Blog

Felicity Huffman Arrested And Lori Loughlin Charged in Alleged College Admissions Scam

college planning specialists

  Hollywood celebrities Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin have been charged in alleged college admissions bribery scam. The Associated Press reported Tuesday that authorities have charged college coaches and others in this huge admissions bribery case in federal court. This big scam involves athletic coaches, a college admissions company in Los Angeles, test prep companies, and many more to be revealed soon. The federal authorities have emails and recorded phone calls where celebrities were paying up to $6 million dollars to get their child accepted into Ivy League and Elite colleges. They were using athletic coaches and test prep companies to help scam the student’s way into a high SAT test score in order to get accepted into a prestigious school. Since 2004, as America’s…

Read More

The Essential Four: How The Cost Of College Is Determined and What You Can Do To Make It Affordable

The #1 question I get from the parents that I work with is this: How on earth are we going to pay for college? Here’s what most parents know about the cost of college: It has become way more expensive now compared to back in the day when they were applying to schools. It has become similar to buying a house, really.   However, not a lot of parents fully understand how colleges determine that huge sticker number. Even fewer parents know how to successfully plan for college and strategize correctly to receive the best financial aid package for their specific needs.   So, today let’s break down what families are really paying when we send our kids to college and how to start planning…

Read More

Learn Our Top Insider Secrets For Getting Into Your Dream School

My last several articles have been all about the lovely families and students that we have the pleasure of working with side by side during their college planning journey. I would strongly suggest checking those out to learn more about what our professionals here at College Planning Experts offer to our clients. You can read those, here, on our blog. This week, I wanted to highlight a different kind of special guest. A little bit ago, I was able to sit down with a local college counselor who has been in practice for nearly 20 years. Her name is Lynda McGee. She has worked as a college counselor in a local magnet school in the Los Angeles Unified School District. If you would like to…

Read More

Getting Into UCLA: Hear From One Of Our Graduates

A large number of our readers and potential clients call us to get more information on how College Planning Experts actually helps families and what is really expected of the students and parents throughout the process. Today, I want to answer those questions by showing you a real student that we worked with from start to finish. Now, we have worked with so many families and have heard so many of them get back exciting news from their dream colleges. This is just one of the thousands of students we have been lucky to work with as they head into their college experience. We will talk about how our experts used their years of knowledge and experience to work with this student and what this…

Read More

What To Expect From Working With College Planning Experts

What To Expect From Working With College Planning Experts After over 15 years of experience, College Planning Experts is proud to have helped so many students and their families through the college process from starting with filling out applications to getting accepted to their top dream school. I started this company in 2004 and I am overwhelmed by how many families our team has been able to work with. I wanted to take a moment to highlight some of the families we have worked with, their specifics needs and how we were able to guide them on their college planning process. First Child Going To College Mike: “They really streamlined and made sense of the whole {financial aid} process.” Mike and his family came to…

Read More

Begin The College Search Early. Get Into Your Dream School

Begin The College Search Early. Get Into Your Dream School When I graduated from college I was over $53,000 in debt. Yes. That is the real number that I was burdened with right out of university. I could not believe the damage my degree had made on my bank account. Getting a higher education was a goal of mine that I was proud to have achieved. Spending four years climbing a steep mountain of exams, study guides and everything in between is only valuable once you have reached the summit. And I did. But what I met at the top of the mountain was not only my degree and a bright future career path, but I was also met with a huge amount of money…

Read More

College Deadlines: How To Apply For Your Dream School On Time

There are two time periods that I can think of throughout the course of one’s life where life itself can become extremely busy. Those times are when you are a high school student doing your best to get into a great school and when you are a parent of a high school student guiding them towards a bright future in college. There are only a few minutes a day to breathe and then it is back to the full daily schedule. Between studying for the SAT’s, writing application essays and maintaining a solid GPA, applying for college is an overwhelming process for a student in general. For Parents, it can be equally overwhelming as we fill out all the necessary paperwork, take our kids to all the…

Read More

How To Get Grants And Scholarships Regardless Of Your Income

How To Get Grants And Scholarships Regardless Of Your Income One of the most important messages I share with my clients is this: Financial Aid is available to everyone regardless of how much income a family makes or how many assets that they have. So many families believe that they are not eligible for Financial Aid or they believe that they will only get a small amount of Aid. This is simply NOT TRUE. When the time is taken to strategize a financial aid plan based on a family’s finances, they have a better chance of getting more money for college because they know exactly for what they are eligible.     This is something I have been sharing since the beginning of College Planning Experts….

Read More

You Need To Know These Three Magic Letters

Magic. If we think about that word we probably visualize magicians at a circus or Disney characters or card tricks. College planning, however, is most likely not our first thought associated with the word Magic. But, wouldn’t it be so nice to snap our fingers, wave our wands, call out our genies and get our kids into their dream schools easy-peasy? That would be a dream. Well, I cannot promise you any of those things, but what I can promise you is that the closest thing to real magic you can get in this college applying process are three little words. These words will mean a lot to you as you start the journey of getting into college.       A few years back I uploaded…

Read More

Parents, Why is College Planning So Important?

Let me start by saying this; “You don’t know what you don’t know.” The reason that I say this is because I believe it is the number one most important thing to understand as we start the college application process. With all the steps involved to get your child into their dream school, it is no surprise that a lot of parents become overwhelmed so easily. How can you have a game plan if you don’t know how to play the game? I started College Planning Experts to answer this question and ease this process for parents. Before I explain further, I want you to think about a time you decided to learn a new skill or think about a skill you would like to…

Read More