Every Spring, students and parents confront the subjectivity of the college admissions process, where “No’s”, “Yes’s” or “Maybe’s”, are all equally unexplainable, given the complexity inherent to the admissions evaluation process. Thousands upon thousands of applicants are evaluated in under five months, read multiple times by at least two different individuals, who are all susceptible…
The idea of Zoom fatigue isn’t Gen Z’s contribution to the long list of complaints about school. It’s real. Dr. Jeremy Bailenson and his team at Stanford’s Virtual Human Interaction Lab explain why Zooming is fatiguing even though we’re sitting in a single place, typically comfortable at home, talking or listening to others. First, we’re…
To be ready to choose a college, I liberally estimate that a 17 year old high school senior has: Spent approximately 12,760 hours attending school since Pre-K, Completed an estimated 2,376 hours of homework just during four years high school (assuming an average of three hours of homework on school days and six hours per…
To assist the diversity of high school seniors and their families as they seek the greatest value in higher education, we offer a variety of retainers which are a culmination of our nearly twenty years of practice as educational consultants, as well as our understanding of the current trends in education. Seeking higher education isn’t…
Parents routinely ask how many hours of community service their kids must complete in order to be competitive in the college admissions process, essentially commoditizing generosity for their personal gain, which is at odds with serving the needs of others. What, then, is community service and why can volunteerism be included in the college admissions…
Waitlist offers—the no man’s land of college admissions, an offer for the B Team, a “we’ll call you, don’t call us”—hope and doubt all wrapped up in a single “Maybe”. Students, although navigating through the emotion of wondering why one wasn’t quite “good enough”, can still lobby for an offer of admissions. But, should they? …
More K-12 school administrators are either preparing or have already reopen(ed) school campuses amidst subsiding COVID related health concerns, declining infections, hospitalizations and deaths. Of course, variants (viruses evolve) or declining vaccination rates leading to worsening infection, hospitalization and even death rates, would lead to a likely-swift reversal of school reopenings. Reopen, yes, but not…
Students and their parents worry, as is often the case in this springtime of year, about who will be admitted and/or rejected at what college, believing that the outcome of a meritocratic, formulaic decision making process that defines winners (those accepted) and losers (those denied) is the final arbiter of who succeeds in life and…
To learn effectively is to practice humility, to admit how little we know, and recognizing the cost of remaining ignorant is the antidote to pride and the beginning of the journey of discovery, fueled by curiosity which results in the acquisition of knowledge which applied in a continuous collaboration with others who are willing, results…
I recently zoom’d with Dr. Will Davenport for The Dr. Will Show podcast about how to find value in education. Take a listen and share with others who are seeking guidance as they help their children discover their life’s purpose. To learn more how Jill and other experts at Creative Marbles Consultancy, a full service…
In spring when high school juniors begin devising their lists of colleges in preparation for fall applications, panic can quickly arise, when asked the typical first question, “What do you want to study in college?” which to a teenager translates to: “I must choose a career, right now at seventeenish years old, sign my name…
A new 650 word Common Application (bolded in the list below) essay prompt is being added for Fall 2022 admissions, as a replacement for one prompt being “retired”. Regardless of any prompt chosen, I recommend to avoid approaching the college essay as yet another school assignment, where students try to write and edit simultaneously, crafting…
Dear Chancellor Castro: I respectfully seek clarification about the suspended requirement to submit SAT or ACT scores for Fall 2022 admissions, concerned that Fall 2022 applicants may wrongly assess their opportunities for admissions, thus potentially affecting their decision to submit a CSU application. In preparing to advise clients about Fall 2022 admissions, I noted a…
Two income families have become synonymous with modern parenting. Yet, in the recent COVID-induced economic disruption, when women are more likely to be unemployed or underemployed than men, the family dynamic may also be shifting. ….by April [2020] the COVID-19 crisis had created a 3 percentage point gender gap in unemployment. A similar gap emerged…
In virtual school, where the learning process is digitalized, students are struggling to access assignments, and to demonstrate mastery of the curriculum being presented, therefore, how can it not be that the potential for greater learning is lost? Students learning virtually must navigate and utilize a sundry of online learning tools, reducing their time to…
