On last week’s episode of Getting In: A College Coach Conversation, Ian shifts the focus of our attention to the juniors and what goes into building the college list. But before we completely close the book on our current seniors, the opening segment explains a bit more about what goes on behind the waitlist process.

If you will be applying to college next year, you will very shortly be in the market for teacher recommendations, and you may be wondering what teachers you should ask for these recommendations. Should you always ask the teacher who gave you the best grade?

We all know the names: Harvard, Yale, Stanford, etc. The most selective colleges in the country are a challenge for even straight-A students to get into. If you’re aiming for admission to an Ivy League college, or college of similar selectivity, earning good grades is no longer enough. What, then, are the top colleges looking for? College Coach consultant and former University of Pennsylvania admissions officer, Elizabeth Heaton, tells us in this free webinar offered by our test prep partner, Revolution Prep. This program offers a sneak peek behind the curtain of an Ivy League admissions office, explains what’s important in the highly selective college admissions process, and offers tips for you to improve your chances of acceptance to a top school.

Watch Elizabeth’s webinar, “Insider’s Guide to Admissions at the Top 2% of Schools,” here.

If your child is headed off to college in the fall, you are probably worrying about a lot of things: What if he has a medical emergency while at school? What if he runs out of money? How will I know he is passing if I don’t see any of his school work?

There are documents pertaining to health, money, and college records that your child can sign to give you some peace of mind. Not all of these are required, but you may want to consider if you need them or not.

In the latest episode of Getting In: A College Coach Conversation, host Elizabeth Heaton and her guests offer up some valuable insight on choosing a college and answer both college admissions and finance questions from our listeners.

For many parents of middle schoolers, the transition to the often bigger high school can seem overwhelming. There are so many curriculum choices and students are often given more independence in their course selection. College applications require a student’s transcript to display grades since the ninth grade, so the choices they make now may have an impact on their later opportunities. Here are a few of our tips to help your child make a smooth and seamless transition to their next school:

For students applying to U.S. colleges and universities from abroad, it’s not only a challenge meeting the benchmarks defined by one’s own national curriculum—either secondary school leaving exams or applications to one’s own set of national universities—there’s the added work of deciphering how local successes translate over to USA admissions standards, a system with its own set of quirks. Will a set of classes taken abroad even fulfill the course requirements of a U.S. college? As with most answers: It depends.

A Guest Post by Lisa Bevill, Fortuna Admissions

Are there embarrassing pictures of you on Instagram? Or are you tagged in a Facebook photo from a best friend’s party that you wouldn’t show your mom? Maybe you took to Twitter once, in a fit of frustration, with a thinly veiled insult directed at a teacher. Or you’ve put off creating your LinkedIn profile.

The U.S. college admissions process can be perplexing to international and domestic students alike.  Why are some seemingly qualified applicants denied admission, while others with outwardly similar qualifications are accepted?  The answer lies in the fact that U.S. college admissions officers are not tasked with simply admitting individual students, but with shaping a diverse class that meets a variety of institutional needs.

It’s that time of year again, when high school freshmen, sophomores, and juniors select their courses for the next academic year. Many students and parents agonize over these choices.  In general, the more selective the college a student aims for, the more rigorous the courseload ought to be; however, a full complement of honors and/or AP courses simply isn’t realistic or sustainable for every student.