Though the spring semester has just gotten underway, believe it or not, high school students will soon be choosing their classes for the upcoming school year, and parents need to be careful when giving their child discretion over their course selection.  If college—particularly a selective college—may be in your child’s future, you should understand colleges’ expectations in terms of a high school curriculum before setting that course schedule.

Average Student’s Chances at a Top-Tier College, What to Do if You Can’t Pay the Bill, and Office Hours: Avoiding the Rumor Mill

On our latest episode of Getting In: A College Coach Conversation, host Beth Heaton rang in the New Year with our 100^th episode.

Co-authored by Ian Fisher

With the passing of many admission deadlines, a whole class of students can put the college application process behind them. But due to the cyclical nature of college admission, a whole new class of juniors is also beginning to think about their college applications. If you’re in eleventh grade, you’ll be applying to college before 2017 is out! To help you understand everything that will be thrown at you over the next few months, we’ve prepared a glossary of common terms below. Study hard!

Families of many high school juniors utilize winter or spring vacation weeks to take some long-distance college visits.  Before planning any trips, however, make sure you pop over to StudentUniverse, and read College Coach’s own Ian Fisher’s top five tips for college visits.  Ian shows families how to plan a successful college visit, making the most of their time and money. With Ian’s advice, your child will come away from their college visit trip having garnered some new insight as to what they want—and don’t want—in a college, and, with any luck, your family will have had a whole lot of fun along the way.

In the final Getting In: A College Coach Conversation episode of 2016, host Sally Ganga spent the majority of the show answering college admissions and finance related questions submitted by listeners. But first, Sally addressed what seniors can—and should!—be doing now that they have submitted their college applications.

In admissions, there are rarely any in-the-know summer programs that, in and of themselves, will get an admissions officer to shout “Admit!” in committee. A summer program’s admissions impact is often more organic in nature: it might provide the foundation or connections for more challenging experiences down the road.

Sally Ganga filled in for our regular host, Beth Heaton, during this week’s timely and informative episode of Getting In: A College Coach Conversation, covering what seniors should do after receiving an Early Action or Early Decision letter, as well as trends in college pricing affecting juniors’ planning.

It is a busy time of year in the world of college applications with early application decisions rolling in and most regular decision deadlines just around the corner. On the latest episode of Getting In: A College Coach Conversation, host Elizabeth Heaton welcomed College Coach expert Zaragoza Guerra to talk about how students and families can approach the final push to application deadlines and to offer tips for having a New Year’s eve free of college applications.

Even though the official start to winter isn’t here just yet, it sure feels like it! Snow is falling, and the countdown to the end of the year has begun. That means that regular decision college application deadlines are just around the corner for high school seniors, and college freshmen will soon be returning home for winter break. Last week’s episode of Getting In: A College Coach Conversation spoke to both high school seniors who are working on the applications for some Ivy League colleges, and also explored the transfer process for those returning college freshmen who may be reconsidering their college choice.

The latest episode of Getting In: A College Coach Conversation was packed full of useful information, as Beth and her guests discussed how to prepare to enter repayment on student loans and then dug deeply into how to tackle a variety of Ivy League supplemental essays. And for the record, even if you’re not planning to apply to an Ivy League college, the essay advice offered was universal enough to work for many types of college essays.