There are over 4,000 colleges and universities in the U.S. And while the media tends to focus on just a handful of schools, we at College Coach encourage students to think outside the box during their college selection process and explore a wide range of colleges. As such, we are highlighting a new college each week in our School Spotlight series. Check out the college below, along with the other posts in our series, and you may just stumble upon your dream school!

School Spotlight: University of Utah
Salt Lake City, UT

Think you have to be a straight-A student or have income below the poverty line to qualify for a college scholarship? Think again! Thousands of scholarships are awarded annually with requirements based not upon academics or family finances, but upon talents, interests, activities, fields of study, commitments to causes, physical characteristics, medical conditions, or simple creativity.

Many academically strong California juniors recently received forms from their high schools asking for permission to share their academic data with the University of California System in order to determine Eligibility in the Local Context (ELC). If you’ve received this form, congratulations! It means you are among the strongest students in your graduating high school class. Using this statewide data it has requested from you and your school, the UC system will identify the top 9% of students statewide, as well as the top 9% within each participating high school.

We’re bringing back our popular series, Meet an Admissions Counselor, where we introduce students and families to a different member of the College Coach admissions team. Drop in to see what we’re reading, where we went to school, and our strategies for beginning the college essay. As you work with us to find an educational consultant who best fits your needs or the needs of your child, we will help you consider the personality and working styles that will bring out the best in you or your student. Today we introduce New Jersey native, Lisa Albro, who works with students both remotely and in the Short Hills, NJ area.

Where are you from?
Lisa: Fort Lee, NJ – home of the George Washington Bridge and the gateway to New York City.

Where did you go to school?
Lisa: Goucher College in Towson, Maryland (a northern suburb of Baltimore) for both undergrad and grad school, but with a 12-year gap between finishing undergrad and starting grad school.

Welcome to 2019! If one of your goals this year is to stay more up to date on the ever-changing world of college admissions, today is the perfect opportunity to catch up on our podcast, Getting In: A College Coach Conversation. Each week, we welcome guest experts, answer listener questions, spotlight colleges, and discuss all things admission and financial aid. Kick off the new year by listening to our most popular episodes of 2018.

On this week’s episode of Getting In: A College Coach Conversation, host Beth Heaton delves into the inner workings of the financial aid office at Babson College and the admissions office at Goucher College and, in between, she gets some great tips on the best way to use resources in your high school counseling office.

It’s officially fall, which means that early college application deadlines are just around the corner. For high school seniors who are (we hope!) working on their applications right now, never fear—last week’s episode of Getting In: A College Coach Conversation is here to help, with two segments on college essays and some timely questions on applying for financial aid.

On last week’s episode of Getting In: A College Coach Conversation, host Sally Ganga covered topics that many of you will find interesting. Her conversations included the inner workings of the undergraduate Admission Office at our country’s oldest institution of higher education, Harvard University, a dive into the ApplyTexas essay topics, and a discussion of financing a graduate/professional health professions degree. Muhlenberg College in Allentown, PA, was the college spotlight of the week.

On last week’s episode of Getting In: A College Coach Conversation, host, Sally Ganga, and guests covered a range of topics: pulling the trigger on where to enroll, a deep dive into Texas public universities, and tax breaks that you or your student could potentially leverage.