David Altshuler, M.S.
(305) 978-8917 | [email protected]

Category: College Admissions

Pressure

We don’t put pressure on our daughter. We never said you must get good grades. We always emphasized that we love her for who she is not what she does. Yet somehow she has internalized this perfectionism. I don’t know where she gets this harmful idea. She studies till all

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Disclosure

Kids have always wanted to be heard, don’t you think? Adolescents want to find their place in the world, find themselves, find out where they belong and with whom. And then once they have found that spot, they want to communicate their allegiance, participation, connection. Isn’t that what the dyed

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R. O. I.

Student loan forgiveness has been a national discussion recently. My colleagues in the independent counseling world have been penning insightful posts about the subject. My limited understanding of the arguments on both sides is as follows: in favor, “student debt is onerous and unfair.” Against, “hard working folks shouldn’t have

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Whirled View

That parents are out of control about where their kids go to college is not news. If the Varsity Blues Sadness teaches us anything, it is that folks will cough up $500,000 to help Buffy and Scooter scam admissions officers at U.S.C. of all places. I have written repeatedly about

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The Needle and the Damage Done

Counselor: Nice to know you. How can I help? Concerned High School Junior: Should I sign up for calculus next year or take statistics? Counselor: Are you interested in science or technology fields, in which case you might want to take calculus, or do you think you might end up

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World View

The Klingons have been transported aboard the Enterprise. Tension is high, mistrust ubiquitous, hostilities imminent. An alien life force that feeds on intense emotion has replaced futuristic weapons with bloodier antecedents. Knives, swords, and spears abound. The explicitly wounded are avenged, but in ways unknown to even 25th century science,

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Superhero

Is mentioning that the stars of the most recent Spider-Man film introduce the movie by saying, “no spoilers” in itself a spoiler of some kind, a “meta-spoiler” perhaps? If so, read no further. Because I’m going to mention another aspect of the cinematic experience. Hopefully, the 20 million people who

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Steps

Parson D’Ascoynes: How do you find the wine? Louis Mazzini: Admirable. Parson D’Ascoynes: Cockburn ’79. Louis Mazzini: Oh. Parson D’Ascoynes: No finer year, in my view. My doctor though, is of a different opinion. Louis Mazzini: And what does he favor? Parson D’Ascoynes: Abstinence. Abstinence indeed. Easy to articulate, harder

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Standing

Who gets to say what? Under what circumstances? When are opinions warranted? When should we keep our mouths shut? Does being right matter? Is the relationship between parent and child more cogent than knowledge and authority? I got well-deserved pushback on two articles last month. I wrote about eating disorders

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Same Old

One of my snarky children—oh, wait: that would be all of them—remarked that there are only four topics that I write about on this blog. “There’s a fourth topic?” one of the little cherubim piped up. “You read dad’s blog?” queried another. “It’s the same thing every week,” said the

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Copyright © David Altshuler 1980 – 2022    |    Miami, FL • Charlotte, NC     |    (305) 978-8917    |    [email protected]