Waiting on the waitlist
High school seniors have opened the envelopes, received emails or logged into websites to discover the result of their college applications. For many the news was very good or very bad – they were admitted to a college and have a decision to make, or that college will no longer be on the menu because [...]
Read On No CommentsAlmost there: the academic performance of accepted students
With March well on its way, many high school seniors have either been accepted into Early application schools or are beginning to receive acceptance letters from their Regular decision colleges. After the celebration and relief, some will begin to believe they are in fact already in college and that high school is, well, so last [...]
14 Tips for good college visits
With spring break ahead, many families are planning campus visits with their juniors and sophomores. Demonstrating your interest to a college by visiting the campus is a good thing, but not the most important reason for the visit. Rather, you are exploring a place where you may choose to spend four years of your life, [...]
College Goals on the Road!
Come meet College Goals’ founder and director, Joyce Reed, and her colleague, Andrea van Niekerk, in Paris this month! They will offer evening presentations at the American Church of Paris on Tuesday March 20th at 7 PM, Wednesday March 21st at 7:30 PM, and on Friday March 23rd at 7 PM. Joyce and Andrea will [...]
Building an education: engineering and college admissions
Gordon Brown, former Dean of Engineering at MIT, described engineers as operating at “the interface between science and society.” They apply science to convert resources and solve problems to the benefit of humankind. No wonder then that many young people, without knowing much about the field at all, are still drawn to it when they [...]
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! [...]
Taking 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 [...]