The College Solutions Blog

March 4, 2022

By now, most students, who will be college freshmen in the fall, have received their award letters from colleges. Families, however, are at a disadvantage when they look at these college awards. They typically have no idea if the offer of financial aid or a merit scholarship is a good one. Families don’t know if teenagers with similar financial circumstances...

April 28, 2020

Will college campuses open in the fall? It’s frustrating that no one definitely knows yet if colleges campuses will be open in the fall or if online education will predominate or there will be some hybrid of the two scenarios. In the interim, however, The Chronicle of Higher Education has been regularly updating a list of tentative plans that colleges...

April 8, 2020

This is an incredibly stressful time for families who have to navigate college admissions during the COVID-19 pandemic. As a practical matter, this (hopefully) once-in-a-lifetime experience has generated a great deal of college questions from anxious students, parents, educational consultants and high school counselors. Some answers are known. We know, for instance, that the Advanced Placement tests, with a radically...

March 30, 2020

When should you appeal a financial aid letter? I wanted to answer this question from a mother in Seattle because during this coronavirus pandemic, it’s relevant to many more families. If you haven’t received enough help to pay for college, please keep reading and good luck! Lynn O’Shaughnessy Question: If you’ve had one financial setback and you think more are...

October 14, 2019

Should your child apply early decision to college? This is the time of year when high school seniors aiming for more selective to elite colleges and universities must decide if they will apply early decision. When students submit an early decision application, they promise that they will attend if the institution accepts them. A student accepted via early decision must...

April 6, 2019

The college admission season is winding down at this time of year except for this part: Parents are stressing about how they’re going to pay for the college that their children want to attend. Spring is when I hear from parents who are being guilted by their children to spend dangerously more than they should for a brand name research...

May 8, 2018

While U.S. News and World Report’s college rankings are wildly popular, few families know much about how they are created. Before you place too much faith in U.S. News’ college rankings, here are 15 things that you should know about them. 1. U.S. News relies on rankings to stay alive. U.S. News’ college rankings wields tremendous power even though the...

January 20, 2017

During the past week, I shared Five Winning College Strategies during a webinar that attracted more than 1,000 viewers. If you missed the webinar, which I offered on four different dates, you can still listen to the replay for a limited time period. Here is the link to Five Winning College Strategies to Finding Great Schools and Cutting Their Price....

February 4, 2016

Here is some good news: There are plenty of smart moves that you can make to reduce your college costs. This is an especially important year to know what those options are because 2016 is bringing some big changes to the admission scene. Learn the Strategies You Need to Make College Affordable You’ll discover what these changes are, along with...

August 26, 2015

Are you freaking out about the price of a bachelor’s degree? If so, you’ll want to attend one of my upcoming free webinars where I will share 10 easy ways to cut the cost of college. The two webinars that I had earlier in the summer were so successful – more than 900 people registered – that I’m rolling out...