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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...

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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 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...

I don't think it's me (I never do) but this year has been CRAZIER than ever.

I'm not only referring to the kids we coach through the college application process: parents have gone bonkers too!

On the kid-side, we had in inordinate number of seniors making last minute, final revisions to their essays yesterday for November 1 deadlines...

Re:  parents, I cannot begin to tell you how many "helped" their children by stepping in, pushing them aside and completely taking over the essay-writing process.  I see it every year, but I've never seen it this bad.

I'm not just griping.  There's an important point here, that's all-too-easy to get lost in the shuffle:  If you, parent, take over the college applications for your child, you are sending them an unsubtle message...

Not exactly a confidence builder, right?

Trust me, I know how busy our children are, and I understand the impulse to help. ...