Webinar | Tutoring  

I just finished tweaking tonight's "encore" presentation, "Late Stage College Planning for Juniors" and have been patting myself on the back since, because of all of the clever phrases and analogies I came up with.  Here's a few, submitted for your approval:

"The college process is like a train, it comes into the station and leaves the station, whether or not you are 'ready.'"

"There is life beyond the same Rear Window Sticker Colleges that everyone applies to"

"Each college application must have a 'Thread of Continuity' that runs through it, tying everything together"

There's a whole lot more where they came from, I'm merely scratching the surface (who's excited now????)!

If you're getting sick to your stomach about where to even get started in the process of making a list of colleges that your kiddo can even get into...

...i.e. are there any "Safety Schools" any more?  Or...

Do I have a snowball's chance in hell at...

Webinar | Tutoring  

A client, Ava, just got into her Early Decision college.  Everything went silky smooth, and there wasn't a hint of a scintilla of any drama whatsoever during the 10 months we worked together.

Not.

Here's what really went down.  Literally the day before she got the GREAT news, Ava's mom and I spoke on the phone for about 25 minutes.  Most of the conversation was along the lines of:

*She's so bummed out, she doesn't think she's going to get into a "good school"

*None of her friends are getting into their top choice colleges, she's really, really nervous"

*What can we do, while we wait to hear from [College]? Anything?"

*When I ask her anything, she yells "I don't want to talk about it, mom!" and leaves the room.

That was Tuesday.  On Wednesday, I logged into my email, to see "I GOT IN!" screaming at me at the top of my inbox.

It's quite a roller coaster, this college admissions game.  You're down in the dumps one day,...

Good eeeeeve-a-ning...

(I know it's morning, just go with it.)

My undead but lovely Countess Pearlticia and I have never done anything like this in our 350+ years together, but right now, you can invite us (careful!) into your corner to help you conquer the FAFSA, CSS Profile and all other of your financial aid demons for 10% off  - AND claim a big fat bonus (see below)!

Why are we doing this goofy Halloween sale and gutting our prices?  

1. It’s our way to say “thank you” for being part of our community and helping refer and otherwise spread the word about our college planning services
2. It’s indisputable that this is one giant, MONSTA of a deal!  We actually lowered our prices...how many businesses do THAT????  (There’s a recession out there in case you didn’t notice.)
3. Pearl, the mother of our four “Children Of The Night,” prepares approximately 400 of our clients' financial...

Good morning!

I'm in the midst of three college drop-offs over a grueling,10 day stretch, but wanted to tell you about two financial aid-related stories that caught my bleary eyes over the past couple of days.

The first was about alleged price fixing among elite colleges.

The second related to incredible, nauseating amounts of cash spent by public universities on the most STUPID stuff.

Sadly, neither of these stories is breaking news. This stuff has been going on longer than the 21+ years I've been a college advisor.  

The first story was about U Chicago paying $13.5M to settle allegations of financial aid price-fixing.  I'm embarrassed to say that I don't quite get the plaintiff's point. According to the summary I read, it looked like the allegation was that U Chicago colluded with 16 colleges, including Brown, Columbia, MIT and Duke. 

But the collusion was not about U Chicago sharing their applicants' files and coming up with identical awards, they way the...

If you like money, you'll want to watch the interview I just did with my friend and colleague, scholarship search expert and bundle of energy Jean O'Toole.

Here's the scoop on what we covered:

• What's the deal with those weirdo, gimmicky, obscure or just plain wack-a-doo special scholarships that everyone talks about?
• Which scholarship search websites are actually worth spending time on?
• How to sniff out a scholarship scam and avoid getting ripped off
• The best time to start your search for scholarships (this will surprise you)
• The oddball reason corporations need you to take their scholarship money
• How to win a scholarship for an "Invisible Disability"
• A ninja way to "raid" high school scholarships -- Pretty sneaky, sis!
• Are there really scholarships for families who don't qualify for financial aid?
• The biggest mistake families make in the scholarship search process
• More

This was a high energy, high octane interview, so I hope you check it out and get ready to take a whole lotta...

I get this question almost every time I send an email about our SAT and ACT tutoring options, and yesterday was no exception.  The question:

"Do you even need to submit your SAT or ACT anymore?

The answer, my friend, is blowin' herein...

There is a difference between APPLYING test-optional, and GETTING IN test-optional.

Colleges are a little cute about this. They don't readily release their stats on the number of admitted students who submitted their scores.

They do, however, brag about how many students with great or perfect scores they rejected, like Stanford did last year.

How do you decide whether to submit your scores?  Here are my thoughts and hunches:

• Test-optional policies were designed to increase minority enrollment at selective colleges.  The increase, so far:  a big fat 1%
• Admissions offices used test-optional policies to recruit other classes of students, in addition to underrepresented minorities:  legacies, athletes, international...