The Insider: College Admissions Advice from the Experts

College Coach Expert, Elizabeth Heaton, explores “5 horrible essay topics for your college application.”  To find out how you can avoid some of these application essay writing pitfalls, read her blog post in today’s USA Today.

College applications can be fraught with stress for both parents and students.  So how do parents avoid turning “help” with admission essays into “too much help”?  To guide us through this parental conundrum, we’ve turned to Jacob Palmer, student blogger and junior at American University, for some parent / student advice.  Jake relates to us his essay writing experiences and the impact his mother’s help had on the process.

In an effort to beat back the demographic headwinds now working against them, some colleges and universities are coming up with ever more clever ways to maintain their “uber-selective” titles.  They're using every weapon within their recruitment and selectivity arsenal — from demographics to yield to just plain making it easy to apply — to improve their relative rank.

College Coach Expert, Elizabeth Heaton, explores the DOs and DON’Ts of getting admitted off the college wait list.  To find out how you might navigate the wait list maze, read her blog post in today’s USA Today.

Can students be blamed for thinking they have to apply to 100 colleges just to get admitted somewhere?  Think about it. The population of high school graduates was supposed to have peaked in 2008, but colleges and universities are still finding creative ways to round up new applicants. As a result, admit rates are being driven down to staggering levels.  A few examples: