Guest Post: Life of A Naval Academy Mom

About the author: Samantha’s son enrolled at the Naval Academy in Fall 2012, after considering colleges, like University of California Los Angeles and Boston University.  She highlights the support of the Navy Academy parent groups in the local area to bring families together, building a connection with their sons’ and daughters’ experiences at the Academy from…

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The State of the Recent College Graduate

Just in the last month, more recently graduated or soon-to-be-graduated college students have re-connected with Creative Marbles for post-college advising.  Degrees (almost) in hand, “Now what?” is the question, as these grads move back home with mom and dad. The current sentiment as published in today’s Wall Street Journal gives insight into the world our…

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Guest Post: Don’t Overlook The Food

About the author: Rohan graduated with a full International Baccalaureate Diploma in 2012.  He moved from Northern California to Ohio for college at Case Western Reserve University.  He’s currently majoring in Biomedical Engineering and plans to attend medical school.  So, in the following post where he discusses what to eat, take his words to heart.  Studying…

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How NCAA Football Can Help Find the Right College, Wait…what?!?

During college football games, the fans, the close referee calls on memorable plans and multi-generational rivalries can all make an impression about a particular college campus.  Once a student is building his/her list of colleges for application, watching college football can be an entertaining way to learn more, supplementing college websites and the hundreds of…

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Ahead of the Curve: December 13, 2013

From the News: How to Stop Worrying about College Rejection, Washington Post December 9, 2013 Could LinkedIn’s University Pages Make the Difference in the College Admissions Process?, CBS Los Angeles December 6, 2013 College Admissions Offers May Be Easier to Obtain, Los Angeles Times November 25, 2013 From Clients: End of the Semester: “studying” for…

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Top 10 Remarks NOT To Make At Holiday Gatherings

Seniors and their entire immediate family are experiencing the college application process close up and personal. So in the spirit of holiday giving, if you don’t make ANY of the following top 10 remarks to a college applicant, they’ll appreciate the super-bonus holiday gift: 10. “So, where are you applying to college?” 9.  “What are…

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Choosing Colleges With The Price Tag In Mind

Price is increasingly becoming a factor in choosing colleges for application, and enrollment.  67% or two-thirds of families surveyed recently for a Sallie Mae study, eliminated potential colleges at some point in the application and research process based on price, with 40% not even researching colleges after learning the yearly costs.  Our clients are following…

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The Emotional Side of Applying to College

Most students expect that completing college applications will be a short-term effort, temporarily inconvenient to the rest of their schedule, but generally able to be subsumed within their daily lives.  In reality, the challenge of opening one’s life to analysis, in order to write autobiographical essays required in applications can create an unexpected emotional response,…

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Thank Your Third Grade Teacher: She Was Right About the Thesaurus

Every word counts, when there’s a word count.  A common complaint amongst college essay writers is the the wish for more words.  The tedium of examining, re-examining, thinking through each word chosen when writing a college essay can be a test of patience, as much as a test of intellect.  The Thesaurus, dictionary and books…

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