“Innovative and invaluable…use this book as your college lifeline.”
— Lynn O'Shaughnessy
Nationally Recognized College Expert
May 11, 2026
By now, whether you’ve been told about them at a young age, know someone attending one of them, or just discovered them, my guess is that you’ve heard of...
Depending on your circumstances, the five allotted entries in the Honors section of the Common Application can look like anything from a frighteningly vast and boundless ocean to a...
May 5, 2026
For all of the first-class treatment applicants give to their Common App essay, the Common App Activities Section is all too often relegated to steerage. If antiquated steamship analogies...
April 15, 2026
If you’re a current high school student who has been diagnosed with ADHD, another form of neurodivergence, or any kind of learning disability (such as dyslexia, dyscalculia, etc.), you...
April 10, 2026
The question sounds simple enough: if I get straight A’s from here on out, what will my GPA be? But the math behind it catches a lot of students...
Your GPA is one of the first numbers a college admissions officer sees on your application — and one of the most misunderstood numbers in the entire process. Students...
April 9, 2026
You just got your PSAT scores back. Maybe you did better than expected. Maybe you were hoping for more. Either way, the question in your head right now is...
You took one test and your friend took the other. Your college has a scholarship threshold in ACT points. A school you’re researching lists its middle 50% in SAT...
March 27, 2026
A college’s financial aid offer can sometimes be the difference between a college acceptance feeling like a dream come true or a very rude awakening. But this reality check,...
March 25, 2026
In 2020, the Common App added a new optional prompt to the Additional Information section that gave students extra space to detail the impact of COVID-19 on their lives....
March 20, 2026
If you’re living in the United States and getting ready to apply for college, it may feel inevitable that you will end up at a university here in the...
March 12, 2026
Getting waitlisted or deferred: the limbo of the college admissions world. No doubt, it can certainly feel like purgatory for some. For the most part, all you can do...
After battling through the epic journey of the college application process, with all its emotional twists and turns, the torturous anticipation, the potential heaven of acceptance or hell of...
March 11, 2026
March begins the grand finale of the college application season. Most schools will release their admissions decisions in mid- to late-March or April, and by May 1st (National College...
March 9, 2026
So you’ve decided (or you’re seriously considering) taking a gap year. Maybe you’re burned out after years of pushing through an increasingly high-stakes academic grind. Maybe a rare opportunity...
March 5, 2026
The folks at the Common Application have officially announced that the Common App essay prompt menu for the upcoming 2026-27 admissions cycle will remain exactly the same as it...
March 3, 2026
Maryville University is a private, nonprofit institution founded in 1872 in St. Louis, Missouri. It holds HLC regional accreditation reaffirmed in 2025, has a majority online student body with...
February 10, 2026
So much of the college application process is every bit as regimented and time-sensitive as the everyday lives of teenage applicants. After all, you’re used to the alarm on...
February 6, 2026
The college application process—particularly the timeline—can be fraught and opaque (not to mention full of confusing acronyms: EA, ED, ED2…). In all the chaos, perhaps you’ve fallen a bit...
January 21, 2026
In the early 2000s, the National Science Foundation coined STEM: science, technology, engineering, and math. Today, STEM curriculums—which combine all four disciplines—are a core educational fixture in many US...
