The College Solutions Blog

Valuable insights from Lynn O’Shaughnessy
a nationally recognized college expert.

Admissions
February 11, 2011

What Should College Admission Officers Know?

I attended a mini college conference yesterday in San Diego that was sponsored by the Western Association for College Admission Counseling (WACAC). A couple of enthusiastic young admission reps from a pair of Catholic universities back East were the presenters at one of the sessions.  I wanted to share one of the questions that the reps fielded. An audience member...
Read More
0
November 30, 2010

Will You Get Into Your Dream College?

What are your chances of getting into your dream college? I wanted to share with you a great tool that you can use to help assess what your chances are for getting an acceptance letter from any college on your list. You can find the tool at COLLEGEdata, which is a website shock full of resources for parents and high...
Read More
0
October 26, 2010

Getting To Know Regional College Admission Reps

Yesterday I wrote a post about attending nearby colleges and universities. Here it is: Sticking Close to Home for College For students who are adventurous enough to explore colleges in other states, I wanted to mention a trend that I read about in The Chronicle of Higher Education a couple of days ago. More private colleges and universities are relying...
Read More
1
May 16, 2010

College Wait Lists Run Amuck

Has it become a status symbol to end up on a college wait list? During a fundraiser at my son’s high school last night, a mother shared with me that Duke University had waitlisted her son. She appeared to be bragging when she shared this news. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that Duke had also placed 3,382...
Read More
0
December 17, 2009

A Peak Inside College Admission Offices

Want to know what college admission officers are really thinking? The Wall Street Journal and Unigo managed to get admission deans from eight prestigious schools, including Bryn Mawr College, Grinnell College,  Princeton University, University of Pennsylvania and Weslyan University to parpticipate in a panel discussion that touched on many issues that are relevant to collegebound teenagers. You can watch the...
Read More
2
March 11, 2009

Acceptance Letter Etiquette

We’re in the thick of the college acceptance season. If your child is a high school senior, the mail carrier might have already delivered acceptance packages to your house. Being wanted is fun, but it’s anything but fun when schools start bullying applicants. I read an interesting post today written by a guy in the admissions office at George Mason...
Read More
2
January 13, 2009

Getting into the Top University of California Campuses

Between my daughter’s sophomore and junior year in high school about 40 of her classmates disappeared. The students ditched the private girls’ school for one chief reason:  It was going to be impossible to gain admission to UCLA, the UC Berkeley or another top UC campus. The girls, and more likely their parents, decided that their best hope to earn...
Read More
2