The COVID-Induced College Conundrum

In mid-March 2020, under threats to public health associated with the novel coronavirus, COVID-19, government officials acted swiftly, instituting a series of closures that disrupted our lives, especially for college students who were summarily sent back to their childhood homes, halting their coming of age process. As of May 2020, officials believing the worst was…

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Best Wishes For Fall 2020!

We’re grateful each fall to collaborate with undergraduate and graduate school applicants to help them gain a greater confidence in their inherent abilities as defined by the totality of their experiences in order to effectively complete the college admisisons process, thus increasing the likelihood of obtaining value in their educational investment. May all have continued…

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Put Down Your #2 Pencils: The University of California Eliminates SAT/ACT Scores, Comprehensive Review, Part 5

As the UC eliminated the SAT and ACT testing requirement for Fall 2021 and beyond, the subjectivity in the admissions evaluations will likely increase, as admissions officers will interpret applicants’ qualifications for admissions without the more objective test scores as a metric. In this fifth installment in the series about the University of California’s (UC)…

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College Tours Reimagined

Typically during summer, parents add “Visit College Campuses” to their family vacation itineraries. Many parents will exclaim in rationalizing college visits, “I want to expose my kid to college life, since they don’t have an idea what college actually is.” Translation: parents want to impel their children to start the college application process, sometimes well…

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“When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary…”

On this July Fourth, to commemorate the actions of those revolutionaries who eloquently proclaimed the separation of the Thirteen Colonies from Great Britain as set forth in the Declaration of Independence, we recall the legacy of liberty we inherent and recommit to honor their actions by striving to realize freedom in all our affairs.  Realizing…

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College Modified

College administrators are proposing two scenarios for the 2020-21 school year, first, a hybrid model of modified residential on-campus living +  online instruction + limited in-person instruction and secondly, continuing distance learning with no on-campus residency. With either model, students’ college experience is severely curtailed.  Incoming UCLA freshmen, who are not able to acquire housing,…

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Put Down Your #2 Pencils: The University of California Eliminates SAT/ACT Scores…Sorta: Part 4

In a series of posts, I’m analyzing how University of California admissions officers will utilize the 14 Comprehensive Review factors to select incoming first year and transfer classes for Fall 2021, in light of SAT/ACT scores no longer being required for application. In the first post, I discussed GPA and grades, while in the second post, I…

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Empty or Empty-less Nest Interrupted

In mid-March 2020, due to lockdowns (shelter-in-place orders) implemented often helter-skelter throughout the nation and around the globe, parents welcomed their college students who were sent home to their childhood bedrooms. Back home, living under the same roof simultaneously forced the transformation of the parent-adult children dynamic (when the child is no longer a child),…

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