Either way, I would carefully weigh the tradeoffs between the experience of on campus life and the rent you could save. Perhaps you could find a compromise by spending your first year on campus and then moving off later.

Food – This one is simple. Try to buy groceries, cook, and stay away from the campus meal plan. The campus meal plan buys you a certain number of meals per week that is buffet style in the dining halls. If you don’t end up getting sick of the food and not eating it, you’ll end up gaining a lot of weight (the famed freshman 15). So stay away from the meal plan, save your money, and your waistline.

Books – Second hand books on Amazon and international editions from foreign book sellers are your friend. Check with your professor if the difference between old or international editions are significant or if there is a way to get around it. Usually they’re sensitive to the student budget and will help you out!

Entertainment – When you go to college or come to the United States, you will be amazed at the amount of free entertainment available. These free events put on by the college are also a great way to get involved in campus life and meet new friends. Another tip is to volunteer at college or city events for free admission. You’ll get a good reference out of it on top of getting backstage access to the best events!

So here are the few quick tips for surviving your college experience financially. Just remember to get creative on both the revenue and the cost side and stick to your budget!

Well, there is no doubt that an education is expensive. However, there are ways to make the experience a little easier on your wallet.

Part 1: Maximize the revenue
There are multiple ways you can pay for school.  Explore every option!

Grants/scholarships – Besides the ones from your school, there are a myriad of scholarships available for all sorts of reasons. From being an immigrant to being a fan of the Simpsons, there’s a scholarship out there that fits you. Use Google and find the money.

Internships – They’re not only a great way to fund your education, they also increase your chances of getting a job out of school. Don’t just settle for the part time job at the school library. Go for the well paid internship that can pay for a large chunk of your living expenses.

Loans – Exercise your ability to take on debt carefully. There are definitely times when it makes sense. Do a calculation to see if being able to afford a more expensive school results in higher salaries and more opportunity. The payoff may be worth it but don’t go in to it without running the numbers.

To be continued- Part 2: Minimize your cost

Many of our Lucent Ed students opt for the unlimited revisions (great if you’re starting from scratch), and because of this new drive, there are significant improvements on student writing through the numerous revisions.  From the very first outline or draft to the final product where each letter and comma has been agonized over – there’s a huge transformation – in not just the essay, but in the skills of the writer.  Going through each revision, their questions become more thoughtful about everything from sentence structure to really articulating their aspirations, experiences, and emotions.  As a coach in this process, I love seeing the student grow in their writing and personally as they tackle how they’d like to convey themselves to the world (well, really admissions), sometimes for the first time.  It’s quite inspiring what they come up with, and it’s one of the primary reasons I love to be with Lucent Education.

-Agnes

Resolution-making has always been deemed a private affair – a conversation between the world-weary, present-day version with next year’s all-singing, all-dancing version 2.0. And perhaps, that’s where most resolutions die a lonely and secluded death – in our heads.

Having worked with several students this year, I’ve been able to witness first-hand some dreams coming true. Resolving to put our minds to achieving something significant is no easy task. However, formulating an action plan to tackle the hurdles along the way is even more daunting. And this is where we can use all the help we can get.

The simple act of sharing a resolution makes it so much more real. Having someone to merely acknowledge the possibility to achieving our new aims is a real confidence-booster.

Looking back at my 2012, I’ve been fortunate enough to witness several resolutions coming full circle. Through simple conversations and casual suggestions, I have seen ideas put into action with very encouraging outcomes.

This year, I’m resolving to share my resolutions. To tell my friends what I’m thinking and hoping to achieve. I hope you will too. Do drop us an e-mail to simply say hello or to sound out a potential school you might be interested in. We’re always happy to have a conversation – not too long ago, we were exactly where you were, dreaming those same dreams.

Don’t let those resolutions die a lonely death. Let’s have something to celebrate next year.

-Sui Seng

If you aren’t a little shy about showing your application to someone, then explore if you’ve gone deep enough to understand yourself.

In order to get our students to the place where they will shape their dreams, we go on a journey of self-discovery and exploration with them. This honestly, is the best part of the job of being an admissions consultant.

By helping you, I get to understand you in and out. I hear about your dreams and the trials you have overcome. It gives me great optimism and hope to hear about the intelligent young people and all the positive change they wish to bring in the world.

From changing the face of healthcare to improving the structure of state owned enterprises, these are truly inspiring dreams. Hearing these dreams makes me incredibly invested in getting the student in to school because I want to see these dreams happen. Listening to you makes it really difficult to be a pessimistic person and for this, I thank our students.

All we have to do now is make sure that your message touches anyone else who reads your essays.

-Tilia

Ok, the next section is the nitty gritty I mentioned above – it’s about fit.  What type of college, surrounding, environment will help you thrive and accomplish your future goals – that’s fit.  There are a ton of components to fit and what will be the “best” college to help you thrive.  First consider the items below and what your preferences might be.

• Size of the entering class/size of the campus
• Student Faculty Ratios
• Geography (how far from home?  City or rural? Seasons, Cloudy, or Sunny?)
• Cultural diversity
• Internship/job opportunities
• Study abroad/traveling opportunities
• Engaging curriculum, topics to study (experimental colleges, engineering with legos, Japanese Art History)
• Activities that match your interests (think: intramural sports, arts, orchestra, cultural clubs)
• Academic support services
• Career services (read: help with job interviews, recruiting, resume building)
• Campus safety
• Campus life (commuter students, residential, Greek life, etc)
• Health and wellness (read: food and exercise options)
• Alumni networks – what can the school do for you after you’re out

You now have a good idea of what types of schools you should be looking at.  Coupled with your test scores and school grades/ranking, you have a good idea of where you will fit on the spectrum.  For students looking to be at a more competitive or rigorous school, you might consider taking this information to the ranking reports and see which schools might be a good fit.  Others might use a resource like http://collegeapps.about.com/od/choosingacollege/u/choose_a_school.htm to narrow down on small class sizes, large campuses, or programs with a lot of academic support services.

Okay, I know that feels a bit backward because I haven’t yet talked about a good academic match.  Well that’s because for the majority of students don’t have a really specific niche yet and that’s because many students haven’t experienced enough to know what they don’t know about the opportunities in careers in the world.  For the majority of students, I’d recommend to know a general idea of the industry or job function you’d like to go into after college and narrow down the application list to those that have that type of program available (think broad: marketing = marketing, psychology, sociology; business = applied math, economics, business; teaching = child development, psychology, education).

If in the rare case you are one of those high school juniors/seniors that knows what they want to be – the above list is still something to think about, but you may want to apply the thought topics to list of schools that already exists of your specialized interest (music conservatories/colleges, programs with strong pre-med or combined degree programs, business schools, etc).

The next step after creating a solid list (the usual is between 7-12 schools) is visiting them (if you haven’t already) and making sure the schools are diversified in terms of possibilities for acceptance (reach schools vs match schools).

Good luck in finding a few great choices for your best fit!

The more difficult question to field was when asked what I wanted to do with a degree in Natural Science. I used to envy my friends who chose more conventional paths – you become an engineer after an engineering degree and a doctor after a medical one. Although it might seem blindingly obvious that the conclusion of a science degree would be to become a ‘scientist’, I had no idea what scientists actually do minus the crazy-haired, wild-eyed ones I saw on television bent on world-domination. And like every good college student, you ignore the problems you cannot answer and promise to ‘look into it’ some other time. And so I did, and looking back, I am quite thankful as it gave me the time and the freedom to actually enjoy the degree.

Although I did eventually end up becoming a ‘scientist’ of some sort, many of my friends did not. We went to the same dissection classes, the same microscopy workshops but many chose career paths that do not involve safety goggles and lab coats. Some became management consultants, putting the analytical skills they learnt in class to good use in the corporate world. Others joined the civil service, taking positions that involved structuring science policy in schools and universities. And there were others who decided to go to graduate school, eventually deciding that they wanted a career in medicine or law.

Others, like myself, chose to pursue a doctoral degree in the sciences, spending much of our time dedicated to full-time research with the final aim of providing a body of research which is novel and of intellectual value to the academic community. In real world terms, this actually accumulates to a lot of thinking, reading and talking to people about science. I discovered that I thoroughly enjoyed the process of identifying a relevant problem, thinking of the right questions to ask, designing the experiments to answer these questions and finally, to look at the answers and decide whether they are relevant to support your conclusion. Looking back, I guess it was not too big a surprise as I have always enjoyed observing nature in motion, be it the neighbors pets or the metabolism of a cancer cell.

So I was fortunate that I did eventually, find out what to do with my science degree. But what might you be able to do with yours?

There probably isn’t a single right answer for this, but I think the most accurate one is probably, anything you want! Choosing a major is declaring your interest at that point in time, with a strong conviction that you will be motivated to make the most out of it. Certainly do not take it to mean that you are bound to it. While there are very many science-related careers that might benefit from a science degree, there are as many or not more that are less conventional yet as relevant to using the skills you learnt in science. Having a trained scientific mind is an asset to be reckoned with. Science is driven by a curiosity to ask the simple questions about everyday occurrences and the tenacity to find a hypothesis to describe these observations consistently. These qualities are extremely valuable in any field and I strongly believe that if nothing else, my degree definitely taught me to never stop asking questions.

Go to college focused but with an open mind. Pursue what interests you most in the present and never stop talking to people about what they want for the future while thinking about your own. Take the time to ask yourself what you are good at and what to improve on. It’s what I did and hopefully, you too will arrive at the same conclusion as I did on what to do with your science degree.

The benefits that privilege bring start way beyond the time the application process starts. From personal tutors, to being a legacy applicant, the setbacks to those not in the 1% are numerous. The disparity between the have and have-nots are even more pronounced when it comes to the application process. Kids who can afford it fly around the country to visit schools. They send out multiple applications without any regard to application fees. Parents send their kids to private schools that have multiple counselors swarming all over their applications or pay tens of thousands of dollars for celebrity college admissions consultants.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with utilizing all the resources you have to put yourself in the best position possible. That said it does put others at a disadvantage which is what we hope to remedy at Lucent.

We worry about two things. First, that people who do not have those resources give up on attending top schools before applying. Second, that people who have limited resources will turn out worse applications because they lack the funds or network to get coaching, feedback, and support.

The first issue of giving up without trying, we try to remedy by telling stories of unlikely candidates who made it to top schools. We also give out scholarships to prospective students from disadvantaged backgrounds. Very often, we do free consultation sessions with people.

The second issue of resources limiting access to help, we solve by splitting up our services in to multiple segments of the admissions process.  Within the admissions process, most people are great at some things and not so great at others. There is absolutely no reason for you to pay someone to do something you are already great at! Therefore, by breaking up the process in to pieces, you only purchase help for parts where you are not confident. Instead of paying $10,000 for services you didn’t need, you end up paying $200 to focus on where you really needed help.

It sounds cliché, but we really care about getting you in to the best school you possibly can. Our billing is need based and we do what we can while taking in to consideration your financial constraints.

We hope that this article gives you a glimpse in to the minds of the people at Lucent Education and we look forward to helping you get in to your dream school.

Fast forward a decade and several degrees later, I have come to appreciate that a lot of what I am proud of today is a direct consequence of the unwavering support I have had from family and friends. Being able to pursue an interest unburdened by the expectation of ‘making something of it’ has unfortunately become a rare luxury in today’s increasingly competitive academic environment. The unbridled inflation of college admissions criteria makes a successful application seem more and more like the exclusive preserve of the wealthy and privileged.

This toxic mix of expectation and anxiety seemed a world away from what I was used to. When I met Agnes and Tilia, I was struck by how similar (and how much more enjoyable) our own experiences were. Lucent Education was borne of this dedication to make the admissions process not so much an examination, but more an affirmation of one’s educational experience. We did not see ourselves telling students what clubs to join, what sports to play and what books to read, because we believe you already know that. Instead, we envisioned ourselves as partners in the journey, providing the support, advice and opinions that we were all fortunate enough to have.

My personal motivation with Lucent is that with that small nudge in the right direction, your college admissions process would be one less wrought with insecurity and self-doubt. Going to college is the start of an amazing journey and it would be great to know the journey started from a collection of experience of your own choosing and a collection of circumstances on your own terms. We do hope that we can be the partner to reaffirm the belief that you have in your academic journey thus far.

-Sui Seng

This revelation, in conjunction with my other passion (I run a non-profit that has programs for children and families of all incomes), led me to where Lucent Education is right now.  Working with low-income families as a college student, I realized how income, circumstances, and lack of resources and knowledge affected a child’s success in preschool and then elementary school.  It just wasn’t fair that those with the income also had all of these other “tricks” in their bag to give their children the best possible chance at success.

I knew that the very young children I was working with could compete on a level playing field with those of middle or above incomes if the families just had the knowledge on how to acquire resources and the best possible education for their children.  These ideas translate to my passion for what we do at Lucent; I know that we can fill the gap in the knowledge and bring more “tricks” to a student’s bag that they may not have had access to otherwise.  I want to fill a gap in the application process that is affordable, high quality, and fits into the rest of the natural (and many times free!) college application mentors that are available to the typical high school senior.

-Agnes