MIKE’S MEMOS

Have an effective strategy in place to help you make an excellent first impression and to end the interview on a winning note. Want to know the best question to ask if you want to end your interview on a great note? The two most important parts of any interview are...

It’s here! Graduation (and gift) season 2016. Sure, you can give the most popular and common gift: cash. And, welcome as currency always is, with a little thought, there are many equally valuable and appreciated tokens of your well wishes. We’ve compiled five sure...

There’s good news and bad news when it comes to the counseling your high school student is getting about college. Let’s start with the good news, shall we? Research shows that one of the key determinants (after family) of whether or not a student will even head to...

College admissions counselors are often (unpleasantly) surprised by how poorly prepared some students are for their interview. Don’t be one of them! Make your college interviews memorable in all the right ways. Remember, this may be your first-ever interview. But the...

Enjoy your college visits even more by cutting costs for those out-of-town trips.Apply these 11 strategies and save! No one debates the importance of college visits. Only so much can be gained by scanning websites and glossy college brochures. There’s nothing like a...

The new essay prompts were just released by the Common Application (or Common App, for short). Wait. Back up! What’s the Common App, you ask? Nearly 600 colleges and universities have partnered to streamline undergraduate college admission applications. These are both...

As you (or your child) approach college, you’ll find everyone is an expert: friends, co-workers, the person behind you in the checkout line. Each person has a particular set of experiences, albeit limited, and is sure their experiences apply to everyone, even if it...

Recently, I was interviewed by the delightful Executive Director, Dottie Lipinski, of the Chicago HOST, a local high school exchange program which welcomes French exchange students for home stay visits and chaperones American teens for their own summer adventures in...

January 1st marked the opening of the 2016-17 FAFSA season, the government’s way of wishing all parents of college-bound and current college students a Happy New Year! If your goals and resolutions for 2016 include winning the college game, we can help. The College...

We all have the tendency to overuse certain words and phrases. After all, having an over-riding idea or theme is crucial to an excellent essay, right? Yes, but hammering the same idea to death in a 500-650-word personal statement creates a sluggish composition and...

The college-bound student has so many things to keep in mind during their junior and senior high school years.There are just so many factors to consider, so many choices to make! So, in order to keep the big picture in mind, we’ve collected a few of the smart...

The junior and senior years of high school are packed. There’s all the academic, athletic and extra-curricular activities any average high school student already has. Plus, there are the added preparations for the transition to college: taking act or sat tests,...

You may be a high school junior or senior, but you’ve spent most of your life being told what to do, what to think and what to say. Now though, you’re becoming an adult and it’s time to act, think and speak like one. One of the first shifts is to realize that not...

High school juniors and seniors years of learning under their belts, but that doesn’t mean they know much about the everything that’s yet to come. Most of what they do know about college comes from media, family and friends with older siblings. The information may be...

So, you’ve spent four years in high school. Your friends know you. Your teachers know you. Your comfortable and everything is familiar. It can feel like you’re at the top of your game. But everything is about to change. In the world of college admissions, no one knows...

Every day I scour the media for happenings in college and careers. Out of the dozens of articles that cross my desk, one or two is noteworthy enough to share. If you’re not already doing so, you can keep up to date with these resources by following College Planners of...

We’re in the thick of the college essay-writing season with our seniors and maybe you are too! There’s an excellent book we recommend to help get the job done: the better college essay by elizabeth stone, phd. One of our favorite distinctions early in the book is that...

Three days left to register for the october act! And, in case you haven’t heard about the recent changesThat were (almost silently) enacted on portions of the act,Read on! The act has quietly implemented a couple tweeks to the test which will debuted september 12th....

Earlier this month, two researchers — adam looney of the treasury department and constantine yannelis of stanford university — released an analysis of a new database of student debt. For years, student debt has been shrouded in mystery. Now, for the first time,...

On april 8th, I attended my first glenbard parent series talk. The evening featured new york times bestselling author, frank bruni, speaking from his new book, Where You Go Is Not Who You’ll Be: An Antidote To The College Admissions Mania. Mr. Bruni provided an...