The College Solutions Blog

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...

January 6, 2010

If you plan to apply to college as a “stealth candidate” listen up. Stealth candidates are teenagers who never contact a college before sending in their application. Stealth college applications used to be rare.  Most teenagers contact colleges through traditional means such as requesting materials, talking to admission counselors at college fairs and visiting schools. Today, however, teenagers can learn...

December 30, 2009

High schools students have started receiving college acceptance letters. A student writing on The New York Times’ college blog today suggests that teenagers shouldn’t brag when they start getting acceptance letters. Specifically, she believes that sharing college admission news on Facebook is in poor taste. The freshman at Northwestern argues that bragging about college acceptances will crush the spirits of...

December 29, 2009

What happens if your teenagers has made a bad mistake during his or her high school years? I’m talking about a suspension from school. A drunk driving ticket. A cheating incident. How do you handle these kinds of mistakes on your college application? Lee Bierer, an independent college counselor in Charlotte, NC, and a syndicated columnist, tackled this thorny college...

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...

September 6, 2009

Being the mother of a college junior and a high school senior, I’ve bought and skimmed through a lot of college books over the years. Many of them disappoint me because they are often focused on getting kids into the Ivy League. This fixation is ridiculously misplaced when you consider that only .2% of kids attend these eight schools. Frankly,...

August 25, 2009

Now here’s a shocker:  College admissions are getting even more competitive at Ivy League schools and other highly elite colleges. That’s the conclusion of a new study, Playing the Admissions Game: Student Reactions to Increasing College Competition, which was written by profs at Harvard and the University of Michigan. Reading the report would make many parents think that their children...

June 9, 2009

With the admission season over for the newest crop of college freshmen, preliminary figures are now in that reveal what choices these teenagers made during these tough economic times. Here are some of the latest college admission findings from the National Association of College Admission Counseling: More students will be attending community colleges this fall. Sixty three percent of public...