The College Solutions Blog

October 5, 2015

Should juniors in high school take the new SAT test? This is a question that many 11th graders are stressing out about as the rollout for the new SAT approaches. The dramatically overhauled test will make its premiere on March 5, 2016. Juniors will be the first to grapple with this question because the launch date of the new test...

August 3, 2015

It’s only natural that many talented students aim for the most selective school that they can gain into. It’s not always a smart idea, however, for applicants to attend the most selective college or university that admits them. Today I am sharing the observations on this topic from Scott White, the head guidance counselor at Morris High School in New...

July 27, 2015

Today I’m rerunning a previous post that I’ve updated that I hope will reduce the stress level of many parents reading it. I initially wrote the post in reaction to the dilemma of a teenager with a 3.4 GPA who failed to capture a scholarship from any of the schools where he applied. This is hard to do when you...

June 29, 2015

How do you generate ideas for a college list that doesn’t look like everybody else’s? Students typically end up looking at a fairly narrow lineup of schools, which is not always a smart strategy if you want to find good academic fits, as well as colleges that will be more affordable. Today I want to share the following three helpful...

June 14, 2015

I’ve looked at plenty of college essays over the years and the vast majority of them have been b-o-r-i-n-g. The mediocre essays that I’ve seen have usually been guilty of one or more of these no-no’s: 1. They lacked details. 2. They didn’t convey the student’s voice. 3. They covered too much territory. (Writing about something that lasted seconds, minutes...

April 7, 2015

If your child is aiming for the most elite schools – the Ivies, MIT, Stanford and a few others at the very top of the rankings heap – you might be wondering how many Advanced Placement courses he or she must take. The short answer is “a lot.” But how many are necessary, depends greatly on how many AP classes...

April 2, 2015

I wrote this post last year, but it’s just as relevant today for families who are upset with puny merit awards. What happens with the merit scholarship that a student receives from a school is inadequate? Is it possible to extract more money from a college? I’ve been getting questions about this lately from parents who are disappointed by some...

March 19, 2015

Are you freaking out about your teenager getting into an elite college or universities? If you are, you need to read the following guest column by Frank Bruni, a New York Times Op-Ed columnist, who has created a powerful antidote for the Ivy League jitters. In his excellent book, Where You Go Is Not Who You’ll Be: An Antidote to...

March 11, 2015

This is the time of year when students are getting offered spots on waiting lists. I wanted to share a previous post that I wrote about waiting lists that is just as relevant today.  This weekend I heard from old friends who wanted to share with me stories of brilliant students who got shut out of elite universities. At a...

February 22, 2015

A lot of the parents attending my current online class on how to cut the cost of college are affluent and highly educated. Quite a few of these moms and dads attending my course have indicated to me that they would like to see their children attend elite schools. Not surprisingly, these parents have expressed concern about the cost of...