Getting In: A College Coach Conversation

If you aspire to one of the most selective colleges in the country, you must have something that takes you from competitive to compelling. We discuss the concept of a "distinguishing excellence"—what it is and how you can get one. For graduating high school seniors and their parents, we go over the required steps and offer some tips for making a successful transition to college.

One year ago, NY State established the Excelsior Program offering free tuition to qualifying state residents at state institutions. As the program heads into its second year, we'll revisit how the program works and share information about how students can take advantage of it. For students and families who have made the decision to pursue homeschooling as an alternative to a traditional school setting, the college admissions process can be a bit more challenging. We'll discuss what you need to know to present the best possible college applications. Finally, in Office Hours we'll go over the potential impact of the senior slide (i.e., poor grades!) on your college acceptance and suggest steps for minimizing the impact.

Teenagers who are both talented athletes and strong students might be able to leverage those abilities in the Ivy League admissions process. We'll investigate how that process works from the perspective of someone who was both an Ivy League recruited athlete and admissions officer. We'll also explain how income-driven repayment plans work and talk through how to select a college major in Office Hours.

It's down to the wire for this year's seniors, with deposits due to the college of their choice by May 1. For those struggling with this decision, we'll offer tips for evaluating your acceptances and choosing the best option. We'll also answer listener college finance and admissions questions in Office Hours.

As the world becomes more global and a greater number of students look for college options farther from home, we're seeing lots of interest in the UK university system. We're going to explore some common myths related to applying to and attending university in the UK, and hopefully offer a better understanding of the reality. We'll also talk about the beauty of payment plans in helping families better budget for and pay for college. And in Office Hours, we'll cover some common questions related to standardized testing, including when to get started, whether or not you have to take subject tests, and others.

There are two important parts of every college lists: finding the best fit colleges where the student can get in and pay for. We'll devote two segments to those ideas this week, focusing on how to get started on the list and how to incorporate the paying angle into the search process. We're doing another segment on waitlists in Office Hours, this time from the perspective of the colleges. We'll share how they use waitlists and what that means for students who currently have waitlist decisions from one or more colleges.

We're tapping our colleagues' experience this week to offer insight into Goucher College and how they approach admissions and Babson's financial aid process. In Office Hours, we're offering advice about how to make the most of resources available at your high school to support you in preparing for and successfully applying to college.

Every year the National Association of College Admissions Counselors studies the state of college admissions and issues a report. We have the results of this year's report, and we're going to share some highlights. If you're planning to get loans to help pay for college, don't miss our segment on how much is too much too borrow when it comes to money for higher education. We'll also offer tips for students on the waitlist in Office Hours.

Is it better to be a small fish in a big pond or a big fish in a small pond? And what does aquatic life have to do with college anyway? Tune in for our take. We'll also answer your college finance and admissions questions in Office Hours.

We're big fans of college visits, because there's no substitute for getting a firsthand view of the institution. But not all visits are created equal, so in this week's episode we'll be helping you avoid some common campus visit mistakes. We'll also wrap up our two part series on common college finance myths and help you prepare for regular decision results in Office Hours.