College Admissions

September 27, 2016

The FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) is generally understood by applicants and their families to be the most important step in financing a college education. Using a...

April 8, 2016

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...

November 11, 2015

In the early 1970s the U.S. auto industry received warnings from economic experts—if they continued to focus on the wrong thing, Japanese car companies would soon put them out...

September 1, 2015

As private college counselors, we are well-versed in the criticisms of school-based counseling.  Unavailable, inexperienced, misinformed—these are the words that some within our industry often use to describe the...

June 18, 2015

For many students and their families, attending a liberal arts college sounds like an expensive proposition. After all, liberal arts schools are known for their small class size, available...

May 19, 2015

Pursuing your entire undergraduate degree abroad may sound like an extravagance reserved for the jet-setting upper-class, yet going to college in a foreign country can actually make excellent economic...

May 1, 2015

We begin with an analogy. Three racehorses: Cream of the Crop, Above Average, and Run of the Mill are selected by three trainers of varying quality to prepare for...

April 7, 2015

An iconic year, even by the standards of its iconic decade, 1969 teems with momentous events in America’s cultural history: the moon landing, Woodstock, the Amazin’ Mets, and the...

February 19, 2015

“Buridan’s ass” is a well-known (and unfortunately named) philosophical paradox where a famished donkey sits equidistant between two similarly delicious bales of hay and, unable to find a rational...

January 27, 2015

We’ll save the drama—even in an era of bloated tuition costs, ballooning student loan debt, and a weakened American job market, the answer to the general question of whether...

January 19, 2015

Particular adjectives frequently accompany sound bites and headlines on the topic of student loan debt—“crippling,” “burdensome,” and “overwhelming,” just to name a few. Student loan debt is a “crisis,”...

December 16, 2014

While honors programs have existed in one form or another since the GI bill first brought an influx of talented but cost-conscious students to public universities in the post-war...

November 24, 2014

Walk into any Starbucks, Barnes and Noble, or public library around the holiday season and at least a few tables will be occupied by teen/middle-age dyads, with the older...

November 14, 2014

Inside Higher Ed, one of higher education’s leading news outlets, recently conducted a nationwide survey of college admission directors. The newly-released results are shocking, and reveal a profession entirely...

October 6, 2014

In Back to the Future II, Marty McFly travels from 1985 to 2015 and is shocked to learn that a bottle of Pepsi costs $50. With Pepsi bottles sitting...

August 26, 2014

More is better  Applicants often feel that more is inherently better when it comes to their application file and proceed to send along everything from editorials penned for the...

August 12, 2014

Two caveats, before we dish out the advice. First, as readers of our blog know, we do not advocate over-focusing on highly selective schools. Yet we also recognize that...

July 30, 2014

In the past few years, and increasing number of selective colleges and universities have adopted test-optional policies, no longer requiring students to submit their standardized test scores.  Institutions eliminating...

July 23, 2014

We frequently receive questions from students and families in reference to PayScale.com’s new college rankings, which sorts institutions on the basis of a calculated 30-year return on investment (ROI)....

July 14, 2014

Attempts to navigate the world of private college scholarships often result in students and families left adrift in the proverbial mile-wide, inch-deep ocean of cyberspace. Let the following tips...