Category: College Admissions

Forty-something years ago I was attracted to a college classmate. After our literature seminar, we chatted about the novels we wanted to write as adults. “We liked the same music, we liked the same bands, we liked the same clothes.” It seemed like we had a lot in common. But

There’s always hope. Nah. Not really. Not always. At a recent meeting of pre-meds at a university whose name you would recognize, the panel of actual medical students and genuine doctors gave advice to the aspiring (“slathering” has such unfortunate connotations) physicians. Phrases were bandied about like Frisbees at a

Not that it matters to most students, or most universities for that matter, but several hundred test-takers score a 1600 on the SAT each year. Some of these kiddos with “perfect” scores are admitted to highly competitive colleges (HSCs), some not. As one HSC admissions counselor pointed out, “we could

Colleges are businesses. Colleges are businesses with some nice folks trying to good things, but colleges are businesses nonetheless. Colleges aren’t creepy dishonest businesses like Enron, but somebody at the college is aware that income should exceed expenses. Just as a chicken is in egg’s way of making another egg,

At a recent conference in New Orleans I had the mixed pleasure of reconnecting with an old college friend who had apparently never heard of “never mix, never worry.” I learned from colleagues that Stacie had started with Kahlua and coffee at lunch and had slurped an entire bottle of

1) James won his age group in a small local race recently. He ran 10 kilometers in 50 minutes. How great is that? Of course, many of the more talented runners were contesting other distances–half and full marathons–so the competition was modest. Just the same, James won in the 60-64

“Yesterday, I saw the sun rise and the sun set from the same chair.” As the risk of missing the point, I replied, “Must be quite a chair.” “Yeah well, everybody studies hard,” Chad went on. “It’s not competitive necessarily. It’s just that the tests are fairly thorough.” “Thorough,” I

Given how busy everyone is lately I thought I might take the liberty of writing a couple of speeches for you. I know it may seem like the wedding of your son is some years away, but tempus seems to keep on fugit-ing, whatever that means, so let’s not wait

There may be some child somewhere for whom higher SAT scores will be important in the college admissions process. For your child, the chances are that higher SAT scores won’t matter at all in determining where she is admitted. Bold statements, I know. But after 30-something years of counseling students