The College Solutions Blog

January 3, 2012

During the holidays, I wrote a post about a teenager, who has been applying to inappropriate universities. (At least in my opinion.) If you didn’t get a chance to read the post, here it is: Applying to the Wrong Universities I wanted to revisit this issue because I believe this is arguably the No. 1 college admission mistake that teenagers...

November 29, 2011

I’ve often wondered why colleges and universities are so fixated on admitting students with extremely high SAT or ACT scores. Some of these teenagers only excel at taking tests and earning top grades, which can lead to awfully uninspiring young adults. I’ve heard admission folks privately lament that kids with high test scores can be duds.  If I was an...

November 11, 2011

Today I’m sharing a post on college recommendation letters that was written by Lee Bierer, a friend of mine, who is a nationally syndicated higher-ed journalist and an independent college counselor in Charlotte, NC. It’s such a timely subject for high school seniors that I wanted to share it with you: Letters of Recommendation Nuts & Bolts The college application...

November 2, 2011

I received an email from a high school junior in San Diego recently that prompted me to write this post. The teenager attended one of my talks and heard me mention that one in five colleges say that an applicant’s demonstrated interest is very important in their admission decisions. So what does demonstrated interest mean? Basically I told the teenager...

October 21, 2011

What are the latest college admission trends? Every year, the National Association for College Admission Counseling releases a survey that attempts to answer that question. Here are some of the trends that jumped out at me when I was reading the 2011 State of College Admission: College Applications on the Rise Most schools (73%) experienced an increase in applications. Not...

September 20, 2011

I received an email yesterday from a friend of mine whose son is a brilliant high school senior. She wanted to know what they should think about invitations her son has received to apply to colleges through VIP or priority applications. Here is her question: My son has received approximately 10+ email/print invitations from schools to complete their priority applications....

September 7, 2011

For many years I was a financial journalist and in that role I became extremely cynical about how Wall Street and the rest of the financial industry operated. After I switched  to writing about the higher-ed world, I became just as cynical about the practices of colleges and universities. I bring this up today because of a report just released...

June 27, 2011

I was at a preschool reunion on Sunday that reminded me about how nuts the college admission process is for a fraction of high school students and their families. The families I am talking about are the kind that you can find featured in the over-hyped documentary Race to Nowhere. Here, by the way, is what I think of that...

May 4, 2011

Today I’m quite pleased to share some valuable and hopeful advice for high school students who possess learning disabilities and are wondering how that will impact their college search. The expert suggestions come from David Montesano, a very smart admission strategist in Bellevue, WA, who operates College  Match Educational Consultants, which maintains multiple offices on the West Coast, as well...

April 14, 2011

I received an email from a high school junior in San Diego today that prompted me to write this post. The teenager came to hear me talk last night at a presentation hosted by a financial adviser. At one point I mentioned that one in five colleges say that an applicant’s demonstrated interest is very important in their admission decisions....