Shark in the water preying on parents who are working through the college process for the first time. Always seems daunting, but all the info is out there for free. After signing a contract with College Solutions in what felt like a time share hard press meeting, I learned of better sources and backed out of the contract loosing hundreds of dollars. There is a seminar offered annually at South Portland high school by a professor from Colby College. That presentation was terrific and laid out the whole process in an understandable way. By all means, go to the College Solutions free seminar offered frequently around town. good info there too. You can build on your own from that free info. I think College solutions might be helpful for families with complex financial situations including where self employment or divorced parents are involved. Important to note that the College Solutions contract claims percentage fee for all financial aid received in future years by the student. Interesting that College Solutions offers very deep discount for the second child. Clearly, once you learn how basic the process is, and that College Solutions really cant do very much to influence the outcomes, nobody needs them for the second child. Based on my experience now working through my third child going to college, the basics to understand is the whole process is based on the FASFA. The schools your interested in will make their best offer which largely will depend on the FASFA financials, the student's high school academics, ACT/SAT scores, and diversity factors. There really is no negotiating at all. Look for the schools which you are interested in for their programs, distance from home, and feel (size, city vs rural, etc). Choose about 5 of them from a "stretch" to a "safety" school. Our experience is that most larger schools will come back with a package all at very similar cost. I have one child at UMaine and one at Kent State and paying virtually the same for each. Your biggest financial lever is high school grades. I Cant emphasize that enough. Your student can nearly out earn the parents during the high school years in the value of scholarships they can earn by getting to top of their class and participating in extracurricular programs. Forget having your student work flipping burgers. They earn way more in their job as a student, and gain all the work ethic they will ever need toward a professional career by getting straight As, playing on a team, and doing community service. By the way, you cant go wrong with UMaine. A great school in a great location not too far from home. And very flexible for in state admissions. Cant say enough good about Kent State in Ohio either. From beginning to end I think one of the best kept college secrets. Good luck! read more

Prior reviews are missing a very important point which is made clear during the first meeting. This isn't a scholarship/grant locating service. This is a service that helps you manage the process and identifies best fit schools (both financially, academically as well as the "feel"-wise). Kim has a ton of experience and is great at getting the kids to attempt to figure out what they want. With both of us parents working full time, her help was huge. She kept us on schedule, pointed out important things, helped us identify schools with better funding, and was the "voice of reason" to our daughter when it came to make a decision between two final options. We are getting her help for our second child. Very happy. read more

They prey on parents that are looking for help selecting the right school at the right price. Jeff Morrison is nothing more then a car salesman. He is all talk until he gets your credit card number before you leave his office. We thought we were buying a time share.. I bet he does not know where our daughter went to school or that we paid full price. He did not even bother trying to find us money.. Stay away!!! Pick someone else.. Someone that does care. read more

I had the same experience as Kim T. I paid Jeff a large sum of money with the objective of finding grants and funding for my education, but never heard from him again. I would definitely advise against going to him; you're better off saving the money for tuition. read more

They are crooks , liars and cheats taking advantage of parents overwhelmed by the complicated college search and application process . You are generally conned into signing up with them by their " clients " who have a monetary interest in herding in other unsuspecting parents , as they are promised a relief of 200$ per new customer / client .After promising you the best colleges with the most financial aid and scholarships and making you sign on a contract the small print of which stipulates you continue to pay them $ 200- $ 400 every year for the duration that your kids are in college and receiving anything above $ 2000.even of it is merit scholarship which has nothing to do with them, ( of course , conveniently, later Jeff declared that " we are not in the scholarship finding business" when pressed to elaborate on specifics of the process !) All Jeff and his minions do is match your kids profile with colleges a tier or so beneath them , generally a few states away if you prefer your kids to be NEAR home and much, much further if not , and then push you to go ED there ! Mind you , they have already made you prepay for their "services" which they assure you cover everything and proclaim that NEVER have they had to spend more than 7 hours with any of their student clients so over billing beyond their guaranteed 7-8 hours is unheard of !They discouraged our kids to apply to first tier colleges in our own state or in any neighboring / New England states, in the most unseemly way. They misguided us on financial information submission issues, spent less than 4 hours with one kid and then billed us for 10 plus hours when we indicated our displeasure with them and requested a refund of our prepayment for our son who had not yet even started the process with them . they refused to refund us the $ 1500 ! Stay away from these crooks . Your school guidance and some college search books are infinitely better than these thugs ! (Our daughter did apply to four first tier colleges , despite their instructions , and was accepted by them all !!) read more

Abhorrently dishonest business practices at the time I was a client. Proprietor Jeff Morrison (God rest his soul..) offered to get me a better financial aid package from a comparable school to the one I was currently attending, or "my money back" after he had given his "timeshare" act, as others have put it. My family thought, "What have we got to lose? He offered a money back guarantee." Well, dealing with him and his business was an absolute nightmare, and the story deserves telling. Sadly, it seems we were not the only ones who tried to buy the bridge he was selling. Simply, Mr. Morrison failed to do what he said he would do. Just after I found out the financial aid packages I had received were many thousands of dollars below the package he agreed to get or refund me, he went on "vacation". This was right before school was to start, so I had to negotiate a scholarship package MYSELF. That is specifically what I had paid him to do! Essentially, the only tangible things he and his family did were file applications I could have easily done myself and scheduled a meeting with a college recruiter. He entirely failed to do what he offered to do in our agreement, so I informed him I was requesting my money back based on our verbal contract. He and his wife not only denied this ever occurred (an absolute lie from Mr. Morrison) but responded with a threat to charge me more for him sitting on his behind and "going on vacation" during a time he was supposed to work with/for me. Had I not left the area at the time this occurred, he would have been sued for breach of contract and had a story in the local news about his "business". Absolutely despicable. read more