Finished with all your college applications??? Not quite!!
The big ‘crunch’ of applications through December/mid-January is over. You did it! With at least 8 applications filed, you can sit back now and try to calm the gnawing anxiety as you await the announcements of accept/deny decisions from your colleges, in late March/April 1st. So is that all you can do?? By no means! [...]
Read On No CommentsTaking a GAP year!
Initially, the gap year concept was foreign to me. I am naturally an independent and adventurous person, which is how I ended up at boarding school in the first place. Nonetheless, I felt intimidated by the realness of the opportunity to “gap it.” Not go to college right away? What? No one does that. After [...]
Doing school: the gap between high school education and college admissions
Many of you will have heard me complain rather cynically about the distance between colleges’ expressed expectations for high school students and the reality of highly selective college admissions. That gap leaves students feeling funneled into an intensely functionalist view of their education even as they are also subjected to rhetoric about passion and intellectual [...]
From junior year to college admissions
For the last few months high school juniors stood by as seniors wrestled with college applications, stressed about choices, and finally, exhaled as they picked their colleges. Now the focus shifts and it is their turn to get ready for the wild ride towards college. Given how early the application process happens in the academic [...]
College Goals Spring Travels . . .
College Goals consultants will be in Europe and the U.K. between March 19 – April 9. Joyce Reed and Andrea van Niekerk will give four public presentations in Paris between March 22-24. They will address such topics as ‘Why Study in the United States?’, ‘The College Search and Application Process’, and ‘College Matchmaking: How Students [...]
Summer Studies . . .
Summer vacation is when we take a deep breath after a long year and relish a sense of wellbeing after the strains of the school year. We vegetate mindlessly in the sun and we laze days away in a hammock. But we also catch up on our reading, argue with friends about ideas that have [...]
How to Thank Your College Recommenders
(Source: Adapted from ideas provided on the following website: http://www.shmoop.com/college/how-thank-recommenders.html) The best part about asking a teacher, coach or mentor to serve as your recommender is that you get to thank them afterwards. Knowing this makes asking for their help a bit easier – if you have a good plan in mind to express your [...]
“Finding The Shoe That Fits”: Putting yourself at the centre of your college search
I suspect that if I ask for a show of hands, there will be an unusually large number of parents here who applied to and attended universities in other countries. Coming from those foreign countries of ours, we tend to be particularly struck here in the US by the sheer number of colleges available for [...]
College Goals at UK & EU College Fairs
We wanted to let everyone know that one of our College Goals consultants, Gail Lewis, will be visiting the UK and several cities in Europe in the coming weeks. Gail will be representing College Goals at USA College Day in London on Saturday, September 25. This is a major gathering of college representatives from over [...]