The College Solutions Blog

December 17, 2009

Want to know what college admission officers are really thinking? The Wall Street Journal and Unigo managed to get admission deans from eight prestigious schools, including Bryn Mawr College, Grinnell College,  Princeton University, University of Pennsylvania and Weslyan University to parpticipate in a panel discussion that touched on many issues that are relevant to collegebound teenagers. You can watch the...

December 15, 2009

This is the time of year when families of high school seniors start asking questions about financial aid forms. Most parents will only need to complete the FAFSA or Free Application for Federal Student Aid. A few hundred private schools also require the CSS/Financial Aid PROFILE. I just got a call from a dear friend, who had been notified by...

December 14, 2009

This is the time of year when high school teachers and counselors are flooded with requests to write college recommendation letters. Writing a college recommendation letter is a thankless job and I’m glad that I’ll never have to write one. But that doesn’t mean that I’m off the hook.  My role in the college recommendation process is to make sure...

December 13, 2009

Want to get into Harvard? Consider taking a gap year. It’s not easy getting into Havard or other elite schools, but some high school seniors manage to get into their dream schools by taking the year off and pursuing other interests through a gap year program here or overseas. I wrote about gap years experiences last week for my college...

December 9, 2009

At first I ignored most social media. I don’t even have a Facebook page yet though that is high on my to-do list. I decided, however,  I needed to embrace social media if I was ever going to get the word about about this college blog and my other one at CBSMoneyWatch. I initially thought that Twitter was the most...

December 1, 2009

Will colleges hand out more college scholarships and financial aid for the latest crop of high school seniors? Last year private colleges and universities, in particular, dug deeper and increased the amount of money they awarded through college financial aid and merit scholarships. Last time I checked, the financial misery index is still alarming, but colleges might not be as...

November 25, 2009

This year a lot more high school students seem to be  seeking early college admission decisions. According to anecdotal numbers gathered by Inside Higher Ed, the number of students applying early decision to elite and selective colleges and universities has risen. Early decision applications at Duke University, for instance, jumped 32% from last year and they have increased 24% at...

November 21, 2009

Are college athletes getting smarter? That was the subject of one of my college blog posts for CBSMoneyWatch this week. I don’t think college athletes are getting smarter, but they are graduating from college at higher rates. In fact, the jocks manage to graduate at higher rates than other college students. I was shocked to learn that! 12 Most Popular...

November 13, 2009

I’ve been volunteering at my son Ben’s high school this semester so I’ve been sitting in on some presentations by visiting college admission reps. As they are packing up, I often ask the reps about their admission requirements for minority students since there are a significant number of these kids at Ben’s school. What I’ve discovered is that the college...

November 8, 2009

When my daughter Caitlin was exploring colleges a few years ago, I worried that she would have to be more accomplished than the boys she was competing against to boost her college admission chances. As you’ll read in my college blog post for CBSMoneyWatch.com, Are Colleges Discriminating Against Girls, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights is investigating whether private liberal...