The College Solutions Blog

September 6, 2011

Should you apply early decision to your favorite college or university? I know fall has arrived because I’ve started receiving questions about early decision. I’ll be addressing early decision and early action issues in the coming weeks, but I wanted to answer a question that I received today from a mother, who heard me give a talk recently in Southern...

August 30, 2011

I’m sharing a piece about the current college admission climate that was written by Dean P. Skarlis, who  is president of The College Advisor of New York in Albany.The Washington Post originally carried the piece and he agreed that I could share it with my readers. Admission Secrets Revealed According to the The Chronicle of Higher Education, there now are...

August 18, 2011

If anybody is interested in checking out a webinar that I did earlier this week on shrinking the cost of college — a favorite topic of mine — you can watch it now. I pulled together the webinar for Kaplan Test Prep and it was free and open to the public. I spoke for about 45 minutes on these sorts...

August 17, 2011

How do you contact a college? I decided to write about this today because I’m helping a great young man named Tyrone in St. Louis navigate his college choices. He will be the first person in his family to attend college so I wasn’t surprised that he didn’t know how to reach out to colleges.  I’ve talked to many students...

August 12, 2011

I’m going to be in New York next week giving a couple of presentations open to the general public on behalf of Halley Shefler, the founder of The Arts Edge, a college consulting firm that works with students who want to major in music, theater, arts and dance. I first talked with Halley, who is the former dean of admissions...

August 5, 2011

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...

August 3, 2011

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...

August 2, 2011

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...

August 1, 2011

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...

July 29, 2011

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...