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College Spotlight: Bocconi University

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Two weeks ago, I was fortunate enough to be given the opportunity to visit Bocconi University in Milan, Italy. To ensure I stay on top of the world of college admissions, I often visit universities across the country, but this was my first ever international college trip. International college admissions has been increasing in the United States in recent years, and after this trip, I began to truly understand why this was happening. Bocconi University is a large urban university in the heart of Milan, which is a European business, financial and cultural hub, where history merges with modernity, and tradition with innovation. Bocconi reminds me of NYU, except the students are dressed better and the gelato is unbelievably tasty! Bocconi students have the luxury of a beautiful urban campus, located right next to an expansive park, and they are only 10 minutes from center city Milan. Walking around campus, I could easily tell that the students were serious about their academics, and had
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2018 Admissions Report & the Importance of Crafting the College List

March Madness most commonly refers to that pretty big NCAA basketball tournament that catches our attention for a few weeks, but it can also describe this time of year in college admissions. The last two weeks of March is generally when most colleges send out their decision letters to anxious, yet hopeful seniors, dreaming about celebrating acceptances to their top choices. However, over the years, as more and more students apply to colleges with the ease of the Common Application and Coalition, not to mention an increase of international students, many colleges have become much more competitive. Schools that would have been a slam dunk admit in years past, are becoming as tough to get into as sinking a half court shot. Because of this, and looking towards the future, knowing that it will most likely continue to become more and more selective, it is essential to find colleges that are less selective, but still have everything you need in a college to be happy. When crafting a college
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Introducing Going Merry - Making College Scholarships Easier

Hey Everyone, A big part of the college process for most families is finding a way to pay for the cost of tuition, room and board, meals, books, travel, and other expenses. If the total cost of college isn't terrifying enough, the search and application process for scholarships certainly is daunting, to say the least. Most colleges will offer merit scholarships to students just for applying to college and getting accepted, but for the majority of students, there is still a gap that needs to be met, and financial aid does not usually cover all of that. So because of that, most students are forced to sift through hundreds of outside scholarships, find out which ones they are eligible for and then spend hours completing the scholarship application, often requiring a ton of personal information and writing samples. This hard work often can result in receiving free money to use toward's college expenses, but in general, the entire process is arduous, time consuming, and students
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College Spotlight: Mercer University

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Key Stats: ·           Location : Macon, Georgia (about an hour southeast of Atlanta) ·           Type : Private University, in a defined campus surrounded by the small city of Macon ·           Size : Just about 3,300 total undergraduates ·           The total  cost of attendance  is just over $51,000 per year , but Mercer University does offer an abundance of financial aid and merit scholarships.  MU awards nearly $20,000,000 to incoming students each year, with more than 90% of the entire school population receiving scholarships. Mercer has also recently been recognized as a Top 25 "Best Value School" in the nation by U.S. News & World Report. Admissions Stats: Mercer University  is a medium sized selective university, whose students represent 39 states and 36 countries. They are at the tail end of a conscience effort to increase the size of the school. Whereas in 2011, Mercer had 565 incoming freshmen, last year they had 891. For the next few years they
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Early Admissions Successes!

Hey Everyone, Boy, it is cold out there, but the class of 2018 is really heating it up with their college acceptances (corny I know, blame it on the cabin fever)! If you missed the latest addition of the Xavier E-news, one of the articles highlighted the early college acceptances for our seniors. I wanted to re-post the article here, for all to see. Take care, and enjoy the read...hopefully under a blanket! Class of 2018 Shines in Early Round of College Admissions In this year’s early round of college admissions, Xavier’s Class of 2018 distinguished itself with great success. "With early admissions in the rearview mirror, the Class of 2018 now has their eyes set on regular admissions, where decisions most often come out in March and April,” said Director of College Counseling  Joseph Korfmacher . “In the meantime, it is important to celebrate the early successes of this talented class. Our seniors have already reported over 400 college acceptances and close to $9,000,000 in
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Early Admissions Update

With the Holiday Season upon us, so is the early admissions notification season. Students have begun receiving many acceptances, academic scholarships, financial aid packages, and students are finally starting to see themselves at one or two specific colleges…reality is beginning to set in! A percentage of students have even been accepted to their Early Decision (binding) school and now know where they will be attending in the fall of 2018...how exciting!  However, even though there are a ton of good things happening now, many students also received unpleasant decisions from colleges in the early round with either denials or deferrals. From my desk, the trend continues of schools becoming more and more difficult to get into, even for the most accomplished students. With more young men and women applying to college within our country and across the world, many college application numbers continue to go through the roof, meaning more students will be denied or deferred than ever befor
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ACT & SAT Updates

Hey Everyone! With Thanksgiving only two days away, the Christmas music will be starting in just three days. It is hard to believe, but we can now see the end of the college application season, with January 1st being one of the biggest college deadlines. January through the end of April will be filled with a lot of joy as acceptance letters roll in, and seniors begin making their plans for collegiate life in the fall of 2018. January, into the early months of spring also mean another thing in the world of college admissions: the cycle begins again for current juniors, as this will be the time the majority of juniors begin taking the standardized college entrance exams: ACT and SAT. Although a growing number of colleges are going test-optional , which means they do not require (really!) SAT or ACT scores to be considered for admissions or scholarship money, the vast majority of colleges still use scores as a major part of the admissions process. Below, I will first give you a f
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