Getting In: A College Coach Conversation

If you've taken out any student loans, you may recently have received notice that your student loan servicer is changing. We'll explain what a student loan servicer is and why they're making changes. If you haven't yet started your college essay, we have tips to get you writing and editing this in time for regular decisions deadlines. Finally, if your student isn't interested in applying to college right now, it might be time to consider a gap year. We'll talk through how to think about that option.

Any seniors out there just getting started on the college process? We have advice on what to do now in terms of applying to college and paying for it. We're also walking you through the supplemental essays required by USC as part of their application.

Applying to Villanova? They have two required supplemental essays, one that everyone writes and then a choice from a list of five prompts. We have advice on how to approach each of them. In Office Hours, we're answering your college admissions and finance questions.

Wondering why you might want to consider a liberal arts college? Tune in this week for our thoughts on the benefits and the potential return on investment you can see from a liberal arts degree. Office Hours this week features early round results and advice for turning to regular decision.

The application for Penn State's Schreyer Honors College features 10 additional essays. We will walk you through each one. We're also exploring two calculators essential to understanding how much you will pay for college, the EFC and NPC. No idea what those acronyms stand for? Tune in! Finally, we're picking apart the supplemental essay requirements at Yale in Office Hours.

A few years ago, an essay with Costco at its center made the media circuit as an example of a powerful and successful college essay. We don't like it, and we're going to share why. The Merit Scholarship program gets a lot of attention for what is essentially a $2k award. But there are some other financial opportunities that can come with the Merit program, and we have information for you on that. Finally, the early deadlines—priority, early decision, and early action—are here, and we'll help you make sure you're ready to submit.

Ever wonder how important essays are in the process at large state universities? It probably won't surprise you to learn that it depends! In this week's first segment, we share our thoughts on when these essays really matter and when they are less important. In Office Hours, we're answering your college admissions and finance questions.

For most colleges, applying for financial aid is as simple as filling out the FAFSA. But a smaller group of schools also requires the CSS Profile. We'll share what to expect if you need to complete that form as well. In the era of test optional colleges, students and parents frequently struggle to decide whether they should submit their test scores as part of their applications. We'll walk you through how to think about that. Finally, we're reviewing the additional essay prompts for University of Chicago in our fall series on supplemental essays.

Should you file the FAFSA even if you don't qualify for financial aid or have no plans to apply for financial aid? These are questions we frequently field, especially during the fall, and we're going to answer them on today's show. We also have advice on applying to visual and fine arts programs. Finally, in the first of our fall series on supplemental essays, we're looking at the supplemental essay prompts for Wake Forest.

AP Capstone Program; College Bills; Balanced College Lists For seniors finalizing their college lists, one of the most important things to consider is whether it's a balanced one. All reaches? Not good. All safeties? Might be overlooking some other options. We'll talk through how to finalize a balanced list that isn't too long or too short. In other segments, we're discussing the AP Capstone program and offering tips for covering the remaining balance on your college bills.