November 2026

It’s finally feeling like autumn. The temperatures here in Houston have “cooled down” to highs in the mid-80s. With the time change, it’s getting dark earlier. The baseball season is over, and Halloween has already passed. And November 1st Early Action and Early Decision deadlines have also passed, which means my October busiest season is over. There are still plenty of applications to go, but all my senior clients have got their Common Application completely filled and an essay complete. Congratulations to everyone who has already sent out some applications, and really big congratulations to everyone who has already got acceptances coming in. It’s an exciting time!

—Benjamin

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Here’s what I covered on the site in October:

Talk to your family about money. Soon. There’s a line, or at least a range, between your family saying “yes, we can afford that” and “no, we can’t afford that.” There’s a line, or at least a range, between “yes, that’s an acceptable amount of debt” and “no, that’s too much to borrow.” There’s a line, or at least a range, between “I can work after school to cover that cost” and “I can’t make that much money on top of full-time school.”

Here are some blog posts from the archive that seem good for this November:

Colleges don’t give you money. Pretty much everyone, myself included, goes along with the idea that financial aid is money that the colleges are giving away. We use the verbs “give” and “offer” all the time. If the sticker price is $50,000 and the price that you’ll be charged is $25,000, then they “gave” you $25,000 in aid. You might contact them to see if they can “offer” you more. And that $25,000 is real. It’s money that you’re not paying, and it makes a huge difference in your life. But it’s not money that they’re giving you, it’s just a discount on what they charge you.

What do you want to be easier? College doesn’t automatically or effortlessly deliver you to your goals. What it does is make you more effective and more efficient at reaching your goals. College doesn’t make things good; it makes things easier. To find the best colleges for you, spend time thinking about what you want to be easier. It’s not as simple as it sounds.

Supplemental writing: looking forward and looking back. When you first approach the prompts and begin to decide how to respond, ask yourself if the prompt is asking you to look back or look forward. Some common supplemental prompts ask you to look back on the near past. Other prompts ask you to look forward and anticipate the future.