boston University, SUNY Geneseo Northwestern, University of Chicago, Columbia, Tufts, Barnard. The Common...

October 14, 2013

Many parents worry that their college savings accounts will kill their chances for financial aid. Most families, however, who have saved for college are not hurt in student financial aid considerations. Here are the two biggest reasons why saving money often won’t jeopardize your financial aid chances: 1. Colleges don’t care how much you (or your child) has saved for...

October 9, 2013

Today I’m sharing a conversation that I had yesterday with Amy Seldin, the founder of College Abacus. College Abacus is the place that I’d recommend heading to when you want to use any college or university’s net price calculator. If you don’t know what a net price calculator is, here is a brief description: A net price calculator will provide...

October 7, 2013

Last week I drove up to Costa Mesa, CA, to attend the launching of an ambitious lineup of 19 online and mobile apps that could revolutionize the way families make college decisions. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation provided the seed money for the 19 apps that began as a contest designed to encourage entrepreneurs and app developers to build...

October 4, 2013

Do you know what your Expected Family Contribution is? If you don’t, you should make it a priority to obtain this number. I’d argue that families need to know what their preliminary EFC is long before they begin looking at colleges. Unfortunately, most families don’t have a clue about what their EFC is until their children are seniors in high...

October 3, 2013

Should a student apply early decision? Today I am sharing a post written by Peter Van Buskirk, a veteran admission expert, on his take on Early Decision applications. My own cautionary comments are at the bottom. This is a second post on this topic, if you missed the first one, here it is: Should Your Child Apply Early Action or...

September 30, 2013

Applying early action and early decision has become an increasingly popular practice among teenagers who are aiming for highly selective colleges and universities. Today I am happy to share with you a post written on this important topic by Peter Van Buskirk, a former admission dean,  higher-ed speaker and educational advocate for families. You can learn more about Peter by...