It’s midnight on the night before my son’s college applications are due and we’re huddled in his room editing his essays. How did this happen? I thought we started far enough in advance! But my son is an expert at procrastination and the pressure of the college search process made it even worse. I wasn’t...

It’s midnight on the night before my son’s college applications are due and we’re huddled in his room editing his supplemental essays for 12 different colleges. Did I mention I was also eating an entire chocolate cream pie? I thought we had started far enough in advance to get these done early, but no, I...

Don’t you wish there was a cute, little dog like Toto who could just pull back a curtain and reveal the secret to how all this confusing, murky college admissions process works? So you could see that the smoke and mirrors and prestidigitations involved weren’t so scary and intimidating after all. That lurking behind that...

When my kid was 10 months old, I walked into my neighborhood bank and asked to speak to my banker, “Roge”. No “r” on the end of that, just “Roge.” I asked “Roge,” how much money I would need to save to send this pipsqueak to college in 17 years? “Roge” started banging away at...

The following is M4C’s inaugural Montecito Journal column from August 19, 2021: introducing our organization to the journal’s readers. We will post future “College Lowdown” columns on this blog or you can find them at MontecitoJournal.net on the third Thursday of each month. Applying for College? Yeah, We Feel Your Pain—But Help Is Here Years ago,...

It’s incredible what power a symbol can have. The Nike swoosh. The shape of an apple. Two golden arches. It’s not surprising that logos have become such important parts of our world. Logos represent the mission and vision of a company, reflect the company’s values and principles, and tell the world who we are and...