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

Category: College Admissions

Will the be on the Test?

“Why do we have to know this?” “How will this help us in life?” “Will this be on the test?” All teachers endure these questions. All teachers hate these questions. Teachers have a variety of ineffectual responses–possibly because they are blinded by disgust and hatred. Some rejoinders are forceful: You must

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The Best Exercise

A young adult I know recently completed his DPT, Doctor of Physical Therapy. As a result of his degree, he is now inundated with a repeated query. Everyone wants to stay healthy. Everyone is concerned with getting infected. So everyone asks the same question: what is the best exercise? Is

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You Never Know

“You never know” suggest the strategists tasked with separating you from your dollar. Those designing lottery adverts are compensated by their success. “You never know” is an enticing campaign. The implication—that you might win a million dollars and be able to significantly pay down your credit card debt—is clear. You

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Personal Statement

High school juniors are currently struggling with college application essays. Nobody enjoys writing to begin with. If anybody did enjoy writing, that person would not be an adolescent effervescing over the crafting of a personal statements for admissions and in the extraordinarily unlikely eventuality that anybody enjoyed writing personal statements,

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Soccer Bombs

Once upon a gentler time before “Kill the Ref!” became the norm, parents used to chat amicably on the sidelines while their little ones imitated hordes of lemmings on the soccer pitch. Adorable seven-year-olds would flock gleefully around a careening ball. Comfortably ensconced on lawn chairs, moms and dads would

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Congratulations?

In the mid 1950s, my grandparents bought a 700-square foot two-bedroom, one-bath, summer home in western North Carolina. They paid $5000. Their first visitor considered the shoddy construction, the 25-foot wide lot, the peeling paint, the obscure location hundreds of miles from Brooklyn and the rest of the known universe.

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Gradual School

John Irving’s character, Garp, defined gradual school as “where you go to school and you gradually find out you don’t want to go to school anymore.“ I, to the contrary, loved graduate school, would still be there if I could. The coursework, professors, and colleagues were invariably awesome. What could

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Loser

A silver medal in the Olympics is better than a bronze medal. Duh. Second place is better–by any reasonable definition of the word “better”–than third place. Given a choice, wouldn’t you want to stand higher on the podium? You certainly would want your child to be second rather than third

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Uncommon Divisors

Division is my thing. I love how a dollar can be perfectly divided into four equal parts each one of which has its own name, a quarter. I love seven as a denominator. The repeating six digits have an eloquent pattern. One seventh equals .142857… Two sevenths is .285714… It’s

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Reject

Fixating on only one potential romantic partner leads nowhere good. Ooh, I love her so much, I’ll never be content with anyone else is the voice of a wallowing adolescent not a rational adult. The reality is that my unrequited affection for Sophia Vergara is my problem–not hers. She will live a

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