College Advice

Think about house hunting. Imagine seeing a house that is generically amazing – 5000 square foot house with water views in a town with good schools.  Now add on your idiosyncratic preferences – if you want a pool, the house has a gorgeous one; if you want a dock for your boat, the house has […]

As we built College Counseling Connecticut, we noticed that many of our college counseling discussions quickly turned to financial discussions.  In addition to the common questions related to financial aid, merit aid, and overall college expenses, the questions started to focus on “whether X college was worth it?” Since career counseling has always been a […]

Over the 15 years of providing educational services to parents of Connecticut high school students, I have gathered enough evidence to concur with most psychological studies that indicate resilience is the most or at least one of the most needed qualities for children to develop. Here’s the interesting part: children would develop resilience if it were […]

I had the pleasure of being interviewed by Theresa Anzaldua.  She is a journalist for Seasons magazine and a writer of the highly praised book We Had A Job To Do, a book about World War II veterans. I mentioned that one of my mini-lectures that I give to students in our Old Saybrook and Madison SAT classes […]

For those without the patience to listen, the simple summary is that we live in a knowledge economy.  College provides a filtering mechanism for employers to quickly sort out who to interview among thousands of applications.  Zakaria uses the example of a Wall Street investment bank with 20,000 plus applicants and a couple hundred spots. […]

“$120,000!!!” I put the phone away from my ear as Mr. Harris bellowed. “Thank you!”  His son Jared, a senior at Waterford High School had just received early admission to his first choice college along with a $30,000 annual scholarship. I met Jared when he was a junior in our winter SAT prep class in […]

In my years of providing educational counseling to parents and students, I have observed an uptick in anxiety among those interested in college counseling. There are likely several reasons: 1.) The Great Recession: Actual Economic Effect After 2008, Americans, even in prosperous states like Connecticut, lost so much wealth that, in a literal sense, most […]

This will stun many Connecticut parents of high school juniors.  As January 1 enters, by the end of the year, your high school junior will have completed his/her college applications. Some will know where they will heading to college due to Early Action and Early Decision. When I made this remark at a recent college […]

College Case Study: This is a real world college decision made by a friend of a friend who lives in Fairfield County. The father in question’s daughter was admitted to Northwestern and Penn State. The friend lives in Pennsylvania so this decision is similar to considering Northwestern versus UCONN. The parents could broadly be described […]