The College Solutions Blog

May 30, 2012

If you didn’t catch yesterday’s college blog post, I’d urge you to check it out: Do-It-Yourself College Rankings I wrote about Michelle Kretzschmar,  who created an impressive spreadsheet system to help families assemble a list of promising colleges based on their own priorities. In today’s post I’m sharing some of the steps that Michelle, the founder of DIYCollegeRankings.com, and her...

May 29, 2012

It’s not often that I stumble across a college blog that I can get really excited about. Today I am happy to share a great resource that stands out from the crowd. I urge everyone to check out DIYCollegeRankings. DIYCollegeRankings (the DIY stands for Do It Yourself), which was created by Michelle Kretzschmar, a former data analyst and the mom...

May 7, 2012

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...

April 10, 2012

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...

April 9, 2012

This is the month when high school seniors must decide where they will attend college. It’s not surprising then that I’ve been getting emails from families agonizing about their choices. Here is one of those notes from a mom named Carmen: I would appreciate your professional advice in the following matter:  My son has narrowed down his choice to two...

March 28, 2012

When families look at financial aid packages they often assume that a school’s financial aid support will remain the same for four years. That, however, is a dangerous assumption to make. The financial support that some colleges and universities give students will shrink after their freshmen year. Bait and Switch? Why would this happen? I can’t speak for schools that...

March 20, 2012

I’m going to keep yesterday’s post up another day because the College Board’s new consumer site – BigFuture – was experiencing difficulty staying online Tuesday. I had trouble accessing the site and you probably did too. Since I wrote the post below, I received a response from the College Board that promised to improve its Paying for College section. Here ...

February 17, 2012

My husband took this picture of me and Minerva, my office assistant, yesterday in my horribly messy office. I thought it would help illustrate what I’ve been doing for the past few months. My office is a wreck because I’ve been totally preoccupied with writing the second edition of The College Solution: A Guide for Everyone Looking for the Right...

February 17, 2012

My husband took this picture of me and Minerva, my office assistant, yesterday in my horribly messy office. I thought it would help illustrate what I’ve been doing for the past few months. My office is a wreck because I’ve been totally preoccupied with writing the second edition of The College Solution: A Guide for Everyone Looking for the Right...

February 15, 2012

During the last two days on my college blog, I’ve shared ways to generate schools for your college list. Here they are if you missed them: Finding Hidden Gems for Your College List Getting Ideas For a College List Today I’m sharing 8 more ways to search for schools. 1. Use the federal college search engines. The most massive database...