The College Solutions Blog

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

Applying
March 24, 2011

Can Facebook Hurt My Admission Chances?

Can Facebook hurt a teenager’s chances of getting accepted to colleges? Specifically can the stuff that students post on Facebook impact their chances? Unigo, the popular college research website, recently posed that question to admission experts from around the country. Unigo offered to share some of the responses with my college blog visitors.  You can find the rest of the...
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March 20, 2011

Making the Most of a College Campus Tour

The college visit season is in full swing. High school seniors are fanning out across the country to check out colleges for the last time before they make their big decision. Visiting campuses during spring break is an annual tradition, but some collegiate suitors are trying to make their campus tours for accepted students more meaningful while distinguishing themselves from...
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January 27, 2011

One More Stab at the Race to Nowhere

Earlier this week I shared some thoughtful comments from Alice Kleeman, a high school counselor in the San Francisco Bay Area, and Kris Hintz, an independent college counselor in New Jersey, who were responding to a post that I wrote on the higher-ed documentary Race to Nowhere. Here is the post that contains Kris and Alice’s comments: Phooey: Race to...
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January 25, 2011

Phooey: Race To Nowhere

Last month I wrote a blog post about the movie Race to Nowhere that’s being shown at high schools across the country. I pretty much trashed the movie – here is the post: Race to Nowhere Skeptic If you want to get an idea of why I’d like to hurl some overripe tomatoes at a screening of this movie, check...
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December 29, 2010

The Dirty Little Secrets of College Admissions

Today I want to share a piece, which originally ran in the Washington Post, that was written by Dean P. Skarlis, who  is president of The College Advisor of New York in Albany. I liked what Skarlis had to say so much about today’s college admission climate that I asked if I could share it with you. According to the...
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December 18, 2010

A Race to Nowhere Skeptic

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...
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December 15, 2010

The Skinny on College Recommendation Letters

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...
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October 6, 2010

8 Things High School Seniors Need To Be Doing Now

For high school seniors, it’s crunch time. Deadlines for college applications are looming, so it’s time to get focused. Here are 8 things seniors  need to be doing now. 1. Meet college reps. This is the time of year when admission officers are racking up frequent flyer miles as they meet with prospective students throughout the country. Contact colleges on...
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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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November 11, 2009

Don't Write Like a College Professor

Do you write like a college professor? If you do, rid yourself of the habit. College graduates who write like their college professors could find their job search even harder. The business world favors employees who can write simple, declarative sentences. In contrast, college professors are masters at obfuscation. They write stilted prose. They embrace words with five or six...
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