The College Solutions Blog

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

Admissions
May 7, 2012

Answering Your College Questions

Last week people posted questions on The College Solution’s Facebook page that I promised to answer after visiting a regional college conference in Reno. I started chipping away at the questions last week with these two posts: Answering Your SAT and ACT Questions The Realities of Merit Scholarship Facebook Questions Today I am answering questions about admission requirements, SAT/ACT practices...
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May 3, 2012

The Realities of Merit Scholarships

I am attending something called the Super ACAC conference this week in Reno, NV. It’s a rare combined meeting of three related organizations that cover California, the Pacific Northwest and much of the rest of the western United States. College admission administrators, high school counselors and independent college consultants are attending the conference. On my Facebook page on Monday, I...
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May 1, 2012

Agonizing Before the Buzzer Rings

The time for agonizing is over. It’s college decision day which means the parents of high school seniors have little time left before they must put down their college deposits. As the deadline loomed, I heard from families, who were stressed about their decisions and, in some cases, how they were going to pay the tab. I thought I’d share...
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April 30, 2012

An Awesome College Admission Success Story

May 1 is college decision day. That’s the day each year when many colleges and universities across the country require high school seniors to make a final decision about where they will attend school in the fall. Seniors must notify their No. 1 pick by putting down a deposit to secure their spot in the next freshman class. I’d love...
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April 20, 2012

When Two Children Head to College

Yesterday’s post, which explored the school options of a brilliant teenager from Wisconsin, generated many insightful comments from parents.  Here is the post: Should a Kid Borrow $80,000 for a Brand-Name University? If you missed the post or the comments, I’d urge you to check both out. To summarize, the teenager managed to get admitted to some elite schools including...
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April 19, 2012

Should a Kid Borrow $80,000 for a Brand Name University?

I am sharing an email that I received Tuesday from a Wisconsin mom, who is stressed about the admission decision that her teenage son must make by May 1. What follows is a cautionary tale for any families which have not been through the college admission process yet. Read on to discover how to avoid the kind of mistakes that...
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April 17, 2012

A Recruiter’s Take on Hiring Students from No-Name Schools

I’ve been receiving some fascinating comments lately that were triggered by recent posts that shared the agony of students who aimed for the Ivies and other elite schools and got spurned or who couldn’t afford the tab. If you missed the posts, here they are: Should You Blow the Budget on Cornell? The Odds of Getting Off a Wait List...
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April 16, 2012

The Odds of Getting Off a Wait List

This weekend I heard from old friends who wanted to share with me stories of brilliant students who got shut out of elite universities. At a party on Friday night, a former colleague of my husband’s mentioned that he was stunned that his son’s friend didn’t get into Stanford University. The boy is a stellar student and he only missed...
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April 10, 2012

10 Ways to Pick a College

As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, I’ve been getting questions from parents who are agonizing about where their teenagers should attend college. It’s a tough decision and time is running out to pick the winners. The national deposit day for freshman is May 1. Here are some of choices facing a family that contacted me yesterday: College of Wooster, University...
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April 4, 2012

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...
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