Posts by Michael Trivette:

2018 College Admission Rates: Is Getting Into College Harder Than Ever Before?

Posted on: 17 May 2018

The results from the 2017-18 admissions cycle are still rolling in, but the data available thus far sends one very clear message—acceptance rates at highly-selective colleges are dwindling. Ivy League results The numbers at Ivy League schools were already so minuscule that this year’s decreases are only a matter of decimals: Princeton fell from 6.1% […]

Best Careers for 2020 and Beyond: Healthcare

Posted on: 21 Mar 2015

Our “So you want to be a…” series was designed to help career-minded high school students think about the financial, academic, and personal factors one should consider when exploring traditional professions such as engineering, law, medicine, and teaching. As a supplement, our Best Careers for 2020 and Beyond series will profile careers in various fields […]

Earning admission into graduate school: Does undergraduate “brand” matter?

Posted on: 05 Jun 2014

In recent posts, we urged students to approach the college admission process with a “big picture” perspective and to consider long-term goals before “breaking the bank” on an expensive elite college, particularly if they had plans to pursue a profession that required graduate schooling.  We cited medicine, law, and even business, and asserted that employers […]

Is There a Private School Advantage in College Admissions?

Posted on: 29 Mar 2014

Prior to the 1920s, attendance at a top-flight prep school was nothing less than a prerequisite for admission into an Ivy League college.

What students should know about the new SAT

Posted on: 07 Mar 2014

This past week, College Board president, David Coleman, announced plans for a major SAT overhaul.  The new SAT, which will be introduced in 2016, aims to realign with the “work of our high schools” and more accurately assess what students should be learning before college.  Much of the commentary around Coleman’s recent announcement has been […]

What to do if you’re deferred

Posted on: 26 Dec 2013

Deferred.  It’s a word that every early applicant dreads. Neither accepted nor denied, deferred students often feel as if they have been banished to college admissions purgatory, sentenced to a state of suffering and uncertainty from which they can do nothing to extricate themselves. Fortunately, deferment is not the hopeless state of limbo it appears […]

About That D in Freshman English…

Posted on: 02 Dec 2013

If your high school career has been an uninterrupted parade of top notch grades, near perfect standardized test scores, and saintly behavior then you can stop reading… Except you probably won’t since you perfectionists like to finish every single thing you start, right? Academic blemishes come in all shapes and sizes, from bombing sophomore year […]

Showing Colleges Some Love: How to Demonstrate Interest in Your Prospective Schools and (Perhaps) Earn Admission in the Process

Posted on: 10 Sep 2013

As colleges move to data-driven means of tracking information on prospective students, they have become increasingly savvy about predicting enrollment behavior and gauging an applicant’s true level of interest.  Schools often refer to this as the “interest quotient,” and admitting students with high scores on this measure can improve a college’s yield rate, and in turn, […]