Our entire latest episode of Getting in: A College Coach Conversation was dedicated to answering our listeners’ questions. Host Elizabeth Heaton partnered with College Coach finance expert, Beth Feinberg Keenan, and together they addressed the college admission and college finance questions asked by our audience.

From where you sit, basking in the glow of your computer in the comfort of your desk chair, college essay supplements are just another item to be checked off on your to-do list. For colleges, the supplemental question is a way to communicate their values to you—a sort of last-ditch recruiting effort meant to both attract students to the institution and communicate some element of its social or academic experience. Santa Clara asks students to comment on their “strategic vision”; the University of Chicago is infamous for off-the-wall intellectual essay prompts (reminiscent of their off-the-wall intellectual experience); Reed College asks you to write all about Paideia, a unique week of self-taught courses on any subject under the sun. And Amherst College, in Amherst, Massachusetts uses its supplemental essay as a way of introducing both the intellectuality of their community and the impressiveness of their alumni and faculty. While your job isn’t to measure up to that pedigree, your response should be delivered in the spirit of intellectualism.

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: Kenyon College
Gambier, OH

October started off just as busy as September! As my son works feverishly on both his college essay and Common Application, I am focusing my efforts on the financial application process. From one parent to another, I truly believe that this is a critically important step to take. If you want to tap into available sources of funding for college, then it is essential to complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). The financial aid application process can seem daunting, but planning for educational expenses is a necessary endeavor, so time to get going!

Last week, on Getting In: a College Coach Conversation, host Sally Ganga and guests Kara Courtois and Kathy Ruby discussed the ins and outs of submitting standardized test scores to colleges, took an in-depth look at the essay questions for two popular institutions—University of Michigan and University of Wisconsin, Madison—and talked about the various deadlines for financial aid.

The college application essay is many high school students’ first real effort at writing not about an academic subject, but about themselves.  Taking a close look at and discussing oneself analytically can be a challenging task for even the most adept high school writers, but fear not, college applicants (and their worried parents)!

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

Last week on Getting In: A College Coach Conversation, guest host Sally Ganga devoted the first segment of the show to the School’s In: Application Workshop, where she and her guest addressed whether and when students should disclose autism spectrum disorders and learning disabilities on the college application. She spent the last two thirds of the show diving deeply into the intricacies of what can be a very important (and complex) financial aid application at some schools, the CSS/PROFILE.

Sometimes a university’s essay prompts can reveal as much about the school’s values as an applicant’s personal statement can divulge what the student will bring to the university. If you’ve ever wondered what you should share in your application essay, fear not; some schools break down their personal statement into a few short responses and give you instructions for each solicited paragraph. MIT, for example, not only tells you what they deem important—how they aspire to positively impact the world—they tell students exactly what MIT is hoping to hear from its applicants: ideals and dreams that match up to theirs. So let’s try hunting for the clues MIT is dropping, prompt by prompt.

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: Knox College
Galesburg, IL