The College Solutions Blog

Valuable insights from Lynn O’Shaughnessy
a nationally recognized college expert.

What’s Wrong With College Dream Lists

I recently took a look at The Princeton Review’s latest lists of America’s most popular dream colleges and I immediately saw a problem. Before I explain why, check out the dream colleges that teenagers and parents cited most often. Teenagers’ Dream Colleges Stanford University Harvard University New York University Princeton University Massachusetts Institute of Technology Yale University UCLA University of...

Getting Stiffed by Harvard

I received an email from a mom over the weekend who was unhappy that her daughter, who beat the odds and got into an Ivy League school, didn’t receive a scholarship from the institution. Here is her note: Our annual household income is more than $750,000 –my daughter is admitted to Harvard – does that mean we have to pay...

Visiting Ben at Beloit College

My husband Bruce and I visited Beloit College over the weekend to attend a biannual parent committee meeting and – of course – we were excited to see Ben, who is finishing up his sophomore year. When you live in San Diego, it’s hard to pinpoint when spring arrives since it is green year round. Actually, more greenish/brownish. At Ben’s...

A College with 942 Different Prices

College price tags are meaningless. If you’ve spent much time on my college blog you already appreciate that these numbers don’t mean anything, but most families don’t. About two thirds of students attending state and private schools receive scholarships or grants and the number rises to about 88% at private institutions, which have to offer more discounts for students to...

Financial Aid Bait and Switch?

When families look at financial aid packages they often assume that a school’s financial aid support will remain the same for four years. That, however, is a dangerous assumption to make. The financial support that some colleges and universities give students will shrink after their freshmen year. Bait and Switch? Why would this happen? I can’t speak for schools that...

A New Way to Search for College Scholarships

It’s private college scholarship season. If your child hopes to obtain a private college scholarship, now is the time to apply. There are two main windows for private scholarships – now and in October and November. The deadline for many current scholarships is at the end of April or in May. Many students, particularly soon-to-be college freshmen wait until the...

Shortchanging a Texas Teenager?

I continue to receive a lot of comments from last week’s post about the Texas mother, who was bitterly disappointed that her extremely accomplished daughter has been getting underwhelming merit awards or none at all from universities. This mother was hoping for large merit scholarships because her family is too affluent to qualify for need-based aid. If you missed it,...

Email from a Happy Mom

Over the last 24-hours, I received a lot of great comments and some emails in reaction to this college blog post: An Email from a Disillusioned Mom If you haven’t read the post, I’d urge you to do so. The email came from a mother of a very bright girl from an affluent family, who received little to no merit...

An Email from a Disillusioned Mom

I received an email yesterday from a disillusioned mom, who wanted to share what she has learned after receiving her oldest daughter’s financial aid packages. I can totally sympathize with this mother and I want to pass on Lisa’s observations before I comment on them. After receiving Lisa’s email, I sent her a message asking what kind of merit aid...

My Take on the College Board’s BigFuture

I’m going to keep yesterday’s post up another day because the College Board’s new consumer site – BigFuture – was experiencing difficulty staying online Tuesday. I had trouble accessing the site and you probably did too. Since I wrote the post below, I received a response from the College Board that promised to improve its Paying for College section. Here ...