I'll be blunt.   It's harder than ever to get into a top college today, because applications have skyrocketed thanks to test-optional policies and new admissions standards, including Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.

On a related front, it's more expensive than ever to pay for college.  And the new rules, in effect for 2024, are a mixed bag. 

Some industry experts (myself included) have BLASTED them as anti-middle class, against families with more than one child in college, anti-small business owners and anti-divorced families.

Here's the problem:

Your Guidance Counselor, Accountant and "Financial Guy" Are Useless

None of them can help you through this mess.  Most high school counselors have 400 students to take care of. And they're woefully untrained, especially when it comes to financial aid.  

In fact, much of the advice they give out is dead wrong, and could HURT your chances of receiving aid.

Ditto for accountants and financial advisors, if they try to go out of their lane and help, they frequently end up giving advice that completely DESTROYS your chances of qualifying for any type of college assistance.  Like, "Open up a 529 for your kid."  

Bad, bad advice for many parents.

If you're sending one of the kids off to college in the near future, but feel stressed out, overwhelmed, confused by other parents' advice -- which may or may not be out of the goodness of their hearts, in today's ultra-competitive environment -- I have a new resource that we just pulled together:

College Planning 101 - The Truth About What it Takes to Get Into a Top College Today..and qualify for tuition discounts of 56% or more, no matter how much you earn.

In a nutshell, I pulled out from my briain 20+ years of college advising experience to my private, 1:1 clients who paid my exorbitant fees, unblinkingly, for the same advice you can now get for literal pennies on the dollar. 

No exaggeration.  Same advice.

What's the catch? ..

First, although you can get literally the same strategies, tips and advice that I give to my private clients -- who fork over $20,000-30,000 -- sometimes more, College Planning 101 isn't a private, one-on-one consulting arrangement.

This short course is a collection of 22+ short, punchy videos that you can watch on your own schedule (instead of waiting a month or longer for an appointment with me), that cover the following:

College Admissions Strategies

• How to stand out against thousands of competitor-applicants like a diamond at a coal convention...to maximize their chances of getting  into their "Dream College" that they're dying to attend...
• How to create a polished, RIVETING, stand-out college essay that resonates with each admissions officer that reads it.  
• The counter-intuitive reason that valedictorians with perfect SATs or ACTs get denied, while "lesser" students get into the same colleges
• How to create balanced, strategic list of colleges
• The closely-guarded secrets of test-optional:  when should you send your SAT or ACT scores, when should you hold them back?
• How much do SATs and ACTs count?
• The overlooked factor -- beyond GPA -- that admissions officers need to see in every applicant
• The shocking piece of advice from your guidance counselor  -- in 9th grade -- that could SABOTAGE your kid's chances of getting into an Ivy or other competitive college three years down the road
• Which extracurricular activities "sell";  which BORE?
• Is it ok to discuss learning disabilities in a college essay?
• Is it acceptable to discuss political views in a college essay?
• The "hidden" college tours and how to access them (and not waste your time on the official ones)
• What is "yield" and why should you know or care about it?

Financial Aid and Scholarships

• The oddball reason an "expensive" private college can cost less than a so-called "cheaper" public university
• How a mild-mannered college planner negotiated an extra $38,000+ from an elite, West Cost college after it's Final Offer (and how you can do the same)
• How to legally "hide" your money from the financial aid office
• The 529 College Savings Account:  "Friend" or "Foe?"
• How to win tens of thousands in Merit Aid, even if your kid isn't valedictorian and didn't cure Covid last summer
• The inconvenient truth about the New Rules of financial aid:  who wins, who loses
• How to avoid deadly mistakes that can cost you thousands in lost aid that you otherwise deserved
• Those weirdo scholarships:  are they for real or just Fake News?
• How high income families can slash college costs by more than 56%
• Special strategies for business owners, including "Tax Scholarships"
• Divorced or Separated? Watch out! The rules have changed, and not necessarily in a good way
• The FAFSA, CSS Profile and other financial aid applications:  what must you file, when are they due?
• 4.5 legal "loopholes" in the financial aid formulas
• Student loans: what's available, what are the rates, fees and amounts you can borrow, and how to repay them under the new, ever-changing repayment plan options
• More

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This is more important than ever, with rampant grade inflation that makes it damn near impossible to determine how a child will perform in college...

...NOT TO MENTION mind-numbingly similar, even suspicious (thanks Lori and Felicity!) extracurriculars such as service trips, volunteering and clubs, glowing teacher and guidance counselor letters of recommendations plastered all over today's college applications!

It's not easy for an admissions officer to know what your child is REALLY bringing to the table.  

Nor is it a piece of cake for your poor kiddo to persuade his admissions officer that he deserves to be admitted.

Your child must state his case via a manner of writing never-before undertaken, unrecognizable to your average English teacher, and far different than any other writing assignment he encountered in school.

What makes your child different?

Permit me to be blunt.

When your child applies to college, her grades, standardized test scores and other academic credentials could quite possibly be strong, but...

They will be damn near IDENTICAL to THOUSANDS  of other competitor-applicants.

At the larger state universities, possibly 90,000 -- or more -- applicants.

I'm not trying to offend or take anything away from your child.  I'm merely describing the truth about how things work.

Put another way:

How will she stand out and tell her story, the "closing argument" that convinces an admissions officer to roll out the red carpet and invite her to the exclusive party, behind the velvet ropes?

In a nutshell, that's precisely what kids' essays must do. 

The college essay is the last, best chance at persuading the admissions committee that YOU are The One.

No "Guesswork"

You'll have confidence and clarity, because your advisor's experience is  based upon  reviewing and editing thousands of college essays.