Posted on: 01 Sep 2015
As private college counselors, we are well-versed in the criticisms of school-based counseling. Unavailable, inexperienced, misinformed—these are the words that some within our industry often use to describe the professionals who work hardest to establish safe and supportive learning environments for our children. Research consistently shows that school counselors improve the academic achievement, health and […]
Posted on: 10 Aug 2015
One of the most memorable essays I ever read was written by a student we’ll call Sam, a rising high school senior from Massachusetts. He had written at least a dozen drafts trying to rehash his impressive résumé as a computer science whiz, and despite my urging to try a different approach, he was insistent […]
Posted on: 24 Jul 2015
A few weeks ago, I wandered across a blog post titled “How Understanding ‘Toy Story’ Can Get You into College.” As a lifelong Pixar fan, I was intrigued by the title and eager to see how the author advised college-bound writers to apply a well-known plot structure to writing an admissions essay. While the author […]
Posted on: 15 Jul 2015
Now that you understand what research has to say about the contextual and often-limited benefits of attending a highly-selective school, you may have opened your mind to a few less competitive yet wonderful institutions. However, we’ve worked with enough cream of the crop high school superstars to know that for many, the lure of prestige […]
Posted on: 01 May 2015
We begin with an analogy. Three racehorses: Cream of the Crop, Above Average, and Run of the Mill are selected by three trainers of varying quality to prepare for the Kentucky Derby. Trainer A is world-renowned, highly sought-after and thus has his pick of the litter. Without hesitation, he scoops up Cream of the Crop […]
Posted on: 04 Feb 2015
A simplistic view of higher education is that people emerge from four years of college with a specific skill related to their primary area of study: Education majors learn how to teach, accounting majors learn how to crunch numbers, allied health majors learn skills particular to the healthcare profession, and so on down line. Yet, […]
Posted on: 19 Jan 2015
Particular adjectives frequently accompany sound bites and headlines on the topic of student loan debt—“crippling,” “burdensome,” and “overwhelming,” just to name a few. Student loan debt is a “crisis,” people are drowning in it, and it is seen as a threat to the economy at large. It is hard not to come away with an […]
Posted on: 14 Nov 2014
Inside Higher Ed, one of higher education’s leading news outlets, recently conducted a nationwide survey of college admission directors. The newly-released results are shocking, and reveal a profession entirely different than that portrayed in popular media. Instead of sifting through an excess of qualified applicants, most admissions officers will spend this fall trying unsuccessfully to […]