The College Solutions Blog

December 20, 2010

I’ve been feeling guilty about ignoring the issues that college-bound students with learning disabilities face. Let’s just say it’s been on my to-do list. I was happy, however, when I discovered a story that Kim Clark, my friend over at US News, wrote that contained tips for teenagers with learning disabilities. What follows are some of Clark’s tips for learning...

December 18, 2010

Race to Nowhere, a documentary about the stress that college-bound teenagers experience, has gotten a lot of attention. I first heard about Race to Nowhere a couple of weeks ago after I gave a college presentation to a group of financial advisers and their clients in Irvine, CA. An adviser, who raved about the film, wrote its title on his...

December 17, 2010

I’m giving the commencement speech today for the University of Missouri’s School of Journalism. I graduated from the J School back in 1978 and I was stunned when the dean asked me to be the commencement speaker for the December graduating class. I thought I’d share the speech here. It’s going to be most relevant for students who are contemplating...

December 15, 2010

I wrote this post a year ago when my son was asking for college recommendations. He’s in college now, but I thought parents and teenagers could benefit from what I wrote in 2009. This is the time of year when high school counselors and teachers are flooded with requests to write college recommendation letters. Writing a college recommendation letter is...

December 14, 2010

What happens if your teenagers has made a bad mistake during his or her high school years? I’m talking about a suspension from school. A drunk driving ticket. A cheating incident. How do you handle these kinds of mistakes on your college application? Lee Bierer, an independent college counselor in Charlotte, NC, and a syndicated columnist, tackled this thorny college...

December 8, 2010

I’ve been getting emails about home equity and financial aid. Consequently, I decided to run a college blog post that I wrote last year on the topic: Before the housing bubble burst, plenty of parents worried that their home equity was going to scotch any chance of receiving college financial aid. Even in this environment, it’s still going to be...

December 5, 2010

This is the time of year when high school seniors and their parents begin reciting this age-old advice:  Follow your dreams. Families tend to use this advice to justify their children attending expensive dream colleges even if these schools will require taking on crushing student debt. I am a huge advocate of families researching schools before hand to see if...

November 30, 2010

What are your chances of getting into your dream college? I wanted to share with you a great tool that you can use to help assess what your chances are for getting an acceptance letter from any college on your list. You can find the tool at COLLEGEdata, which is a website shock full of resources for parents and high...

November 25, 2010

Before I head into my sister’s kitchen in Pleasanton, CA, to start cooking the Thanksgiving feast and making a terrible mess, I wanted to share some news about my blog. On this day of thanks, I am happy that my college blog has continued to grow in popularity this year.  I want to thank all of you who stop by...

November 23, 2010

Most of the attention during this admission season is on high school seniors, which means transfer students often get lost in the shuffle. That’s a shame since a sizable number of college students end up transferring every year. According to special transfer student report from the National Association for College Admission Counseling, a third of students end up transferring to...