The College Solutions Blog

November 30, 2012

This week the National Association for College Admission Counseling released its 10th annual report on college admission trends. Here are some of the study highlights: College Enrollment Since the turn of the century, college enrollment has grown 37 percent. In 2000, 15.3 million Americans were attending college while today there are more than 21 million. The number of high school...

September 3, 2012

I received an email over the Labor Day weekend from a father named Mike, whose daughter is unsure about how to handle a couple of typical questions on her college applications. I’m sharing Mike’s first question today and I’ll direct my next college blog post to his second question that involves declaring a college major. Question No. 1: Why do...

August 3, 2012

The 2012-2013 college admission season hasn’t even officially started, but I’ve already been hearing from parents who are stressed about paying for elite schools that are on their teenagers’ lists. Some of these parents believe that they have an obligation to incur huge debt if their children get accepted into the most prestigious schools. Here’s my worst example: Last spring...

April 30, 2012

May 1 is college decision day. That’s the day each year when many colleges and universities across the country require high school seniors to make a final decision about where they will attend school in the fall. Seniors must notify their No. 1 pick by putting down a deposit to secure their spot in the next freshman class. I’d love...

November 21, 2011

Do you assume that most teenagers face lousy odds of getting accepted into a good college? Lots of families believe that the admission process is stacked heavily against applicants, but this isn’t true. I largely blame the media’s obsessive coverage of the most elite universities for that misconception. A new report from the College Board, Trends in College Pricing 2011,...

June 4, 2010

Does anybody else use Google Alert to see what other people are saying about you? I confess I do. I have Google alert me if someone mentions me or my college blogs on the Internet. And that’s how I stumbled across a post written by Tom Smith, a law professor, at a blog called, The Right Coast: Thoughts from San...

January 7, 2010

Is your teenager’s high school counselor an expert on college? Probably not. In fact, the odds are high that your counselor’s knowledge about college admission strategies, standardized testing and scholarships is limited.  Ironically during this period of skyrocketing college costs, financial aid is often the subject that high school counselors know the least about. Many high school counselors are unfortunately...

November 1, 2009

As usual, I am sharing college blog posts that I wrote last week for CBSMoneyWatch.com. It was a crazy week since I flew to Minneapolis to give a couple of speeches on college strategies. Record College Enrollment: Why You Shouldn’t Worry New figures were just released that indicate that more young adults are enrolled in college than ever before. That’s...

October 18, 2009

As usual, I’m sharing with you the posts that I wrote for my college blog for CBSMoneyWatch.com last week.  It was challenging for me to get them done because my son and I were traveling in the Midwest looking at colleges for the last time. Here are my three most recent posts: Want to Succeed in Business? Play Poker. I’m...

August 21, 2009

I read a story in The Wall Street Journall this week, which should make “B” and “C” students hopeful. Universities have traditionally based their college admission decisions primarily on a student’s grades and test scores. But some school, including Tufts University, Boston College and DePaul University, are now eager to evaluate applicants on noncognitive traits that have nothing to do...