The College Solutions Blog

December 11, 2009

If your teenager bombs on the SAT or ACT, you don’t need to despair. As I’ve mentioned in previous posts on my college blog, students can get into hundreds of schools even if they withhold their SAT or ACT test scores. See links below to some of these posts. Today I want to draw your attention to a SAT and...

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 30, 2009

The teenagers who took the SAT test early in October began finding out their scores yesterday. My son Ben was celebrating on Thursday because he improved his SAT scores in all three subjects and his math score was terrific. Ben’s SAT scores from May weren’t as good so it’s an easy decision for us to just send in his latest...

October 8, 2009

How do teenagers find great colleges? Traditional ways have included buying a copy of one of those big, fat guidebooks such as Princeton Review’s The Best 371 Colleges and the Fiske Guide to Colleges. Or teenagers look at US News’ college rankings. Today, however, you can discover higher-ed possibilities by turning to online college matchmakers. Here are two popular matchmakers:...

September 17, 2009

I’ve been helping the college counselor at my son’s San Diego high school with an overwhelming task that he faces every fall:  getting all the seniors ready to apply for college. Herding cats is the image that comes to mind when I contemplate how difficult his responsibility is. A lot of the teenagers who have asked me for advice have...

September 16, 2009

Instead of spending much time blogging today (Thursday), I’m going to be talking about college instead.  I’m a speaker at an online event put together by College Week Live, which is an organization that sponsors virtual college fairs. During my 45-minutes presentation, I’m going to be talking about SAT and ACT  test-optional policies. Thanks to the test-optional trend, students who...

August 30, 2009

Don’t have time to track down relevant stories about college admissions, financial aid and important topics for families with teenagers? No worries. You can find lots of them right here at TheCollegeSolutionBlog.com and each weekend I also provide the links to the college posts that I write over at CBSMoneyWatch.com. Here are my CBS stories from the past week: Top...

August 29, 2009

I want to welcome all my new visitors today, who discovered my blog thanks to the radio show that was broadcast this morning around the country. If you’ve got teenagers and you’re stressing about college, my blog should be a huge help.  You’ll find some of the best stuff in my college blog’s archives. Here are sections of the archives...

August 19, 2009

What is the average ACT score? For 2009 high-school graduates, the average ACT score was 21.1, which is identical to last year’s number. The ACT, which measures English, math, science and reading, uses a scale of 1 to 36. The average ACT score remained the same even though a record 1.48 million students — 4% more than last year —...

August 2, 2009

I told you so! That’s what I was thinking when I wrote one of my college blog posts last week for CBSMoneyWatch.com. With the media writing nonstop about how teenagers could only afford public institutions in this wretched economy, I must have looked like a lunatic when I insisted that private colleges could still be the cheapest alternative for many...