We see the headlines about students who "got into all the Ivies". We read stories about how college acceptance rates are going down. Are those stories the template or the outlier?

In this College Insight episode, I focus on 5 things that create a compelling college application.

Maddy has always been passionate. While studying at Northeastern, she has focused that passion towards social equality, particularly with a couple of causes in her home town of Southlake, TX. The two of us represent very different perspectives on the world we're living in, and we had a great conversation about how disparate perspectives can coexist.

Find out about our new program called Parent University.

Stef Mauler, founder of The Mauler Institute, and I discuss the community we're building that we call Parent University. We talk about the successful launch of our live event and the Facebook group we've built as a result of it.

Click here to find out more about an upcoming Parent University live event

Click here to join the Parent University Facebook group

Click here to find out more about The Mauler Institute

Ariel is a Computer Science Ph.D. candidate at MIT. He dreamed of going to MIT while he was in high school. He shares how the path he took to get there and the decisions he made along the way that helped him realize that dream.

This time of year parents of high school seniors are experiencing sticker shock. Their students worked hard to earn an admission to their dream college, and then the financial award letters start coming in.

Researching the cost of attending a particular school needs to be a critical part of that process. It can be a difficult conversation to have with your student, but if cost will be a factor, the earlier you can have that conversation the better.

Links mentioned in the episode.

College Navigator TuitionFit.org College App Spreadsheet

Click here for my blog post on this topic

What are your options for to prepare for the SAT and ACT? What are the different approaches companies take to creating their programs? What should you look for in finding a test prep partner?

I sat down with two of the best test prep professionals in the country to get their perspective on the SAT, ACT, and college admissions as they are today.

Brian Eufinger owns Edison Prep, based in Atlanta, GA, with his wife Silvia. Pranoy Mohaptra owns PM Tutoring, based in central New Jersey. Both also offer online tutoring. We talked about our different approaches to how we do this test prep thing and what it means for students.

Selective colleges are now expecting students to have completed courses in high school that require planning to take that course several years in advance. In this bonus episode, I share what those expectations are and when that planning needs to take place.

When Eric started in the theater program at USC, one of only 12 students selected for that program, he was confident his path was clear. Then life happened. He shares the amazing story of how he went from 2005 Best One-Act actor in the state of Texas to working behind the scenes as he builds his own dream in a different way.

This episode is a fabulous look at working through the plans when the plans don't work as planned.

Last Spring the majority of colleges and universities created an admissions process where students did not have to submit test scores. The shorthand for this process is "Test Optional". A year later, we're seeing 2 very interesting developments from that process.

For many of us helping students apply to college today, the process is vastly different from what it was when we applied to college. It's even worse if you weren't educated in the U.S.

Richard Smith has 2 daughters who went to the University of Oklahoma. One graduated last year (Ciara Smith in episode 7) and the other graduates this year.

In addition to talking about how to manage the differences in the system, we got into a great conversation about what employers are looking for in college graduates.