Surviving the College Application Process

Each year the qualifying scores for students to be considered for National Merit Scholarships changes by state.  National Merit Scholarship consideration is based on junior year PSAT scores. [...]

Most writing doesn’t happen behind a laptop. It happens when your mind is free to wander and let an idea percolate and clarify itself. So as you prepare to write your personal statements and [...]

By Lisa Bleich “Julia is going to kill me!” I moaned when I discovered the broken test tube in my backpack. We had taken the sludge test home to try to finish the final project for IPS [...]

Just as backpacks have advanced over the past 30 plus years, so too has the process for applying to college. It is no longer as simple as throwing in a few applications and expecting several [...]

Written by Beth Cassie. Saturday June 13, 2015  was the last standardized testing date for the 2014-2015 school year.  For rising juniors and seniors, there are many testing opportunities in the [...]

What happens when you put 95 Independent Educational Consultants and six college admissions professionals in a room for six hours in Newark, NJ? The answer is lively discussion, thoughtful [...]

Written by Lisa Bleich College affordability is a complex issue, not easily tackled by colleges or families. I recently attended a symposium on college admissions trends that included independent [...]

Written by Marie Mayer from Garretson Financial Effective immediately, the Dept. of Education will no longer use PIN numbers to electronically sign the FAFSA.  There is a new FSA ID, [...]

Written by Beth Cassie Lisa and I (along with a group of independent counselors attending a conference in Baltimore) toured Johns Hopkins University one week after riots rocked the city of [...]

If you do not qualify for needs based financial aid and your school does not offer merit aid, look for outside funding through local scholarships. Click here for an article I wrote about finding [...]