The College Solutions Blog

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

June 29, 2010

Choosing Colleges: 5 Things You Must Do

Need help in choosing colleges?  It so, you’ll be interested in this college blog post by David Montesano. David is an admission strategist with College Match,  an educational consulting firm that aims to help families find great colleges at discount prices. Here are 5 things that David suggests that you keep in mind when when are looking for college matches:...
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June 28, 2010

My Kids Are Growing Up

Saturday was a bittersweet day. My son Benjamin graduated from High Tech High. Ben received his diploma along with about 150 other seniors on the school’s lawn on a beautiful (naturally) morning in San Diego. High Tech High has never ranked students – that’s one of the things that I love about the school – so we didn’t have to...
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June 25, 2010

New College Cost Calculators: What You Need to Know

Most parents aren’t going to pay full price for college. College costs aren’t nearly as high as the official sticker prices. According to the College Board, two-thirds of families will capture a price discount on college costs. Too bad parents and teenagers don’t know this. If they did, it would certainly expand the college choices of millions of students. And...
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June 23, 2010

College Choices for Teens of Divorce

During my last two college blog posts, I’ve examined a couple of college case studies. In yesterday’s post, I looked at some possible colleges choices for Lucienne, a brilliant student out here on the West Coast: College Case Study: Great Colleges for a Smart Girl In the first post, I introduced John, who aced his SAT test, but only recently...
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June 22, 2010

College Case Study: Great Colleges for a Smart Girl

In my last post, I shared two case studies of high school seniors who are wondering what colleges they should apply to in a few months. Here’s my previous post: 2 College Case Studies: Where Should These Teens Go to College? Today, I want to share some of the issues that Lucienne and her parents face. I don’t think any...
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June 21, 2010

2 College Case Studies: Where Should These Teens Go to College?

Over the past two years, I’ve written scores of posts on this college blog about how to evaluate schools. Just the other day, I wrote a piece about my 10 favorite college websites. It can be challenging for families, however, to know how to use these tools to find the right colleges at the right price. Consequently, I wanted to...
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June 19, 2010

Top 10 Best College Websites

What are the best college websites in the country? I tried to answer that question earlier this week when I wrote my first college blog post for US News & World Report. In the post, I nominated my own favorite college websites which can be invaluable for finding colleges, researching schools, pinpointing the generosity of individual colleges and learning about...
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June 17, 2010

10 Great Ways to Cut College Costs

How do you cut the cost of college? Recently I shared 10 tips on the first session of #CollegeChat, which is a live monthly conversation for teens, college students and parents on Twitter. I pulled all the tips from my new eBook, Shrinking the Cost of College: 152 Ways to Cut the Price of a Bachelor’s Degree. Here are the...
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June 15, 2010

How I Ended Up Writing Three College Blogs!

How many college blogs is too many? I am sheepishly asking this question because I’ve just started writing for my third college blog. You can find my newest college blog at US News & World Report. My first post,  The 10 Best College Websites, went live on the site this afternoon. I launched my first college blog, The College Solution,...
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June 14, 2010

No. 1 Tip for Writing a Great Admission Essay

Hey, how about starting your college admission essay today? Are any parents out there already bugging their soon-to-be high school seniors to start writing their college admission essay? I realize this is going to be a hard sell with teenagers, but summer is the perfect time to write the admission essay. So here’s my No. 1 tip for writing a...
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