Why American Students Should Consider Pursuing a Full Undergraduate Degree Abroad
“Happy Birthday, Study Abroad! – Packing for One Year vs. Four” While the year 2023 will go down in history for many memorable events both notorious and noteworthy, you may not know that 2023 also marks the 100th anniversary of the first fully accredited study abroad program at a U.S. university! And, did you know […]
Write on: Organize your Essay Writing Early!
American universities love essays. Our College Planning Chair and Chief Outreach Officer for Student and Family Engagement Peter Olrich shares a video with tips for identifying and organizing all the essay writing you’ll need to do as part of your application process. Even when applying through the Common Application, there are many additional college-specific essays […]
SCOTUS Race-Conscious Admissions Ruling’s Impact on College and Independent School Admissions
Yesterday, as expected, SCOTUS struck down existing race-based admissions policies, deeming “many universities have for too long wrongly concluded that the touchstone of an individual’s identity is not challenges bested, skills built, or lessons learned, but the color of their skin.” The historical and cultural impact of yesterday’s decision can neither be understated nor fully […]
Don’t Forget to Read this Summer. Your Brain Depends on It!
Read. Read. Read. It’s advice given ad infinitum to children from preschool all the way through high school. There are well documented reasons that back up this recommendation, some of which I mention below. But now that summer is upon us, it’s a great opportunity to set aside some time each day – say 15-20 […]
What You Need to Know: 2022 College Trends and Predictions for 2023
In 2022, our team of 18 college counselors loved getting back on the road, zigzagging across the country to revisit campuses throughout the U.S., as well as many universities in Europe, Canada and the UK, that had been available to us only via video touring during COVID restrictions. Right now we are enjoying the the […]
The Joy is in the Planning
What I love about camping isn’t just the camping itself, it’s the lead up. It’s selecting the site, expertly crafting the cooler friendly grocery list, and in my case, it’s also climbing into the stifling attic to sweat it out, while carefully handing down each camping necessity to my husband, standing at the base of […]
Thinking About a Gap Year?
The real adventure of any gap year is facing a vast array of choices, making a bold move in one direction at a time, and then getting real-world feedback in the form of joys and sorrows, beautiful sunsets and missed travel connections. The lessons from this adventure, lived and repeated each day, are what make […]
We Are Pleased to Offer You A Place On Our Waitlist
After weeks of waiting, March 10 finally arrives and throngs of aspiring independent school candidates learn their fate. Predictably, there is elation for the admitted, and sorrow for the denied. But for a select few there is, “We are pleased to offer you a place on our waitlist.” For the aspirants who receive an invitation […]
Tips for those contemplating a college transfer
In the world of admissions, “to everything – turn, turn, turn; there is a season – turn, turn, turn.” Right now, many colleges are in the midst of the transfer season when applications from students who are enrolled at other colleges start to be submitted prior to the most prevalent deadline of March 1st. Here […]
London Calling! Top Ten Reasons to Cross the Pond for College
Depending on how helplessly you have succumbed to your Netflix binge of The Crown, somewhere between The Queen’s flirtation with horse expert Porchie and Princess Margaret’s sizzling encounter with photographer Tony you may find yourself longing for a visit to jolly olde England. Americans have always been enchanted with red phone booths, kilts, The Beatles, […]
The Value in Attending College Fairs
College Fairs happen throughout the course of the year and can be invaluable to the college review process. Benefits include: If there are colleges that you might be interested attending a college fair, do some careful research before you attend the fair(s). When you are there, If you cannot attend because you are playing a […]
Tour D’Admission: Part I Getting Started and Feeling Like a Freshman
This past summer, I experienced my first “Tour D’Admission.” Like the more famous “Tour de France,” it involves cycling but instead of 23 grueling days of professional racing covering over 2,000 miles from the Pyrenees to the Alps to the Champs-Elysees, the Tour d’Admission consists of one week of educational counselors covering a couple hundred […]
Looking to be Surrounded by High-Achieving and Driven Students Like You?
Public Universities’ Small Honors Colleges Looking for a small college feel in a bigger university setting? Looking for smaller classes with professors who are invested in you and your growth as a student? Looking to have less debt when you graduate? Looking to attend a college where you know you will make many connections without […]
Developing the Right Questions to Research Schools and Colleges
Eager to find out more about a potential school or college? Prepping for a campus visit or interview? The road to inquiry begins with asking the right questions. Way back in my days of prepping to be a journalist in college, we were introduced to a basic exercise and key words to facilitate our preparation […]
Tour D’Admission: Part II Two Small States but Large Enough to Have Colleges for Nearly Everyone
My previous blog left off as my fellow tour participants and I were bicycling from Trinity College in Hartford, CT to Wesleyan University in Middletown, CT on the first leg of the 2016 Tour D’Admission. After my inauspicious start, I did settle in and felt comfortable riding along with the other seven college counselors, all […]
The Power of the Passport
With the recent presidential election in the United States, many of our families living abroad have asked how international students will be received at American colleges and universities in the future. Will visas continued to be issued? Will it be safe to live and study in the U.S.? Will the same opportunities that have afforded […]
Toxic Stress is Crushing More Than Just Our Kids: Turning Outrage Into Compassion
In the right doses, stress builds healthy and productive skills that allow us to survive adversity and even thrive in challenging conditions. Yes, above and beyond the survival instincts of flight and fight, stress can activate our arousal system, allowing us to access our higher-order thinking capacities so that we can problem-solve efficiently and effectively, […]
Brilliant Teenagers from BUILD Offered College Counseling
Desiree dreams of becoming a vet; Ramon’s intent on joining the Marines; Rosa fills notebooks in hopes of becoming a poet. All three are high school sophomores in BUILD, a program geared at securing college educations for at-risk, inner-city Boston youth. (I’ve changed the students’ names.) Twenty students from BUILD visited our Back Bay offices […]
Proper Balance Between Specialization and a Holistic Experience
The beauty is finding the right fit, the natural fit. To be perfect, you have to feel perfect about yourself. This quotation from NY Times best selling author Rick Riordan best describes my experience as a presenter and attendee at the Small Boarding Schools Association Conference in Florida last week. The sentiment mirrors the mantra […]
Colleges that Change Students’ Lives
If the title of this book and website does not hook you, then perhaps the “essential elements” of the colleges included will: “These schools share two essential elements: a familial sense of communal enterprise that gets students heavily involved in cooperative rather than competitive learning, and a faculty of scholars devoted to helping young people […]
Filling the Developmental Tool Kit When Your Child Hits the Wall
When your child’s capacity hits its limits: it’s time to withhold judgement & fill the developmental tool kit. “He just isn’t motivated.” “She is so obsessed with the social scene she can’t reach her academic potential.” “He used to be such a happy kid.” “She used to love learning.” These are the observations regularly shared […]
The Route to the Right Career
So in the long run, who is better off? Those who decide on a clear career path at an early age and then stick to it? Or those who take their time and follow a more roundabout route before finding the right career? Even though a straight-line path might seem easier, is the only route […]
Click Deeper Into College Websites
Don’t all the smiling students and lush campuses splashed across college websites look the same? In truth, you’ve got to click deep into a site to discover distinguishing features. Think of the website more as a way to interact with a school than to size it up the way you once would with a shiny […]
Finding Wisdom in Knowledge
W.I.N. for Athletic Recruits W.I.N. is a simple but powerful acronym that comes from the famous Notre Dame football coach Lou Holtz. It stands for ‘What’s Important Now?’ As student-athletes roll into summer, the checklist for W.I.N. items is simple, but equally meaningful and important. We already know that the “secret” to recruiting is NOT […]