Last week Jill and I visited Smith College in Northampton, MA, one of the few remaining all-women colleges in the US (according to Wikipedia, there are 48 such schools).  Smith has some personal appeal to me – my mother graduated from Smith way back in 19xx (I won’t embarrass my mom, but it was sometime before 1969 when […]

I just recorded a quick (2-1/2 minute) video about a major change to the financial aid formula. You can get instant access to it here.  Unfortunately, the change – which was recently made ‘public’ in the Congressional Federal Register reduces the Asset Protection Allowance, the amount the government ‘allows’ you to have saved without your savings negatively impacting […]

Since the Grateful Dead were kind enough to host their 3-day ‘Fare Thee Well’ Retirement party in Chicago on the same weekend as our (as in mine and Pete’s) 21st Wedding Anniversary, we not only got to visit with the Admissions and Financial Aid team at Northwestern University (which was planned), but we also got to spend a long and […]

Here are a few simple, but critical summer to-do’s for all families with college-bound students But first there’s some good news to share: as Peter predicted, after many rounds of ‘reconsideration’, there are quite a few kids coming off college waitlists and/or receiving revised offers – including a game-changer for one student who received an additional $38,000!. The less good news is that as a result, Pete’s […]

I reported yesterday about how competitive it is to get into college this year, with record low admit rates across the board. Turns out that NBC6 was thinking the same thing. Check out Ari Odzer’s report on the ridiculous competition to gain admission to a FL university. 7 AP classes, 1900+ SAT and 4.3 GPA […]

For most colleges, May 1st is the response deadline (the last day for prospective students to commit themselves and their dollars to a particular school).  It was an eventful and exhausting day for many on ALL sides of the decision process.   Right up to the 11th hour (in this case, literally so), colleges were […]

What’s Really Behind UF’s controversial PaCE program… and why that Matters! If you have ever been through the college Admissions process, you’ve endured the excruciating waiting period between the day you hit Submit on the application to said dream school and the day that school let you know whether your application had been accepted.  Historically this has been a rather routine and straighforward process: in most cases you […]

Back in my day (when a phone actually plugged into a wall), taking the standardized  ‘college entrance exam’  was tough, but deciding which standardized test to take was not.  That was mainly a matter of geography. If you lived on either Coast, you were taking the SAT, period.  In the Midwest, you might take the ACT. Not so today! […]

Here’s What Could Happen When What Happened on Your Spring Break… winds up on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Tumblr, Snapchat or Vine! Last couple of years, I’ve become increasingly interested in the way social media is shaping the college admissions (and hiring) processes.  Most of the articles that I’ve seen are more than just a good read; […]

With the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament tipping off tomorrow, it’s time for my 8th annual, University Generosity Bracketology.  I love talking colleges, and I love the game of basketball, so what better than to mix the two and offer an alternative approach to selecting teams in the greatest 3 week sporting event known to mankind. […]