The College Solutions Blog

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

August 10, 2011

The Latest Scoop on Renting Textbooks

It’s hard keeping up with the changes sweeping the textbook industry, which is why I asked Colin Barceloux, the founder of BookRenter, about a hot trend – renting textbooks. Here is a Q&A with Barceloux, who created his company as a student at Santa Clara University after he began collecting discarded textbooks on his campus. Can you speak about some of...

Two College Sophomores Give Advice to Freshmen

Today I’m sharing a YouTube video that I made when one of my son’s good friends from Beloit College came to visit this summer. I asked Ben and Max, who are sophomores, to give incoming freshmen advice about how to survive their first year at college. I’d love to hear other advice that freshmen could use. If you have any...

What Colleges Have Your Major?

I got an email yesterday from a mom whose teenage daughter wants to become a registered nurse. The mother wanted to know how her daughter could find a list of colleges and universities that offer nursing degrees. This is a great question and the answer is relevant to anybody who wants to cast a wider net when looking for colleges....

Jumping Ship: The Hazards of Transferring to Another University

I got an email recently from a dad named George who shared the bad luck of a young woman who lost lots of college credits when she transferred from one four-year university to another. His email is pertinent because many students end up hopping from one school to another. In fact, I believe about one out of four students fall...

A To-Do List for College Freshmen

My son is counting down the days until he arrives back at college. He’s got 23 days to go. Ben will be a sophomore so getting ready for college isn’t going to be as big a deal as it was last year. He was lucky that his school — Beloit College — provides storage for students so he left most...

The Fascinating Anatomy of a College Scholarship

How do colleges decide which teenagers will win their merit scholarships? And, just as importantly, how do schools determine how much each scholarship winner will receive. I was excited to gain some insight into that question yesterday when I talked to Jonathan Burdick, the undergraduate admissions and financial aid director at the University of Rochester. After the latest admission season...

5 Things High School Seniors Should Be Doing Now

If you are a rising high school senior, you probably thought you had all summer to get prepared for the upcoming college admission frenzy. But guess what? You’re running out of time. To avoid the time crunch in the fall, here are five things you can do now: 1. Examine school prices. I think it’s reckless to apply to a...

Bad College Advice: Readers Weigh In

I devoted my last two college blog posts to exploring why high school counselors fail so many students with their college advice. If you missed them, here they are: What’s Wrong With High School Counselors What’s Wrong With High School Counselors, Part II I received many great comments regarding those posts and I wanted to share some today, as well...

What’s Wrong With High School Counselors Part II

I want to thank everybody who commented yesterday on my post: What’s Wrong with High School Counselors? And a shout out to those who shared their thoughts about the post on the Facebook page for The College Solution. (If you haven’t checked it out and “liked” my new Facebook page, please do!) The thoughtful comments that I received prompted me...

What’s Wrong With High School Counselors?

I wrote this post a year ago, but I wanted to share it again because I think it’s important that families understand the limitations of many high school counselors when it comes to sharing advice about critical college issues. Parents and teenagers need to know this because if they rely exclusively on their counselor’s advice, they could make poor college...